What Exactly Is The Problem In America?

[Playinghardball]

Historian, playwright, activist, and author Howard Zinn summed it up nicely.



Source:MoveOn.org

[Zoeisright]

1. It's really deliberate ignorance and selfishness.

People vote against their own interests because they hate and judge others. They will NOT listen to reality, reason, or what is right. And they don't want ANYONE to get more than they have, unless it's the super rich.

So really, it's stupidity.

[PATRICK]

2. Or deferring difficult responsibility

It is easier to wait until they draft your children, steal your home, export your job and take away your rights than to confront in uncertain battle, beginning small, the "powerful" on their obvious path to your destruction. The promise of some privilege over "them", designated worse victims helps defer what must be done. The lack of communication and information used to be an excuse, but the habit of stress reducing apathy(only excited by the God of War and the Lies of Mammon where the national mob IS permitted and set loose) above all gives the powerful automatic arrogance.

Underneath all the powerful know the various house of cards they sit on with supreme confidence. So they never ever stray from misery and give the sucker an even break.

We had a simple case of fraud in a pitifully scribbled lease whereby the tenants were evicted and extorted for the total rent and "damages". A simple perusal of NYS law sent us to a lawyer on behalf of the relative. For $25 the crooks were bargained down to a reasonable settlement with one phone call. People who had been stung in the past, the other parties were amazed. Not one would join in a simple complaint to the DOJ. Plain apathy sure, but letting yourself get robbed by accessible, accountable crooks? I never thought of myself as a particularly assertive person. Little did I know how truly compliant even non-traumatized victims could be. Rage, vocal expression then the rest is silence. Worse. Affirming you "can't beat the system" even when the system does in fact give you recourse. The police and all their friends just clucked this nonsense and they shelled out hundreds of dollars.

There are certain sparks, certain beliefs and traditions where people will pour out into the streets. Most of those are incited or manipulated by the people who should be the legitimate targets and their institutions. Individuals are hosed down by despair in this country and it is called American can-do optimism. The lie confuses the response mechanism and anywhere stress can be reduced or a harmless scapegoat attacked is the usual outlet.