Uncomfortably Numb

[Daveparts]

The latest revelations that the VA care is substandard are greeted with a collective ho hum. The General in charge at Walter Reed saying he was unaware of conditions and that it was no excuse yet that was his excuse exactly an excuse that the lieutenant wouldn’t accept from the sergeant but he’s a General so it works just fine. But we the battle weary civilian population worn down by such repeated and continuous excuses can only shrug our shoulders at one more.

The list grows long and we grow weary, we didn’t know the intelligence was wrong and you fight with the army you got or we thought the levies would hold we didn’t expect anyone to use airplanes as missiles. So many in fact that we the civilian population has become numb to each new revelation and collectively frozen by fear of what’s next.

Meanwhile the new CCCP or Corporate Congress of Criminal Practices are far too busy debating the last war and patting themselves on the back to address the new up coming war. But the American public cringes when the President says he has no plans to attack Iran, while the Vice President says all options are on the table and the Secretary of State concurs. We the American public are veterans now we know what is meant by such remarks we are not the green recruits we once were back in 2001.

We hear foreign leaders friend and foe alike warn us not to do it, we hear adjectives used like reckless and catastrophic and we the grunts in the civilian population just hang our heads in despair and soldier on for we know what is coming and we are just too shell shocked to do anything about it. We the enlisted men who can see that the system is broken can see it is not us living in an alternate reality the three and a half million who have lost those manufacturing jobs now working at Wal-Mart or Home Depot know about it so don’t bother to try and explain with euphemisms about economic adjustments. The college students know educational opportunities are going down not up, we know but we are paralyzed.

The rump court system which now so regularly announce outrageous decisions such as those arrested and detained have no right to hear the charges against them. How do you try and explain justice to children in the face of such pre Magna Carta decisions, a judicial dark age? Perhaps they need to add black hoods to go with their black robes. Solzhenityn’s description of the Stalinist court system as the sewer system was apt so what do we call ours? The septic tank? Case in point the federal prosecutors fired by the administration fired for competence for in this world turned upside down competence tis a punishable offense, such as to prosecute a crooked Congressman.

Even those on the same side of the aisle as the administration suffer from a Stockholm syndrome they know the administration is no more Republican than Nazism was Socialist but they like us are lost and frozen in the moment with no where to turn. During the English revolution when Cromwell came to power not too much changed for the average Englishman the change in power was at the top of society but the bureaucracy carried on as usual but during the French revolution however the French equivalent of Parliament was ceremonial and hadn’t met in over a hundred years. With the collapse of the kings government and subsequent executions there was no one left with any knowledge of how to run the government. We out here in the real America the shell shocked the disenfranchised the Katrina’d the down sized the outsourced the redeployed or wounded by our own friendly fire can relate to the French situation.

I say we are paralyzed and frozen by fear not that I don’t think Americans aren’t courageous they are but like the French there is no one out there with the knowledge of how to fix it and run the government. Americans as a group are as intelligent as any, you could take a group of any ten Americans at random give them two or three hours and they would come up with a reasonable solution to any problem presented to them. I’ve served on jury duty and was much impressed by it. But with the CCCP eight weeks and nothing yet!

Case in point the Hillary and Obama squabble, Hillary has been maneuvering and conniving to be on the right side of every issue for years not because its in the best interest of the American people but because she wants to get elected President. Obama is suave with his good looks and smooth delivery and his awe shucks gee wiz you want me to be President? A lawyer and former President of the Harvard Law Review you think that happens to the unambitious? Is that what we need to fix our country a lawyer? A lawyer who pretends he is not ambitious? Or a lawyer that want to play all the angles like Minnesota Fats.

Can we all agree that the systems is broken because and if so why in the hell would you want to elect anyone whose only claim to fame is the ability to play the system? Lawyers are the problem not the solution its like someone is hitting you in the head with a stick and the only solution we can come up with is to change the stick!

For the past sixty years we have lived in the shadow of nuclear annihilation a mistake or miscalculation by our leadership would be our end. But now the situation has now grown infinitely worse nuclear war could occur only by active mistake or gross negligence. Today we face the crisis of global warming, which will require the leadership to do nothing more than to sit on their hands to doom us. Which is exactly the administrations policy and what does the loyal opposition say to this? “I think Obama should apologize” What about your vote for the war? “I won’t apologize.”

What about Americans loss of jobs or lack of healthcare? (Cricket sounds here) What about the record home foreclosure rate and the record number of military families seeking assistance from food pantries? (Cricket sounds here) How do you intend on rebuilding the economy with lower wages for American worker and how long should we sit idle while you discuss in sound bites and do absolutely nothing for the American people?

What then is the answer? How do you fix a government that no longer works for the betterment of it’s population as a whole? Or a Judicial system that has become servile and actively works to undermine the principles upon which it was founded on? Or the CCCP clowns cronies and criminals posturing that, as a group couldn’t grab their asses with both hands unless there was a buck in it for them. So what do they do in other countries with similar situations? Like Columbia and Nigeria or Mexico or the Philippines or even Iraq. What did our fore fathers do when the English government refused to work to resolve the problems of the American people?

[Dhalgren]

1. Welcome to DU. Your's is a statement of fact, but the questions are too

hard for most here to deal with. This day has been coming for decades. We have tried to ignore it, to pretend that minor adjustments were all that were needed - or, as you say, a different "stick" might do the trick. The problem is The Fear. We will be killed. We will be put into prison. We will lose what little we have. There will be Chaos. This country is so ripe for a dictatorship it makes the mind spin. We are on the cusp of a collapse, a collapse of historic proportion - I'm talking Roman Empire, here. Only it actually took several generations for the Roman Empire to fall in upon itself, I don't think our implosion will take that long. At some point segments of the population will take matters into its own hands and we will have revolutions or insurgencies, but these, too, will be divided from one another by sect, outlook, motivations, ideals, or desires. What we will become is already embedded in what we are. And that is the scariest thing, yet...

[Jcrowley]

2. K&R n/t

[OneBlueSky]

3. Comfortably Numb . . . by Pink Floyd . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4nA_-PxeIo&mode=related&search=

Hello.
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?

Come on, now.
I hear youre feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain,
Get you on your feet again.

Relax.
I need some information first.
Just the basic facts:
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ships smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I cant hear what youre sayin.
When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again.
I cant explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.

Ok.
Just a little pinprick.
Therell be no more --aaaaaahhhhh!
But you may feel a little sick.

Can you stand up?
I do believe its working. good.
Thatll keep you going for the show.
Come on its time to go.

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ships smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I cant hear what youre sayin.
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

[crikkett]

4. This is a great essay.

Kick