Dysfunctional Government, Dysfunctional Family (Carolyn Baker)

[Tace]

Carolyn Baker -- World News Trust



Feb. 17, 2007 -- It seems to me that Americans for at least the past seven years have been stricken with a collective trance such as I have never witnessed in this country in my lifetime. Psychologist, Paul Levy, in his superb article Spiritually Informed Political Activism speaks to the necessity of waking up from the spell and speaking the truth about the criminal insanity that is running our nation and our world. He takes this “waking up” many steps further by the end of his article, but for now, I’d like to address the questions: “Why such seemingly impenetrable denial in the American psyche these days? Why are some people almost incapable of awakening?”

On the one hand we can argue that the economic system is arranged in such a manner that people are required to work two or more jobs in order to survive and are overwhelmed with work, family, and keeping their heads above water. In which case, who has time to read alternative media, research current events, or even read a book? We can also attribute the societal stupor to the remarkable job of dumbing-down that American, so-called, education has done in the past two decades so that the current generation can barely read, let alone, concentrate long enough to engage with even the most basic works on current issues.

But what if there were something even more fundamental and more human at the root of the collective coma that inflicts American society? What if “my government” in some part of my psyche, has come to represent “my family”? What if it’s easier to walk around in glassy-eyed roboticism than feel the pain resulting from comprehending at the deepest level what my government has become? What if recognizing that I live in an empire that is making war on me as well as my neighbors and the rest of the world is too reminiscent of the family I come from?

Dysfunctional Government/ Dysfunctional Family

So what might be some similarities between my dysfunctional government and my dysfunctional family?

First, a family’s job is to protect the kid. Maybe it doesn’t always pay enough attention to the kid and isn’t always there for him when he needs it, but the family doesn’t target him as an enemy. When the chips were down, they are the kid’s ultimate ally. If I look at what my government is actually doing, I will have to own that it has become my enemy, and that I am its enemy as well -- that my safety is the last of its concerns, and that Homeland Security isn’t about protecting me, but about waiting in the wings to implement martial law or confine me to a forced labor camp for not paying my debts. Furthermore, a healthy family provides basic necessities for a child and doesn’t take food out of her mouth. Yet what we have witnessed in the last seven years is all-out warfare not only on the indigent, which really has not changed since the Great Depression, but a concerted effort to obliterate the middle class in America. The daunting, inevitable realities of Peak Oil, global warming, and worldwide recession are likely to make all of that much worse.

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[niceypoo]

1. I am glad that someone else feels this way

America is in a coma and in the stone age