How do you explain America's amazing tolerance for bullshit?

[Philosoraptor]

And no, I'm not talking about the Grammy Awards, I'm talking about our astounding ability to tolerate tyranny, treason, torture, genocide, Gitmo, a cocaine damaged, alcoholic, blithering idiot president, a monstrous war pig vice president, unrestrained presidential powers, two wars, the deaths of 4,000 soldiers for profit, the deaths of a million people in Iraq, the permanent crippling of 20,000 soldiers, spying, lying, stealing, murdering, the failure to find the perpetrator of nine eleven, what great fucking sports we've become.

At what point pray tell does Uncle Sam turn to the camera and say, "Hey, wait a minute-----ENOUGH of this bullshit"?

[bullimiami]

1. i dont know. It is stunning.

[sendero]

2. People have turned their backs on politics...

.. for a variety of reasons.

And also, Americans have a long tradition of not giving a shit about anything that doesn't affect them directly.

Things are starting to affect them, so look out Republicans.

[GaYellowDawg]

4. DING DING DING!!!

Americans have a long tradition of not giving a shit about anything that doesn't affect them directly.

Nail, head.

[bdamomma]

27. yes, and until it does affects us personally is when hopefully we will confront

the problems.

[raccoon]

40. Americans will. Look at the reaction when Bush tried to privatize Social Security.

It affected them directly, so a lot of people got worked up about it.

[bdamomma]

41. yup, and I wouldn't put it pass these SOB's to take Social Security away too.

again more for me and less for you mentality. Or, God has bestowed these riches on me and not on you! The ignorance of these people is stunning.

[zanne]

107. People will believe what they want to believe. nt

[LiberalEsto]

3. Americans are pacified with toys

and junk food.


Wiis, giant tvs, Playstations, supersized fast food, cheeze fries and all that crap, plus right-wing christianazi propaganda, put them into a state of stupor

[paparush]

29. And Sports..my god..the sports...

So many people's lives revolve around sports.

/and I'm a guy
//who grew up playing sports
///who still plays recreational soccer
////but i don't watch TV an more

[MedleyMisty]

67. I play videogames and sometimes eat fast food.

Stunningly, I am also still able to think about stuff.

[Chovexani]

95. OH NOES!!11

You also possess this amazing ability? :wow:

[Echo In Light]

5. Never underestimate the power of denial

[DrDan]

12. from American Beauty

[Echo In Light]

13. Screenwriter Alan Ball

[DrDan]

15. creator of that great series Six Feet Under

[DrDan]

6. I think it is in our genes

I have always been astounded at the reich-wing mantra about repealing the "death tax". And how the GOP convinced the lower economic strata to become so rabid about its repeal.

[Echo In Light]

7. Orwell quote:

"They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening."

[formercia]

36. It's all entertainment

Only when the reality become more outrageous than the entertainment do we react, otherwise it's just another satellite channel.

People are numbed by the faux violence in the media, so why should a little democide upset their day?

[conscious evolution]

76. Gotta agree with this statement.

TV has hypnotized people into complacency and mental(and physical) laziness.
Remember that old computer programmer saying GIGO? Garbage In Garbage out.
It looks to me like the media masters took that saying and applied to their field and we are now reaping the results.

KILL YOUR TV!!!!

You will be doing yourself and your country a big favor.

[mopinko]

47. i think it IS in our genes. i don't think we are unique in that.

chimps evolved, not through intelligence, but through WAR, through a capacity to not only tolerate, but to inflict tremendous brutality. so i think that your question shows that you see the glass as half empty. i think we are evolving away from brutality, and it has become less acceptable in our times than in any time in human history.
perhaps this is only through the realization that it now threatens our very existence on this planet, and most especially threatens the offspring of our warriors. but i will take it.

[Echo In Light]

56. Sure. Same as it ever was, only we haven't existed very long at all w/nukes, bio/chem weapons

That's the major determinant in the equation that the business as usual optimists conveniently overlook when complaining about those who voice concern.

[hellbound-liberal]

8. As Stephanie Miller likes to say, "Look at the shiny keys! Look at the shiny keys!"

Many Americans PREFER to allow themselves to be distracted by entertainment and "infotainment" rather than deal with (or even look at)the serious issues with which we are faced. I think this may stem from the fact that many people don't think that they can make a difference or, in the case of many others, don't have time to investigate the issues.

[momster]

9. We Also Work Bloody Hard

Remember it's not all fun-n-games out here in Murika. When you are working 2 or more jobs (or 60 hours on your single job because they've 'let people go'), trying to run your household, *and* volunteer to your religious org of choice or charity (as many people do), there's not always time or energy to devote to overthrowing your government...or even protesting.

We're tired, many are ill because they can't afford health care, and our anger is a dull throb behind our eyes. Hope is in short supply but we hope somebody else is going to take care of it...meanwhile we wait exhaustedly for the day when That Man is out of the White House.

[Echo In Light]

11. It's a vicious cycle to be sure. However, some play the "too busy" card to justify apathy

Educating and informing one's self, activism, raising awareness = "too busy" for those. Why? It's considered boring.

Watching sports, drinking beer, shopping malls, attempting to live out their failed dreams via their children's "extracurricular activities," which is actually just a form of indoctrination/perpetuation, watching tell-a-vision, etc = not "too busy" for those. Why? Cultural indoctrination.

[momster]

14. Exhaustion and Depression

It takes energy and effort to make a difference in this world and even very dedicated and well-intentioned people burn out pouring themselves into the bottomless pit of need. Between overwork and depression (which affects millions of people) it's beyond many people's capabilities to add one more thing to the pile they are already carrying. Even in the 'good ol' days' of '70's protests, for every person out there, there were millions who supported the peace (or civil rights) movements but just couldn't muster the energy to help. Of course, there were also those who were adamantly opposed to those things but they didn't come out either for much the same reason. Exhaustion and depression affects them too, perhaps more because they know in their souls that their leaders and philosophies are failures.

Your anger burns but keep it focused on the *powerful* idiots. The rest of us will do what we can, when we can. For now, for me, that's sending money. Maybe that's not as good as marching on Washington, but it's all I have to give right now.

[Echo In Light]

16. "bottomless pit of need"/"bottomless pit of greed"

I'm not disagreeing with, only pointing out real life examples I encounter all the time, myself included, as I usually feel I'm not doing enough to raise awareness. It's not as though many bread fans will openly admit to the "bottomless pit of greed," and instead rely on the more apropos "need" justification even though one could cite numerous "needs" that are in fact, in both theory and application, "wants."

[marions ghost]

34. that's right

most people struggle in their jobs and many are exploited by the economic conditions in this country.

Take health care--when you cannot afford to be sick, when you cannot imagine having really good preventative health care, when you have to live in fear of catastrophic illness-- it's a damn shame in a civilized society. Stupid business-wise also, since it further takes a toll in stress and debility. Smart countries want healthy happy employees.

Then in our backward society, you are supposed to make time to FIGHT against all the injustices out there and WORK for better health care and other rights, which the Powers That Be may SOMEDAY grant you.

WRONG. Decent health care for all is a right, not a privilege.

[midnight]

10. It is all about money. Who has the most and how powerful

those with money are. They can buy votes or have votes manipulated for them or even have the supreme court annoit them president. Money trumps peace.

[bdamomma]

30. we are "owned" by the most powerful greedy SOB's in this country.

[opihimoimoi]

17. As a Group...we are partially DELUSIONAL.....

[Demeter]

18. America Is A Society of Addicts

Dysfunctional doesn't begin to cover it. Addicts canot reason, cannot learn, cannot tell fact from fiction. They live in a place so removed from reality, it makes denial look like awareness.

How did we get to this state? The deterioration of reality, as those who would be fascists kept tightening the noose on our economy. People sought escape in any way they could find and afford. And as the final coup de grace, the Masters destroyed the schools and the media.

Now there's no path to truth left, no place of refuge, and little hope--except that when the economy crashes into the Greater Depression, the Masters are wiped out.

[info being]

82. Far removed from reality indeed...brilliant post!

[Dogmudgeon]

19. Ketchup

--p!

[Demeter]

20. Kick it Up ! This Is Important! One More for Greatest Page!!

[Angela Shelley]

21. In agreement with "Echo in Light" on this one

it has to do with DENIAL, because truth hurts.

It is soooo painful to hear the truth, when the deception felt soooo good.

[troubleinwinter]

22. Here's a theory that seeks to answer that very question:

Andrew M. Lobaczewski- "Political Ponerology: A science on the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes"


http://www.ponerology.com

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/148141-The-Trick-of-the-Psychopath-s-Trade-Make-Us-Believe-that-Evil-Comes-from-Others

[Philosoraptor]

23. Evil was considered something to be endured rather than eliminated.

interesting.....

[Echo In Light]

26. There's also the infamous Iron Mountain Report

Iron Mountain Report: A Hoax or Betrayal?

{Silent Weapons For a Quiet War}

http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/iron_mountain.htm

[Larry Ogg]

68. The evil that Lobaczewski talks about in Ponerology

is the influence of psychopaths within societies political and theological institution. How they are organized, how they take over influential groups and ideologies, their methods and techniques of brain washing, manipulating, dummying down the population, leading into error and the eventual destruction of entire societies. Historians point out similarities of empires rising and falling, but the one thing they have never been able to put their finger on, is the exact cause of the collapse, reason being is that didn’t know about psychopathy.

Comparing the difference between the psychopaths that are running our country and the world today - too those that brought about the destruction of societies over the past several thousand years – the only meaningful difference - is not their below average intelligence - it is that our psychopaths have taken over the greatest military force know to man, and they have nuclear weapon technology. Hmmm, maybe that’s why impeachment is of the table…

[bluedawg12]

87. The psychopaths are good at what they do and people are lazy.

Sorry to offend anyone- but it takes more work to grasp issues than 30 second campaign sound bites.

It also takes getting out and voting and giving a damn.

[Larry Ogg]

90. Actually psychopaths are excellent at making people think their good at what their doing.

So I guess it depends on what one thinks as good. Statistically very few of them manage to or are capable of achieve anything resembling moderate success on their own. But they are a thriving cancer on the success and achievements of others. Those that are born into working class and lower income families are for the most part a great burden on the leangle system and the communities of which they live.

The effect from the influence of those that are - born into above the law wealthy families - can be and are devastating too society on a macro-social, and now, a global scale. If you want to count the profits of the military industrial complex and the handful of corporations that greatly profit from it, killing millions of people in wars based on lies, selling this country and the working class down the tubes, destroying the environment, creating poverty, untold misery and slavery etc… If you want to count things like this as being good at what they do, than your right, nobody is better at leading mankind into error than is the psychopath. And when they totally fuck things up, nobody is better than a psychopath when it comes to putting the blame on somebody else, and convincing society to that affect, no need too elaborate on what that does to the electoral process…

[troubleinwinter]

97. I'm sure you offended nobody in this group...

that's surely why we are here.

I haven't read the entire article carefully and deeply yet, and can't have an opinion on it all, just skimmed & read many comments.

But I sure did get a kick out of the word "Pathocracy" (vs. democracy, theocracy, etc.).

Gotta say, the link to the interesting book was posted by a DUer, I think in this forum, but I don't remember who it was! Pffft!

[troubleinwinter]

96. It's such an interesting concept to think about

precisely because we wonder about the question posed in the OP: "How do you explain America's amazing tolerance for bullshit?"

It's something we've wondered about here on DU since the beginning. "Why are the 29% so fucking stupid???!!!"

[Echo In Light]

24. Thanks for the links. Are you familiar with the Milgram experiment?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Another book I recommend often is:
http://igw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/marcuse/odm.html

[The2ndWheel]

25. Because America wouldn't exist without that bullshit? nt

[bdamomma]

28. watch this clip of George Carlin

he explains it all.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-771488600376041822

[L. Coyote]

31. You just must view the movie "Stupidity" for a complete explanation.

Not to mention, when constantly a paycheck from disaster, what do you expect people to be focused on.
Full participation requires a measure of security and simple freedoms still depend on things like the price of stamps and phones!

Informed politics is disabled, and democracy is to a degree disabled, in a society with social injustice.
The social scientist should ask, currently, "Is this a positive feedback loop?"

Add to that stupidity .... and well, "Don't poll me while I'm a watchin' Amer'cun Idol, MoFo."

[Frank Cannon]

35. Or the movie "Idiocracy"

"Go away! 'Batin'!"

[EnviroBat]

59. I've watched that movie 3 times and I'm amazed at the statement

the film makes. Despite the fictional nature of the film, the social commentary it makes is astounding and real! Everyone wears clothes covered with advertising for products, and if you pay close attention there are only a few products that are advertised. What I got from that was in the future there are only a few "mega corporations", much like we are starting to see today. Hell, I can't walk 20 yards without seeing some dumb ass in a Hollister "hoodie". Way to go genius, you spent $40-50 on a piece of clothing made in China so you could advertise for them for FREE! Race to the bottom! In the future, everyone is so inbred, and dummied down by television, that if you speak intelligently you are considered a "retard". Watched much MTV lately? The Frats and Sororities spring break shows? I weep for the fucking future.

Remember, it's good for you because it has electrolytes...

[Echo In Light]

60. FOX studio pulled financing once it became clear of the film's social critique

It was going to have a much bigger budget, but certain elements backed out once realized the swipes that were being taken hit a little too close for comfort.

[EnviroBat]

70. Are you kidding me? I didn't know that.

The sad thing is Fox is the biggest pusher of social stupidity, so it makes sense that they didn't want any spot lights shining on them. What is hilarious is that SpikeTV is pretty much what the people were watching in that movie. It's just a matter of time before we see a show like "OW My Balls!" I think there's actually a Spike show on Friday nights now that comes pretty close.

[Echo In Light]

78. If one criticizes one of the Name Brand parties, it's fine. Criticism of the overall system isn't

...however, isn't tolerated at all within the mainstream, and for the obvious reasons. Same double standard applies here: FOX studios isn't against titillation and blue material, they're against parody and social critiques that reveal the favored corporate/belief systems for what they truly are.

[Frank Cannon]

92. Almost everyone I know who's seen that film tells me...

that they find it amusing yet deeply and genuinely disturbing. Like they don't know whether to laugh, cry, or throw up. It's an amazing film that can do all that. No wonder Rupert Murdoch's people tried to bury it.

[Echo In Light]

103. It's solid in its critique, although I highly recommend Network

[Frank Cannon]

109. Network is really the gold standard for direct societal criticism

But it would make a great double feature with Idiocracy!

[Swamp Rat]

32. I am truly amazed.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

33. fatigue. daily doses of lies. daily scandals. daily spin

at some point, people will react, but I suspect, most of America simply wants Washington to simply go away.

[Donnachaidh]

37. why worry about bullshit when you have shiny toys?

Of course, now that prices are going through the roof and people cannot afford those shiny toys you'll see some change. But only until people can afford the new iphone version, or the 800 dollar purse, etc.

Then they will be back in their *cribs* (the irony of that label hit me really early) totally oblivious to all the pain and starvation going on in the world.

[MedleyMisty]

71. My husband has an iPhone

Guess what, he can still think and care and stuff.

Look, I'm sorry that some people were born decades before personal computers and have a hard time accepting technological change or something, but whatever products you choose to use to listen to music or talk to other people over long distances or whatever has nothing to do with your personality and character and what you're capable of. Or else we'd still be stuck in a time warp from the twenties because people were slaves to their Victrolas and those phones that were all big and had the horn type thingy to talk into and you called into a switchboard to be transferred to the person you were calling.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

38. One Word

APATHY

[ordinaryaveragegirl]

39. The state of this country is giving me a Howard Beale moment...

Funny how true this is, 30 odd years later...

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore...

You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'"

(Edit for quote nod...http://imdb.com/title/tt0074958/quotes)

[raccoon]

43. Where is your quote from? nt

[ordinaryaveragegirl]

52. Edited post to add that...

Good catch...knew something was missing there. Thanks! ;-)

[Echo In Light]

49. YES

Man what a powerful, moving film...deadly accurate. Prophetic.

[warren pease]

105. Yeah, I saw it again a couple of weeks ago, and...

...it now qualifies as a documentary, as prescient as "1984." Seeing it through the eyes of a BushCo survivor (knock on formica) and reluctant observer of the giant, steaming, fetid flow of toxic propagandist bullshit that floods corporate mass media's "news" programs every single day, it's impossible to see "Network" as just a work of fiction.

For instance, when Ned Beatty's character, master of the universe Arthur Jensen hustles Beale into the boardroom and delivers a soliloquy worthy of a Shakespearean anti-hero, you know you're hearing the truth:

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it!! Is that clear?! You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance!

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, Reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels.

It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE!

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.


Beale: But why me?

Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.


Beale: I have seen the face of God.

Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.

Here's the scene on youtube.



wp

[YOY]

42. I don't...I end up screaming at the TV that there actually ARE issues at hand

and not just Black versus Woman in the case of Obama Versus Clinton.

[Zorra]

44. Television, the opium of the masses. n/t

[Individualist]

81. Yes! Far too many people allow the teevee to think for them.

[OneBlueSky]

45. since it's all too much to cope with, or even understand, people escape . . .

into virtual worlds that they feel the DO understand and CAN cope with . . . from American Idol to NFL football, from video games to text messaging, from NASCAR to MLB pennant races, from movies to the National Enquirer to infotainment passing as news -- anything to avoid confronting reality and having to deal with war and death and dysfunctional government and global warming and a collapsing economy and all the rest of it . . .

Americans are taking their cues directly from BushCo -- rather than dealing with reality, they are creating and living in their their own artificial realities . . . these fantasy worlds allows them to believe that the real world makes sense -- and to at least function under a pretense of sanity that reality fails to offer . . .

[MedleyMisty]

75. I play video games

And I like confronting reality. I am often disliked on other internet boards because of it - I'm like, "Hey peeps, let's talk about religion and politics and here's a link to some photos of what your tax dollars are doing to other people." and for some reason they take offense at that.

When I was nine I read all the Holocaust books in the local library, and I credit that with my need to witness the suffering of others. Witnessing is about all I can do right now, for economic and psychological reasons - as I learned when I worked at Arby's, I become suicidally depressed when I don't have enough time just for me. Plus I have to work 40 hours a week and make just over $10/hour and only have two weeks of vacation and four days of sick leave, so it's not like I can constantly be jetting off to protests or to wherever people need help.

But I can still manage to have fun and enjoy myself in a video game. I like hanging out with my guildmates in WoW. I like creating stories with Sims 2. I'm sorry if that horribly offends you and if you don't approve of how I spend some of my free time, but it really does not keep me from confronting reality. Maybe you personally aren't capable of multi-tasking, but other people are.

[Virginia Dare]

46. Hopefully in November they'll say enough is enough...n/t

[Echo In Light]

50. ..or what passes for it within the current social conditioning n/t

[Virginia Dare]

51. Sadly, I will settle for just a little more open-ness in my government..

no wiretapping of private citizens and for a CIC and AG who won't condone torture. I guess my standards are pretty low at this point. That's probably the key to it all, set the bar so low, people will be glad to get shit on a stick if it's handed to them.

[screembloodymurder]

48. Whenever I talk to friends about this subject

they put their hands over their ears and go na-na, na-na-na-na, na-na-na...
Nobody wants to face the truth.

[Echo In Light]

53. Talk of sociology/mass psychology tends to bring out big heap doses of HATRED & LOATHING

By default, if one cares and speaks of such matters within an indifferent social environment strategically geared toward ignorance/apathy, that one who is concerned is automatically concerned to a fault. It's a universal defense mechanism. Seen it play out countless times, be it internet ot real time.

The standard denial stems from a sense of machismo/might = right, and cultural entitlement, both properties framed within "official" top-down propaganda/talking points that condition the person to erroneously perceive their own views, choices and actions as being free from strategic external forces. This allows the afflicted to feel good about themselves...very rugged, tough, independent. The way people are conditioned to want to see themselves and their like minded {groupthink} counterparts. To suggest otherwise invariably involves conspiratorial elements, which is precisely why the notion of "conspiracy" is so rigorously attacked and disavowed ... largely by those who have been duped by one form of it or another, not realizing that cultural conspiracies can play out within broad sectors without direct, stereotypical direction; once the aim of thinking the right thoughts is established, persons within the mass will police the thoughts and questions of those who may stray from the prevailing belief structure.

[WCGreen]

54. Information overload...

Too much coming at people from every direction...

And the fact there is a deep rooted sense of cynicism in the US regarding poor leadership...

People expect the worse, I believe, and when it happens...

Well...

Throw in the fact that many of the outrageous governmental behavior cited in your post don't effect the day to day life's of the vast majority of people...

[pink-o]

55. It truly is all about the $$$. Keep us simple and stupid, and the economy booms!

My generation, the over-exposed, trivialised Baby Boomers, were really the first demographic to be raised mostly middle-class. We didn't have to work on the family farm/family business after school, our parents pushed education above all else and did whatever they could to insure our comfort while working hard to improve our lives over their own.

So what happened to a society with more educated kids than ever before? Without the distractions of work and worry over money, we assessed our social standing and rebelled against the status quo.

Those in power are fully vested in making sure that NEVER happens again!

The System has put Boomers under a microscope, turning us into a fashion statement rather than a political one, so we can rest on our laurels and sigh nostalgically about the time in our lives when we actually did something principled. But the System has taken control of the subsequent generations, plying them with the aforementioned toys and distractions, making politics uncool, saturating them with 500 channels of pure shit that we all passively watch day after day. Those of us who want to change what's wrong with the System are marginalised, made to feel our meagre voices won't make a dent in the corruption that surrounds us.


It's why the System is erroding the middle class, too. Only the middle class can change a society: the rich are too invested in the Status Quo, the poor are struggling to get by day to day and have enough worries. So what to do? Make sure we're all distracted, uneducated, malnourished, passive, defeated and apathetic. We're so much easier to control and it's so much easier to lie to us!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

101. And then what did they do with us?

After we got that expensive college and graduate education that our parents saved for, hoped and wished for? And acquired all those fabulous useful skills?

They canned us from our jobs, saying we're too "overqualified" which translates to "too old".


:banghead:

[pink-o]

102. Yup.

But there has to be ageism built into a market economy--mainly because the older you are the less gullible you are and the less suceptible to an advertising pitch designed to part you from your money. Ergo, you become less and less relevant--"overqualified" meaning that your skills no longer matter in a world where if your job isn't outsourced, some young thing can do it for 65% less than your salary.

Not half as well as you of course--but when did quality ever trump economy???

And--once again--that young thing is far easier to control than you are. The System needs that mind control to work.

[Aristus]

57. The National Defense Act of 1947. That was the beginning of the end.

We became a corporation instead of a country. The Pentagon is its largest subsidiary, and its most expensive.

We are all its employees, willing or not.

[Echo In Light]

58. Agreed. The National Security State ruse is the primary cover for much evil

[AndyTiedye]

61. They Are Fed Bullshit Constantly by the Mighty Slime Machine

[philly_bob]

62. Stolen elections and complicit corporate media

The Neocon Straussians at the top *believe* in lying to the public.

Then throw in an educational system that trains students for test-taking, not critical thinking.

[KG]

63. americans love their faiery tales. they are fed them starting in elementary school.

[warren pease]

108. Yup, the American creation myth...

...and the only antidotes are experience, knowledge, curiosity and a bunch of reading -- starting with Howard Zinn's "A Peoples History of the United States."

If I still believed the amazingly screwy garbage that passed for history in K through 12, I'd think only a couple hundred thousand indigenous Americans had been slaughtered by Europeans, and those died content in the knowledge that their passing helped the magnificent white race on its merry way to manifest destiny.

I'd think millions of slaves were so ecstatic to be freed from the steaming jungles of equatorial Africa that they came willingly, eager to serve their new massuhs, and were so happy all the time that they just couldn't help dancing and singing all de lib long day.

I'd think women were more than content to cede their roles as citizens to the men folk, since ladies are too delicate and hair-brained to deal with politics and voting.

I'd think the country was founded by honest, god-fearing folk yearning for the opportunity to worship as they chose, rather than the fact that western Europe had the great good fortune to have a whole continent on which to dump its religiously insane fundie loons and witch burners and heretic drowners and the like.

Australia got the cons; we got the religious nuts; and look how well that's turned out. Too be we don't have the same opportunity to dump them on an open continent. Maybe Antarctica? Nah; they'd kill off all the penguins and seals and then sit around waiting to freeze to death, thinking the rapture was drawing near, alternately sniveling and praising JEEEEEzzzuzz for the gift of eternal life, amen.

Anyway, start the kiddies off early with bullshit; reinforce it through all authoritative institutions like government, religion, education and mass media; give it a veneer of sophistication that appeals to college-aged kids but without changing the basic messages; let corporate orthodoxy filter out all the unconventional fuckups and non-believers by outsourcing them or warehousing them in dead-end jobs; and, most importantly, keep the "good" people happy by providing a job with the illusion of upward mobility (without the reality), a car that starts and stops, a TV with cable, a lousy two weeks off each year, an affordable mortgage and an officially despised ethnic or racial group that serves as a negative reference and allows the "good" people to take pride in their status shitting on those worse off.

And that's the American dream in a nutshell. It's called a dream because, as George Carlin famously said, you have to be asleep to believe it.


wp

[libnnc]

64. I've always wondered if it has something to do

with how little we interact personally with our neighbors. Look at the difference between countries that have a "pub culture" (Great Britain, France, Germany) and us. We don't socialize with each other. We don't discuss politics openly and honestly. We don't engage in meaningful conversation with our neighbors like folks do in Europe. I dunno. We need more pubs maybe?

[Strawman]

65. They don't feel like it is possible to do anything about it

or they're not willing to take the risk involved in stepping out of line to try.

[tabasco]

66. Propaganda.

Political and religious propaganda.

"Go shopping."

[leftofthedial]

69. Blind, profound ignorance,

and a wicked little vein of bigotry, greed and intolerance that is easy to exploit.

We have soul-suckingly purposeless and unsatisfying lifestyles fueled largely by relentless media training to be good little consumers first and foremost. This eventually creates a gnawing sense that something is profoundly wrong, a feeling that conflicts with the typical American's conviction that he or she has done everything right--bought the house in the 'burbs, worked the job, bought the stuff they tell you on TV will make you happy. We should all be happy! But we're not. But we can't be to blame. Therefore, it must be someone else's fault. Hmm. What's on the radio? This fat guy (like me!) who is also pissed off (like me!). And he says it's all the commies' fault, or the "liberals," or the foreigners, or the "terrorists." He's right! I hate them! I hate them!




Meanwhile, food and chinese trinkets are still cheap enough to fuel the smug self-satisfied conviction that we are in the right. That's all changing though.

[zorahopkins]

72. Just Give Us Bread and Circus

All we want is bread and circus.

We'll believe ANYthing as long as we are fed and entertained.

(Don't think that Bush and his cronies don't understand this!)

[kineneb]

83. and remember what happened to Rome,

oh, wait, that takes studying history, and Americans don't do that...
:banghead:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

73. Our corporate news media no longer cover a lot of this stuff

For example, one of the turning points in the civil rights movement was television coverage of police in Southern states turning police dogs and water cannons on unarmed marchers (including children) who were only demanding their rights as U.S. citizens.

During the Vietnam War, journalists had pretty free access to the troops, even in battle, and there was no way the generals could convince the American people that the war was going well or was even worth continuing.

When the military refused to allow reporters along on the invasion of Grenada, I knew that it was a new era. And the media just said, "Okay. We'll wait for official briefings." Everyone did this, even NPR.

At the time, reporters for the CBC program As It Happens were also barred frmo Grenada. But they didn't wait for any official briefings. The Caribbean islands are on the same phone system as Canada and the U.S., so the Canadians just got out their Rolodexes and PHONED everyone they could think of. What I heard on their broadcast (through Minnesota Public Radio) was confirmed about three years later in Jonathan Kwitny's Endless Enemies.

Reporters used to consider government stonewalling or secrecy as a challenge to be overcome. Now the reporters at the major media outlets just shrug and mumble, "Anything you say."

If the MSM had stayed on the Abu Ghraib case or election fraud stories the way they're following the Natalie Holloway story, Bush probably wouldn't be sitting in the White House now.

[harun]

74. Poor education system, good propaganda system left over from the

cold war.

[MedleyMisty]

77. Okay, now that I'm done replying to the "I hate young people and their devil's technology" posts

I think it's ignorance, prejudice, and herd mentality. All of which are most certainly not unique to people born on the bit of land named the United States.

[blues90]

79. My own thought's as if anyone should give a damn

People are programmed to seek out the next new thing , this is what drives the economy . People now are not looking at a draft so they can stay out of the issue if they choose to do so . Many people are fighting just to stay alive and fight on that front .

If it does not affect someone then they tend to ignore it as many have already said until they are effected .

most of all people in america are caught up in this idol thing , always looking to some hero for the answers no matter what their problems are .

I'll never get the sports thing , it never interested me .

[warren pease]

80. A few reasons...

Hideous and precipitous decline in public education, and what's left of it is based on teaching to the test, which is designed to promote rote learning and kill creativity.

Hideous text books promoting nothing but the American creation myth, thanks to the fundie takeover of hundreds of school boards around the country during the 1980s when they ran as "stealth candidates" pretending to be sensible people and then revealed themselves as religiously insane as soon as they took office.

If Howard Zinn's "Peoples' History..." were taught in high school, you'd see a lot more skeptics and far fewer flag-waving zombies running around believing the Bushean world view.

And speaking of religion, a 2003 University of Michigan study concluded that the US:

"...remains one of the most religious nations in the world." As evidence, the study cites stats like this: "About 46 percent of American adults attend church at least once a week, not counting weddings, funerals and christenings, compared with 14 percent of adults in Great Britain, 8 percent in France, 7 percent in Sweden and 4 percent in Japan."

And what does all this gawd-groupie stuff buy us? According to a 2005 study published in the "Journal of Religion and Society:"

It is commonly held that religion makes people more just, compassionate, and moral, but a new study suggests that the data belie that assumption. In fact, at first glance it would seem, religion has the opposite effect... It reveals clear correlations between various indicators of social strife and religiosity, showing that whether religion causes social strife or not, it certainly does not prevent it.

The author of the study, Gregory S. Paul, writes that it is "...not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health." However, the study does show a direct correlation between religiosity and dysfunctionality, which if nothing else, disproves the widespread belief that religiosity is beneficial, that secularism is detrimental, and that widespread acceptance of evolution is harmful.

The study continues in that general vein, saying:

"The most theistic prosperous democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner predicted. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost always scores poorly."

Then there's my personal favorite, corporate mass media. Regarding that two-year-old story on Natalee Holloway, the kidnapped kid that's all over the place lately, I did a Google search on her and, as you'd expect, the first page of search results turns up coverage from ABC, MSNBC, the International Herald Trib, CNN, Fux, CourtTV, Wikipedia and CBS.

So I did a search on S 1959, the senate version of the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007," which is the latest and potentially the most diabolical piece of legislative shit to hit the security state cesspool since the Military Commissions Act.

And what does Google tell me? It tells me that not a single "mainstream" media outlet gives a damn about S 1959. More likely, they've been ordered not to give a damn about it. So, on page one, Google returns this list of web sites that mention S 1959:

wordpress, the curmudgeon, bloggernews, justanothercoverup, clipmarks, binaryfreedom, lonelantern, indymedia, willyloman, rense, infowars and naturalnews.

Finally, at the top of page 10, there's the first MSM mention of S 1959 -- and it's from the Washington Times.

So that, in a nutshell, is what's wrong with celebrity stalking or kidnapped kid investigations replacing actual information about a real thing that could have profound impact on literally millions of Americans.

If this were an isolated case, it might be excusable. But it's the norm. Thanks to a couple of decades of media consolidation, only six gigantic holding companies now control almost 90 percent of everything Americans see, hear and read. And the thing about giant corporations: they're slaves to the status quo. They hate anything that might destabilize their revenue streams. They're arch conservatives of the most narrow, sociopathic self-interested type. Any ideas that run counter to orthodoxy are suppressed immediately. So there's no question what's going to get covered and what's going to disappear when an issue or event occurs corporate self-interest.

So important news that may contain a hint of controvery is either buried, spun, ignored or simply omitted, while the screw-ups and arrests of D-class celebrities are covered 12 ways from Sunday, with five cameras shooting from multiple angles, a helicopter on scene in case they try to escape and a round-the-clock team of investigative reporters there to bring us the very latest. It's as if "Network" was a documentary rather than fiction.

Result? Nobody who depends on TV news for most of their information knows a goddamn thing about what's going on in the real world any more. Because of the limitations imposed on them by the conditions described above, they aren't intellectually or psychologically equipped to seek out alternatives to the TV version. And increasingly, I doubt they really give much of a damn anyway.

Add to those systemic and basically insoluble problems an imploding economy, job insecurity, debt slavery, inflation, wage stagnation and a general, free-floating sense that things are coming unglued, and you have a population too uneducated, repressed, alienated, isolated, misinformed, distracted, scared, gullible, cowed and clueless to do much of anything except cringe, cower and pray the whip comes down somewhere -- anywhere -- else.

Oh, and terrorism, too, lots and lots of terrorists, just waiting to murder us in our beds in the most painful ways imaginable. With only George Bush standing between us and the terrorists. And immigrants, illegal immigrants, taking good American jobs and sucking up social services. Fortunately, Bush has plans for them, too. Or is that Iran? I can never keep all those brown people straight.

Since they haven't been prepared to think their way out of a paper bag, there's really nothing to do except pop another Bud Lite, stuff another handful of Doritos into the gullet, flip the channel to all-night NASCAR coverage, and gradually nod out. But all sleep means these days is a couple of feverish hours relief from the dull, grinding pain before rising and resuming the same dreary, empty life with no hope, no prospects and no way out.

Hell, I'd be looking for oblivion too if that was my situation. Only the very strong, the mentally defective or serious drug and/or alcohol abusers can stand such times and live.


wp

[Hamlette]

84. It isn't just America, its human nature

Germany in the 30s and the USSR starting about the same time.

And why did we get involved in WWI? The group think then included jailing labor organizers and it was illegal to criticize the government AT ALL (remember Debs went to prison for 10 years for criticizing the American government).

It is difficult to govern people if those people think for themselves. You need some government enforced group think to kill Socrates for teaching people to think.

A delicate balance. The line between anarchy and totalitarianism is a narrow one. Historially we've always been more afraid of mob rule (as well we should be) than dictators.

[Philosoraptor]

85. Herein lies the answer.

[Justpat]

86. K&R n/t

[Philosoraptor]

88. .................

[Martin Eden]

89. Everything is relative

When a public has been fed a steady diet of bullshit for decades, it becomes the norm and is no longer perceived as bullshit. The truth is unfamiliar, so they can't compare the bullshit to it.

[Generator]

91. Yeah well I hate to say it but I will

but this site and many many of the people on it (though not all certainly) buy into the bullshit too. This YEARS of talking about Hillary and Obama (or insert you favorite candidate here-mine is a quitter for which I have ZERO respect) and millions raised, and crap like super delegates and rules of this state's vote not counting (irony there heh) and they hey she's going count it anyway (oh more irony)-basically the reason the president can't be impeached and people are dying in Iraq as I write this is because we buy into the fantasy that who is president is more important than truth and justice and punishing the criminals like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfled, Rice, Gonzalez-Zuckolow, oh yes I could go on with names all day.

Who is president is more important than the constitution. It's more important certainly than GOD FORBID telling the truth and punishing the guilty.

It's pathetic on DU. DU knows better. Dupers(GOD damn it! that's funny DU spell check knows you've been duped!!!!!!!!) know that if TV has been talking about it-it's NOT What's important. They have been talking about Hillary fucking Clinton running for president for at least eight years now-and what's obscene like the millions raised. Imagine how many lives could be saved for all those millions of political donations spent to wax the fucking egos of Clinton and Obama. Makes me vomit. AND WE BOUGHT IT and PAID for it.

But what's really important is getting a DEMOCRAT in the White House. Yes, the mighty Democrats are going to STOP the war-sure they are. The mighty Democrats are going to stop torture-sure they are. Sorry but the people with power don't give a shit about the difference between right and wrong. Instead of all this ENERGY spent on the elections-imagine that energy in the streets-which is where real change happens anyway-it's not going to happen with electing a Democrat that has NEVER stood against this evil we face. And Bush/Cheney et all will get a 100% PASS from your precious Obama or Clinton.

With McCain at least we know the score-endless war. Maybe if the people get fed up with that we can take our country back. Pretending these fake Democrats are going to do anything-oh Pelosi caved again-quel suprise-and you expect the triangulations of Obama and Clinton to be different??????????

Based on what?

PS WE HAVE BEEN PUNKED up the ass people. Karl Rove isn't in jail-he's influencing minds on teevee. That sums it up for me. We have gained nothing and learned nothing.

[undergroundpanther]

93. Cognitive dissonance

Produces anxiety,which feels bad,denial,diffusion, distraction,and selective perceptions all help reduce anxiety for the moment..
but this selfishness and turning away it has consequences.And consequences cause anxiety..round and round it goes.

[apnu]

94. we have always been fond of bullshit.

Hell, our country is partially founded on it. Leaving slavery off the table in the final draft of the Constitution was bullshit.

So when do we turn? I've got no idea, I woulda thought Uncle Sam was gonna turn in 2005 and say it.. then 2006... then 2007... I'm still waiting for it.

Pelosi and company must have very strong arms holding old Sam back like this.

[troubleinwinter]

98. Is there anyone left

to trust or admire?

Got a senator or congressman or ANYONE left to admire? To believe? To trust? Pelosi, hah. Conyers, hah. Reid, oh please. Can we name ONE?

Edwards was about the last I've had. I still hold a slim sliver of hope in John, but I haven't had a glimmer of any hope/belief answered or rewarded in years. I'm worn out with all the work trying to advance our causes. Every fucking time we get our hopes up, work our asses off, rally support, we get fucking nothing.

I'll try to limp through this futile "Dem" scene for awhile, then take up knitting and planting daisies, rather than activism. I am discouraged and demoralized, which is what they want.

Even the election reform movement is so infiltrated by cultists, followers of celebrity snake-oil salesmen, liars and egoists, that one has to fight those fakers who scuttle and fight every bit of progress, before you can even hope to discuss or make legitimate valuable change.

It's pretty hard for me to give a shit if Hillary, Obama or even insanemccain wins. I find it hard to see much line between them. Who cares anyway? Our voting system is so fucked up, thanks to the fake celebrity "elections activists" that all we've gotten so far is backwards progress. The real, true, dedicated, knowlegeable on-the-ground activists have been minimalized and marginalized by the "celebrities" who do nothing but impede progress.

I want the media conglomerate corporations shattered, splintered and cast about to independent owners. I think it's our only chance. People say the war is item #1. We have so many fucking items that are not being looked at because of the media conglomerates, that item #1 is not being looked at, let alone the next 4,972 items of dire concern. Where the fuck are our so-called Dem leaders??? They are not serving you or me, as far as I can see.

Is ther ONE to trust or admire?

[warren pease]

104. I think looking for heroes among the political class...

...is like Diogenes looking for the last honest man -- and finding only knaves and scoundrels.

You can find heroes almost everywhere else -- in academia; in medical research; in fire departments; in theoretical physics; in the ordinary but fed-up peasants and indians who are turning South America into the new cradle of progressive democracy; in the courage of whistle blowers like Coleen Rowley and Sibel Edmonds and Daniel Ellsberg who risk jail time to tell people the truth; in the work of great historians like Howard Zinn who sort all this madness out for us; in the brave foot soldiers of various NGOs who witness, write and speak the truth despite constant personal danger; in the pure hearts of the Buddhist monks murdered and maimed for freedom in Burma; in the hundreds of website proprietors who will not let the truth be purged from the public record.

These people and thousands more are doing the work of heroes, while politicians are doing the work of their sleazy corporate benefactors. Rather than using their power to advance the principles this country was supposedly built on, they spend their time stabbing their constituents in the back every time the peoples' needs conflict with those of their Mandarin employers sitting in the boardrooms and executive suites of our corporate city-states.

War for oil? No problem. Relax air quality standards? Where do I sign? Roll back a century of workers' rights? You know my bank account number. Keep health care private? No problem; the plebes are dumb enough to go for that.

And have you ever noticed that pretty much everything that's good for Wall Street is bad for normal people? Merger, consolidation, massive layoffs? Investors go bug fuck and the stock shoots up 22 percent. Privatization of a formerly public utility? The stock's up 18 percent. Thousands of union jobs shipped to Bangladesh? Stock soars to record heights.

The fundamental disconnect between our "public servants" and our expectations for them lies in corporate money, specifically the amount of groveling they have to do every single day just to secure enough in bribes to be able to run for another term.

I suppose we could always go to public financing of campaigns, but that wouldn't be a free market solution so it's an un-American pinko plot to disenfranchise our patriotic corporations. Whereas bribery is what makes the whole corporate world go round and is the very definition of free market practices. So we go with that.

Anyway, the point of all this -- if there is one -- is never, ever look to politicians for character, moral leadership, courage, conviction or willingness to put their careers on the line for an idea. With very few exceptions -- maybe a couple dozen in the House and far fewer in the Senate -- you're just pissing up a rope.

wp

[Rex]

99. Too late, our fed govt. crossed a line it shouldn't have crossed.

Well actually the paymasters crossed the line and of course the working class (me) will pay for their hubris and denial.

[U4ikLefty]

100. Easier to ignore bullshit than to face the hard truth.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

106. My only guess: Lack of personal connection

I've wondered about this a lot myself and experienced considerable personal frustration about it. However, I have come to the conclusion that until somebody or one of their friends or family members gets hauled away in the middle of the night and dumped into a "black hole" somewhere, tortured, denied access to an attorney, or experiences some other immense personal consequences of what the current (mis-)administration has wrought, I get the sense that most average people just don't (and won't) pay much attention to the kind of things that, at least those of us here on DU and in some other circles, find simply unconscionable and an anathema to the democratic ideals that our country is supposedly founded on. I have observed that people, in general, don't seem to really get worked up over a lot of "bad" things unless the consequences thereof seem to affect them personally, particularly since most people (myself included) are spending so much time and energy just trying to survive that they don't really have enough time to notice what is going on in the world around them and take action on it if they do. What is more amazing to me than the fact that most average people don't really pay attention to and/or care about this (mis-)administration's many unconstitutional and undemocratic shenanigans over the years is that there hasn't been a full-scale revolt among members of the military and their families (at least not yet) as a result of things like Walter Reed, indefinitely extended tours of duty in Iraq, increase of post-traumatic stress and other mental health concerns and the inability or the unwillingness of the (mis-)administration to adequately address any of these issues (and others) all while somehow claiming to be the "best friend" that they military has ever had. I also think that the public (and probably most of the Democrats in Congress) may also be suffering from "outrage fatigue" and have decided to simply wait out the last few remaining months of Bush/Cheney instead of really trying to fight them and/or actively try to remove them from office(even though IMHO it's certainly warranted). :shrug:

[arthritisR_US]

110. Poor leadership and an obtuse populace.