"Is it apathy, or resignation?"

[marmar]

from truthdig:


That’s All, Folks

Posted on Mar 1, 2015
By Peter Z. Scheer


.......(snip).......

When I started this job nine or so years ago, George W. Bush was in his second term and the U.S. was plainly stuck in two costly, deadly, seemingly endless wars. America was torturing people. Our government routinely lied about pretty much everything. Bush’s attorney general, who tried to eliminate all traces of marijuana and boobies from the national landscape, was replaced by a guy who was somehow worse. The people of New Orleans were drowning and waiting to be saved by the horse enthusiast who was in charge of FEMA. In those times, running Truthdig was a lot easier. The targets were clearly marked.

In a period when the press at large had mostly failed in its duty, Truthdig would avoid quibbling about the obvious and dig for lesser-known truths about the day’s events. We would mine these truths from experts, on-the-ground reports and the small crevices of the Internet and broadcast them as far as our readers, friends and online allies would carry them.

Now, as I write this, an original print of Shepard Fairey’s “Hope” poster sits behind me, Barack Obama’s eyes overseeing everything I type. How appropriate given what we now know about the NSA. I cannot think of a greater disappointment than President Obama—like so many millions of other Americans, I completely fell for it. I remember sitting in a Nevada home surrounded by volunteers from California, Chicago and elsewhere. Among those migrants were disaffected Republicans who may have more clearly recognized a fellow traveler in the candidate. I thought then that they were the dupes. I was wrong. Regardless, we were united by a common desire for profound change, and we seemed to have found a vehicle for it in Obama. Of course he would go on to squander it all. Truthdig covered the hell out of Obama’s fall from grace. It wasn’t easy, or popular.

.......(snip).......

Don’t get me started on the national security state. It is baffling to me to think that Richard Nixon’s presidency was brought down by a burglary, while the NSA and other intelligence agencies continue to stampede the Constitution without repercussion. They want to know who you are, what you do, what you say and what you think, and will put you in prison if you dare let anyone know the full extent of what they’re up to. That’s America now, and the collective reaction is “Meh.”

.......(snip).......

I have two friends who would like to be artists. Instead, one is now a graphic designer, the other makes Internet ads. I have a friend who loves to act; he’s a lawyer. Journalism is now a training camp for PR. The best mathematicians go to work for Wall Street investment firms. Many of these people are shackled to what is estimated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to be $1.2 trillion in student loan debt. By law, they are not allowed to default. In 1972, the year Jobs dropped out of college, the average annual cost for a four-year education, including fees, room and board, was $2,031, according to the Digest of Education Statistics. In 2013 it was $23,872. That’s an increase of more than 1,100 percent. Reed College, which Jobs attended for six months, now costs $59,960 a year for tuition, room and board, a figure greater than the net worth of the typical American household. Not including books, transportation and other expenses, that’s $239,840 for a bachelor’s degree, which is significantly less valuable in the marketplace now than it was in 1972.

.......(snip).......

When the best and brightest are chained to a monthly loan payment that leaves them just enough for food, housing and some minor consumer distraction to get them back on the hamster wheel, they’re never really going to do anything about global warming, or Ebola, or Syria, or poverty, or hunger, or the war in the Congo that killed 5.4 million people while no one was paying attention. Those things will exist on Twitter, where great ideas, thought up in stolen moments at work, go to shrink and die. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/thats_all_folks_20150301

[misterhighwasted]

1. TPTB have created a firewall for themselves using controlled chaos.

And "the powers that be", is a very small & elite group.
The world is merely entertainment for them.
Like watching mice in a maze scampering for food to sustain or a way to the exit door.
When the mice get close to figuring out the path, the entertainment ramps up when the path is blocked & the frenzy continues.
Yep its hilarious fun to the observing psychotic entitled elite, as they play the sick games with all their mice in their big giant maze.

Thanks
Just how I see the big picture of it all, anymore.
Perhaps its the media or the advantage of the internet, but someone has figured out how easily it is to manipulate our lives into controlled chaos while shielding themselves from anyone knowing the reality of the game.

[brush]

2. Quick question?

There was a post yesterday that revealed that hundreds of Americans who went to Syria to fight with ISIS have returned to the US.

I've always been anti-NSA on the domestic side (their international function is another thing), but someone needs to keep track of these returnees, many of whom may have been tasked to establish sleeper cells or to initiate direct domestic terror attacks here.

Let's see, maybe the local police can do it (not), the FBI, definitely, CIA, nope, they're international, ATF, nope, Secret Service, nope . . . can anyone think of another agency that's ideally suited for this assignment, a really unpopular outfit here on DU but whose mission is just the ticket for this?

The NSA.

Maybe Obama was a few chess moves ahead on this.

[corkhead]

3. Be sure to read the entire article. Sums up my feelings into words better than I could have myself.

[appalachiablue]

4. The increase in college education is criminal and it was intentional. Get the money, break

the large, influential and demanding middle class. And above all shackle the young with debt to prevent them from acting up especially since the 60s. I heard the same about homeownership in the 1930s and 40s, it was encouraged to keep workers from striking. Homes and jobs were a good thing then it turns out.

[Blue_Tires]

5. Obama had a "fall from grace"?

Must have missed that one...When was the impeachment hearing? Or is this 'writer' just letting his Green Lantern syndrome get the better of him?

Scheer would also do well to ask *WHY* journalism is now a training camp for PR and why the best mathematicians go to work for Wall Street...

The rest of it I'll try to digest later...

EDIT: What a mopey, cynical and whiny screed (and I love all the Obama hate in the comments)...He could at least say why he's stepping down as ME...And I find it amusing to see some kid fresh out of USC who shoots straight up to the ME chair because daddy runs the site drone on about doom, gloom and the death of idealism...Maybe he needs to go out and see what it's *really* like to scrape for a living...I do hope for his sake that he plans to emigrate in the near future since there isn't some magical socialist, cultured, anti-NSA candidate for president anywhere on the horizon...