There is a a virus in our society.

[Javaman]

It hit me like a lightening bolt this morning. I have been trying to put my finger on it for some time, but my brain couldn’t quite wrap my brain around it, fully.

I was casually thinking about the mortgage crisis and how it’s tendrils have basically spread to every corner of the financial system in the US and now the world.

At first, it was the real estate industry using ARM and then people trying to flip homes, then it extending itself to the builders, then on to the people who put together hedge funds, then on to the banks and lenders, will it end? not anytime soon.

First the blame was put on the people who bought the homes without “reading the find print”, then it was put on the people who flipped the homes, then it was put on the investors who wanted to get rich quick via get rich quick hedge funds, banks jumped in seeing an opportunity to make cash on this every growing ponzi scam. All of which are intertwined.

A few got out early, seeing the situation for what it was, most stayed in.

Who is to blame? The home owners duped into wanting a home and getting an ARM? People borrowing on their equity of their homes because they feel they “deserve” to live like they are rich? Those others that bought too much home that was way beyond the reality of their paycheck?
Like my title says, there is a virus in our society. Step back for a moment and look at what is driving all of this very irrational trend. Want of more money? that’s been around since money was invented. Want of status? same thing. The ill conceived concept that owning a home or piece of property falsely translates into some sort of “freedom” or American Dream? That’s at least 60 years old.

Why now? what is it about this time in particular that drove this trend in fiscal irresponsibility?

Several things. A government that willfully instructs it’s population to basically ignore over 3000 deaths on 9/11 and telling the pop to go shopping, a complete break down by our news organization to instruct or properly report the events in our daily lives and be the watch dog on the government, an economy that is driven not by what is good for the average citizen but how much money it can make on societies ignorance.
Yes, indeed a sucker is born everyday, no doubt, but don’t you find it the least bit odd that so many people all at one time were all suckered into this problem?

The only time that I can recall something of similar nature that has occurred in the US is the 1929 stock market crash. Everyone was dealing in stocks, buy millions on margin, thinking they all can become rich with no effort.

The cutting of the string of burden, the easy life, being like the Jones’s, wanting to be a wheeler dealer, or the classic, “money for doing nothing”.
The sad part about this, a side from the flippers that were screwed on the get rich quick hopes, there is a whole section of this crisis, the many people, on this site, casually toss under the bus to explain away the problem; those people are average folks that just wanted to own a home. I’m not talking McMansions, I’m talking basic no frills, starter homes.

But before you attack me, think of this, we as a nation, as a people have gone through a reeducation of sorts since the start of the reagan era. Our schools have been slowly underfunded, the level of requirements for the general population, “the worker bee”, to land any sort of job has been degraded, the once mighty industrial base has eroded to the point of a shadow of what it once was, the media has taken over print, people don’t read nearly as much as they used to.

After Viet Nam, during a time of protest; by possibility the most educated population in US history, the powers that be realized something, “if you keep the general population ignorant and filled with shiny objects to keep them distracted, the government can get away with anything”.
Sadly, that has come true, when recent statistics show that the education system in the US falls to one of the lowest level in the world and it’s health care system is failing us by coming in the bottom 50 percent of the industrial nations of the world, one has to sit back and look at the forest.
Was this done on purpose? Damn straight it was.

I’m sure various members on DU will argue, “but stats show that the people hate the war and want to pull out, that they realize they the average citizen is the one at fault for causing the housing crisis, that our health care system is the awful and that it’s costs are killing the people little by little”, but you have to understand, we here on DU, we purposely educate ourselves; we read, research, sift through, and come to conclusions based upon our curious nature in a quest to find the truth.

DU is but a small portion of the US. Yes, there are many members here and our members try to keep the propaganda from blurring reality, but we can only do so much.

When a population is not required to take civics nor economics repeatedly in elementary school, junior high, high school or even college, are we really to blame the population for our current problems?

The system as been willfully gamed to keep the population from asking the difficult questions.

Many things I have recently read say we live in a new “gilded age”, no, actually we don’t, we live in and age of rampant capitalism.
People buy things for the sake of buying things. Not to be like the Jones’s or the new facade rich, but just to fulfill a need to have things. A shop-aholic society, if you will.

When the nations...pResident*, requires the population only to shop to be “patriotic” something is very seriously amiss.

And when a economic model fails because the population follows this messaged and is lead astray by those in power who actually make the money on that population who spends needlessly to be patriotic, is it really solely the average US citizens fault when the concept of economy responsibility is so woefully inadequate via a systematic method to keep them anything but, breaks down?

We live the virus of economy ignorance, willfully and gleefully. The nation has become that child that is taught that if they whine long enough, they will get anything they want.

Sound like any president* you know?

[lonestarnot]

1. Are you out there promoting curiosity re government? Get the fucking waterboard!

:rofl: and on edit education is the key to this mess and it's too late for that, we're already in it, up to our bottom lips.

[Lost4words]

5. I dont believe it is any single factor, its much more complex.

the Bilderbergers could outline it all better than I could ever imagine.

but you are correct our once first world education system is now 3rd world.

Its not a good sign to believe religion rather than science.

If you want a healthy economy dont bring in economy slaves to do the work.

But what in your lifetime was done for the people of these United States, Think about it. My answer nothing!

The people of the world for that matter.

Its all profit all the time, power and control. I am starting to believe Money IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL.

[bvar22]

19. Carter was the last president who did things "For the People".

Had America followed through with his Energy & Environmental Plans, we wouldn't be in such a tough situation today. For his troubles, he got swiftboated (first on record) by the Republicans and the cadre of Democrats later to become the DLC.



The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

[loudsue]

22. Google: The Powell Doctrine. It's not just the Bilderbergers....

It was corporations. It was deliberate. They created a working paper on it back in the '70's in response to the turmoil of the 60's. They (the corporate/political) powers that be said "Wait a minute! WE have the money. WE have the power. WE are not going to be told by a bunch of commoners what we can and cannot do."

And they deliberately set out to do just that.

:kick:

[Lost4words]

29. I totally agree with you! n/t

[Lost4words]

2. Its not our people its the leadership or lack thereof.

I will not blame my fellow American for I may be fighting next to them oneday. I'm doing stuff I thought I would never do prior to my future being outsoursed for profit.

8643

[B Calm]

3. I blame it on the borrow and spend republicans for setting a bad example!

[Lost4words]

6. SETTING A BAD EXAMPLE?

Thats like saying Hitler was sometimes a naughty little boy!

Its the democrats in office as well, I truly cannot tell them apart these days.

[flashl]

4. It did not start seven years ago ...

Implementing private property rights with political structures have always been used by invaders as a means of control. We simply live the virus of ignorance.

[0007]

7. A virus can be another person's virtue. Same as a virtue can be a

virus.

Capitalism ranks high in the disease world with the antidote being patriotism. We need poison as much as we need an agent used to neutralize or counteract the effects of that poison.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you
were born in it. : William Shakespeare

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. We are a nation of conformists. "Everybody has.." "Everybody does.." "Everybody says.."

"Everybody thinks..", "Everybody wants.."

Or,

"A good American...is, does, thinks, wants, etc."

All one has to do is watch the TV commercials to be bombarded with ads of all the things you "need" just to fit in.

And, God help you if you don't.

We are a people fearful of change. We cling to our "traditions" of the American Dream, of religion, of belief in our goodness and that we are the only form of government that has seen the light.

We are in love with the status-quo because it makes us feel safe.

We are delusional enough to think that things will never change, that we can control the world.

We are like selfish children who refuse to grow up and play by the rules.

"America is the first country to have gone from barbarism to decadence without the usual intervening period of civilization." - Oscar Wilde

[CrispyQ]

21. Conformism -- a big problem!

Interesting how we claim to be a society that values individualism so much, yet when you observe the majority, they live in fear of being different.

===
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

--Krishnamurti

[EFerrari]

9. I agree in part. There are probably more kids in malls than

on ball fields on most week ends. But, a WJ caller reminded me of something that made me think about all these foreclosures and BushCo.

He reminded me that BushCo kept saying over and over that there were more new minority homebuyers under Junior's administration than ever before. And, he indirectly raised the question of whether they had been targeted by predatory lending as a matter of public policy.

And I thought, why not? BushCo targets them for everything else, from vote caging to military recruitment. And by manipulating that segment of our society, manipulates the rest to boot.

I don't know enough about this to form an opinion but, who would be surprised? And, here we are blaming people for not being careful enough or for being too soft or for consumerism. There is that element of shopaholism in our culture. But, we're ALSO being preyed upon.

[flashl]

10. The caller was on target. Why do you believe there was a lack of empathy for homebuyers?

[EFerrari]

12. I don't think I understand your question. n/t

[flashl]

13. Early reports

about subprime lending problems indicated that the targets were largely minorities. My reason for stating there was initially a lack of empathy for homebuyers.

[EFerrari]

15. Now I get it. People really don't understand that we are all connected.

That if the black vote is suppressed in Ohio, we all get Bush. That if undocumented Latinos are mistreated at work, all working people are at risk. That if the poor are left to drown in the NOLA flood, there is a new standard for the next earthquake in San Francisco.

[flashl]

17. Exactly.

If one of us is chained, none of us are free. --Solomon Burke

[loudsue]

23. That's why they have deliberately divided the population Dem/Repug.

Divide and conquer. If the entire population of the U.S. was united...UNITED...to fight facism, we wouldn't be having these problems. It's propaganda on the media, and CONTROL/OWNERSHIP of the voting machines.

THOSE TWO issues should be the target of every single protest we have. If we could liberate the media from their corporate owners, and actually have our votes COUNTED honestly, then we wouldn't be having a war, we wouldn't have complete inaction on global climate change.

[EFerrari]

26. Divide and conquer and make the victims blame themselves.

No kidding. :shrug:

[flashl]

27. You got it. Divide and conquer.

[havocmom]

11. To much delusion, not enough reality. Yep, only it's not a virus;

it's a cancer

[stellanoir]

14. Yes indeed

we've contracted more than a little than a touch of a coup.

[tom_paine]

16. Yet another angle/perspective to look at the Fall of the American Republic.

Interesting and very true.

Well said, Javaman.

[The Doctor.]

18. Thank you. These are the sorts of thoughtful, well-articulated posts I look for here.

I've been saying this as well, it's nice to hear it said in a fresh and different way.

The PTB have indeed learned that they can take full control of the government so long as they keep us distracted. The methods for distracting us are multi-faceted though. You nailed home the 'shiny object' theory, add to that the D&C tactic, the B&S tactic and the D&PS tactic, coupled with the incessant scapegoating tactic, and you begin to get a feel for the shape of the prison most of America is in.

Thank you.

[bvar22]

20. It was my High school Civics Class that brought me to DU.

I went to a Jesuit High school in the early 60's.
Civics was required.
I didn't like it at the time, but the Jesuits drilled it into me.

I saw the first Red Flag in December of 2000 when the partisan Supreme Court (5 - 4) over stepped into State authority by stopping the Counting of ALL the votes in Florida using Equal Protection as the excuse, and making the Bush* Boy president.

Because of my high school drilling in Civics, I KNEW there was something BAD WRONG.
I found DU about a 2 months later through a Buzzflash link to DU's Top Ten.
I have been here almost daily since then.

Had the Jesuits left the decision up to me, I wouldn't have taken Civics.

When was Civics dropped from the general curriculum in high schools?
Is it even offered anymore?



"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

[Kansas Wyatt]

24. Most of us only RENT our lives

The more money you have, the better accommodations you can rent. Some lucky few (Wealthy Elite & their spawn) actually own their lives.

The Powers That Be want the peasants to own a home, which usually has a mortgage attached to it. People are controlled, when faced with the loss of something they have worked for all their lives.

I've never bought into 'own your home American Dream' bullshit. I rent, and while I may not "allegedly" own a home, I am not controlled by it either. Nor am I ever threatened loss of it by Corporate America or the Government. I don't like something, I move on. Someone comes after me, I have the option to leave without significant loss.

[lynnertic]

25. and when the mortgage is paid off,

boot the landowners out using eminent domain...

[Javaman]

28. shameless self kick. nt