What’s wrong with America?

[Cyrano]

Why is George W. Bush still occupying the White House?

Why are Bush and Cheney still walking around free?

Why does anyone still consider the Republican Party a respectable entity?

Why are we aware of how our democracy has been trampled and still doing nothing?

And who would have believed that these questions would even have to be asked?

Many have said, “This is not the America I know.” So the question I ask myself every day is “Why am I/you not doing anything about it?” Yeah, I know, the police and military will stop us. Even so, other countries have refused to put up with this shit. Why are we putting up with it? What's wrong with America? What's wrong with us?

[MercutioATC]

1. I don't know and I don't care.

Who won American Idol?

(that's it, in a nutshell)

[bobbolink]

2. Why doesn't anyone give a shit about homeless people suffering and dying?

[Indenturedebtor]

23. Cause they did something to deserve it.

Just like them islamist muslodamentafundists are all head chopping n stuff, n they need killin praise jesusname.

Mmmm hmmmm. Times is tough. But I tell you what, McCain when he gets lected he gonna cut my taxes. I'll have another 50 dollars next year. N the publicans raised the minmum wage so I'll get another 5 dollars a day.

So long's them libruls don't get no funny ideas, everythins gonn be fine!

[bobbolink]

57. that's why you don't care? that's why DUers don't care? that's why

Dems don't care?

That's why Obama doesn't care?

That's why Hillary doesn't care?

That's why Bill Clinton didn't care?

[Indenturedebtor]

62. Why do you say that we don't care?

Obama has made quite a few really good proposals for alleviating poverty. The Dems in general have worked to provide health insurance for kids, and are trying again to get it for everyone. They've increased the minimum wage and want to do so again.

And DU in general advocates for dealing with poverty in America.

I care deeply. Hell just look at my signature. I supported Edwards first because of his mission to eliminate poverty.

Please direct your anger where it belongs. Republicans don't care.

[bobbolink]

69. because that was how you worded your reply.

[KSinTX]

3. I see what's right with America ... we're about to flip the page

and get some sh*t done for the people. It won't be overnight, but lordy it won't be at our expense either.

[old mark]

28. I really hope you are right

I have certainly had enough shit, and I believe things will be different
if not overwhelmingly better with Democrats in power.

mark

[bean fidhleir]

29. "things will be different if not overwhelmingly better with Democrats in power"

Why? It wasn't in the '60s, when the Dems *owned* the government. All we got was bandaids.

[tom_paine]

38. You are wrong. The difference is the DIFFERENCE now. Nixon was a saint compared to Bush.

And also to McCain, as he will be a clueless Reaganesque figurehead and the whole thing will be run by the Bushies out of the basement, as it was during the last half of Reagan's term.

Compared to what McSameasBush has in store for us, a few bandaids seem like blissful paradise, indeed.

[bean fidhleir]

40. So? LBJ was a saint compared to Clinton. So why would you suppose

we'll get something better than Clinton rather than something worse?

[Thothmes]

41. A saint that got 38,000 Americans and several

million Vietnames killed in an unnecessary war based on lies. Some definition of sainthood.

[tom_paine]

43. You beat me to it. Not the same analogy by a long site.

LBJ was a saint compared to Bushler, because at least he tried to do quite a bit of good (Civil Rights Act, student loans, Great Society, etc) and succeeded in most cases. Also, LBJ was not intent on destroying the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Tiny distinction there. :sarcasm:

But throw in Vietnam and LBJ, still a saint compared to Bushler, though less of one, and Clinton was a saint compared to LBJ.

[bean fidhleir]

44. "Clinton was a saint compared to LBJ"

How short your memory is!

Whose policies killed at least a *HALF-MILLION* Iraqi kids and uncounted adults? Who ordered the bombing of the alShifa pharm plant in the Sudan, resulting in uncountable indirect deaths and shortened lives? Who sat around while crimes against humanity were committed against the Bosnian Muslims? Who pushed for corporate control of the world's trade and the evisceration of unions in the US, costing countless lives and suffering? Who presided over the shredding of the safety net, blighting who knows how many lives? Who increased the grip of the police state? Who's going to go down in history as a DINO?

[bean fidhleir]

46. 58,000 USAians, not 38,000. And about 68,000 NVNese non-combatants

plus an unknown number of SVNese non-combatants. The numbers get munged together, but the entire toll from 1960-75, per the VNese, was 3M inclusive.

[Thothmes]

68. Looking at the total that can be directly attributed to LBJ

the total number comes from Ike, JFK, LBJ and RMN.

[SammyWinstonJack]

45. I believed that until the corprat media ran off Edwards. I no longer believe anything will change.

[earth mom]

54. Yep & the media approves of Hillary & Obama. That should tell everyone all they need to know.

:puke:

[KSinTX]

64. Careful now, they approve of Clinton as a means to get McCain in

They've never stopped the drumbeat against Obama because their fear is that the cozy "business-as-usual" days may be over. Ultimately, they attend BBQs with McCain and his lobbyists and feel he is their ultimate ally. After all, he's declared them his "base." That's their ultimate goal.

[glowing]

4. Fake idea of civility.. and fear of losing the easy things like going to the store

and buying, although more expensive, food stocked up high, talking on their cell phone, not having a bomb go off in their living room... its the fear of having to live a life like others who fight.. Americans aren't that brave... they are comfortable and afraid and needy. Many need drugs to keep them alive. Many like watching tv. Many like driving. The only reason people are getting pissed, ie middleclass, is because life is getting harder and they don't want it harder.

The truth is many are comfortable with subtle democracy as long as they can still drive their cars to the mall, grocery store, and to work.

[tom_paine]

9. Excellent post. I have to take a little issue with your use of "subtle democracy".

That's quite the understatement of our current condition, don't you think?

We are an Inverted Totalitarianism.

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/20080515_chalmers_johnson_on_our_managed_democracy/

[TheWatcher]

26. Excellent points from both of you.

And that is the core reason why these bastards are going to get away with everything they have done.

Sundown On The Union.

[kaybea]

36. Favorite quote: "When small men cast long shadows, the sun is going down."

[shanti]

14. ITA

as long as the status quo doesn't change, americans will put up with it. however, the status quo is crumbling...

[Mountainman]

19. It's going to get harder before it gets easier. The more well off financially you are the longer

you can put off the effects but sooner or later it will get to you. Many news stories today are telling how the high price of oil is hurting even the corporations.
How many of us will lose everything during this recession? If I lose my job I will get foreclosed on I'm sure of it. I thought by now I would be out of debt. I put my house up for sale just as the bubble burst. It's still for sale and I moved to a city were I rent and still pay a mortgage. I never thought it would take so long to sell.

I get madder and madder each day that I am not in control of what's going on in my life financially. I made bad choices in the past and thought I could have turned them around by now. Not happening!

[keep_it_real]

5. We the people don't care or feel powerless to change the the status quo?

[stillcool]

6. I don't know...

why did it take Martin Luther King to pass Civil Rights? Were things better or worse at that time? Or was it just the right time and place, and was he was the right person to 'realize' the dream? How are revolutions born? When are the seeds planted, and when do the plants come to fruition? Is it because things are so bad that life is intolerable? Does it take a leader? How many attempts to change course are made, before that change is realized? And how much do those attempts move the process along, without getting any credit for those efforts?

[ColbertWatcher]

30. MLK stood on the shoulders of those before him...

...like Gandhi and W.E.B. DuBois.

They had a pretty good idea what they wanted from the beginning, it just took a few generations, lots of false starts and too many mistakes (like Jim Craw laws) before Civil Rights legislation was passed.

And most importantly, many anonymous people marching and picketing and getting arrested.

Whatever it is we are going to fight for is not going to be quick or easy and will take everyone doing their part, not just the leader.

[stillcool]

51. I was not suggesting that it would...

take merely a leader. I believe that change is incremental and that there are many who kick the can down the street before the goal is realized. In my own life, I have noticed that when I recognize change, it is already after it has occurred. I suspect that the last 7 years have altered the attitudes and beliefs of many people. I would think that kind of collective realization would be necessary before any social movement occurs. In other words we are living the change, but we may not realize it. It will not be an event, a eureka moment, but a culmination of all that went before. Like a snow ball. Of course, I am probably dead wrong.

[bean fidhleir]

31. It wasn't MLK! He was just the chosen figurehead when the avalanche was started by others

Read your civil rights history. Most people don't know, for example, that Ms Parks was not the "poor, tired seamstress" of myth, but a tough NAACP activist. Nor do they know that she wasn't the first to refuse to move. Other women were arrested before her, including a mouthy 15yo. The real mover and shaker was, ironically, a man named Nixon. Edgar Daniel Nixon. He was at the center of the labor and civil rights agitation, and the one who decided that MLK would make a presentable figurehead for the movement. He was ignored by the media, being an unschooled man who was blunt and uncouthy, and died nearly forgotten except by the people who were really at the center of the movement.

[stillcool]

47. Thank you so much for the suggestion...

I thought I was making a point with my post. I guess not.

How many attempts to change course are made, before that change is realized? And how much do those attempts move the process along, without getting any credit for those efforts?

[bean fidhleir]

52. I beg your pardon. In seeming to focus on only one part of your response, I shortchanged you

Had I been less graceless, I could have said:

Martin wasn't the one who "pass{ed} Civil Rights". He was only the appointed spokesperson for one piece of the larger movement. As it turned out, he became an *excellent* spokesperson, but that wasn't why he was chosen. It was just luck.

I think it can be shown, both by a review of history and from theory developed experimentally, that real ("revolutionary") change occurs without a group cold-bloodly pushing it ONLY when people have it good enough that they have time to speculate on how much better it could be, OR when people are in such dire straits that there's nowhere to go but up. "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose".

I'm not positive, but I suspect that actions that occur outside those two conditions aren't perceived as moving things along at all except by activists; by everyone else they're just ignored as being anomalous. This happens in part because unless we're on the inside, we only know what we're told by people who are either cooking the books or confused. Which is what happened with the Montgomery bus boycott: 15yo Claudette Colvin's heroism was brushed aside: she was working class, got pregnant shortly after, and supposedly had a foul mouth. So was 18yo Mary Louise Smith's: her father was reputed to be an alky. So Rosa Parks became the heroine, Martin, chosen because he was new in town, became the spokesperson, and the blunt, unschooled radical E.D.Nixon, "the father of the civil rights movement", was shoved aside into oblivion. Thus is history manufactured.

I hope that would have been a better response to your post.

[stillcool]

55. Thank you. I was only trying..

to use civil rights as an example of how long the road is traveled before a eureka moment is realized, and how that eureka moment often happens long before the date that it is collectively realized. When our history is written I wonder if we will recognize it. Who is to say where we are now in the curve of change, or what moment will be selected to be definitive?

[bean fidhleir]

58. Could you say more about the "eureka moment"?

I don't feel as though I'm really understanding.

[stillcool]

63. I think that historians turn

to moments in time as the event that changed history. And I think I personally look at moments in my life as decisive because they altered the course of my life. I give little regard to all that went before, and how that moment was miniscule, compared to the totality of subtle changes that went before. Many of them passing in obscurity.

[Beregond2]

7. From the beginning, Americans have been motivated to act

by one thing only: money. The country was founded by businessmen who didn't want to pay their taxes. All the big talk about the rule of the people was just boilerplate to distract people from the fact that the system was rigged in favor of those with money. Occasionally, things become so bad for some segment of the populace that they rise up, and the ruling class responds by giving them just enough of what they want to shut them up for a while.

Right now, who is really suffering in America? Sure, people are paying more for gas, and the economy is worrisome. But it that enough to stir people to action? I doubt it.

Americans love to see themselves as idealists, but the truth is, so long as people can go about their day-to-day lives without much disruption, we are just fine with our government really being an oligarchy of the wealthy.

That is the sad truth.

[BeHereNow]

8. You mean to tell me that you didn't know about "Operation Lobotomy?"

Ever since the early fifties, the procedure has been performed
on all duh'murikans at birth.

Isn't that obvious by what they consider "entertainment" and "news?"
Or "candidates" and "elections?"

DU has a small minority of people on which
the operation was clearly not successful.

The rest are in GDP, thinking another corporate candidate
will save them.

BHN

[magellan]

16. Sad but true. n/t

[BeHereNow]

18. Isn't is though?

I say let the delusional enjoy their bliss while they can.
The cold hard facts are soon to knock them into sobriety.

BHN

[magellan]

21. It's only been going on for a few decades now

We're just getting to the part alluded to in the Chinese epithet: "May you live in interesting times".

Scotty's "courageous". JHC, if that doesn't say it all I don't know what does.

[bean fidhleir]

33. Just fyi, the "Chinese epithet" is a fiction. People tried to find it,

but the Chinese scholars who would know had never heard of it. The earliest mention is in an SF story by Eric Frank Russell in the '50s.

[magellan]

59. Thanks for that! n/t

[TheWatcher]

27. And for that small minority, the question that we fear the answer to the most should be

"When will they come for us?"

And then we realize something even more horrifying.

They don't have to.

Goebbels and Company would be most envious.

[BeHereNow]

60. Electronic Concentration Camps

You are right, they don't have to come for us.
They simply flip a switch and shut down our
bank accounts and everything else we need
to flee.
The US has become one great big camp-
With the new passport chips, we won't be allowed
allowed to travel or leave the country.
Perhaps some kind Mexicans will show us
where to cross the border though...

BHN

[mmonk]

10. I've tried. I've received all sorts of excuses

from elected officials I've contacted. I imagine I'm not alone in receiving such excuses.

[Generic Brad]

11. Party and self interest was put before country

And it sure as hell better not repeat in another form when we retake the presidency.

[unkachuck]

12. in a word, corporations....

....and it's been long recognized as such....

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the Country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed."

Abraham Lincoln

[bean fidhleir]

34. That Lincoln quote is a fraud.

George Seldes checked it out. It first appears 20 years after Lincoln's death.

[Regret My New Name]

13. NOTHING! AMERICA IS PERFECT AND NEVER WRONG!!

Sort of like me... ;) :rofl:

[ColbertWatcher]

15. Things are just ducky!

[dysfunctional press]

17. the mass media/mainstream press...if something were amiss, they'd definitely let us know about it...

right?

like they did 24/7 when bill clinton got a blow-job and put our country in peril.

yes...definitely.

[opihimoimoi]

20. Sicko said it::: In France..the gov't fears the Peeps. in America, its vice versa...

The peeps fear the Gov't.

[TwixVoy]

22. Look at a thread I posted

about how we needed to conserve energy especially in response to higher energy prices.

Look at all the responses attacking me and saying no change was necessary, congress just needed to "act" on it.

The problem is no one cares enough to change. People love to bitch and moan, but when they need to actually do something then it's a totally different story.

[bean fidhleir]

35. Yep. Lots of peasants happily kissing the feet of government overlords

The real question is how many people are truly satisfied with the status quo vs how many are just numbly demotivated.

[tom_paine]

39. Bingo. n/t

[flashl]

42. Sorry you felt attacked, perhaps sharing post below should help ...

chill_wind DU Post:

Senate Testimony of Michael W. Masters, hedge-fund manager. Food & energy speculation

May 20: "You have asked the question “Are Institutional Investors contributing to food and energy price inflation?”

And my unequivocal answer is “YES. (...) ”Institutional Investors are one of, if not the primary, factors affecting commodities prices today."

The fundamentals of supply and demand is no longer a determinant of cost/price for food, housing, education, medical, gasoline, or any basic necessities.

[Marr]

24. The essential problem is that wealth has accumulated into too few hands.

Largely via the military industrial complex. That's the engine that fuels so many of deepest problems.

[NuttyFluffers]

25. perpetual constipation. keeps 'em grumpy, sluggish, and glued to the sofa

in dire need of an enema and high fiber diet.

[Philosoraptor]

32. Castles made of sand melt into the sea, eventually.

[KG]

37. americans believe in fairey tales.

[slackmaster]

48. Loud car stereos, for one thing

And those ridiculously baggy pants.

[Echo In Light]

49. Systematically fostered irrational attitudes of submission to authority

Indoctrination =

[HCE SuiGeneris]

53. Your post, as well as many others who have responded, deserves a big recommendation.

:thumbsup:

[Individualist]

50. Willful ignorance

and rampant nationalism.

[ObamaTime2008]

56. Because people keep drinking the water

and becoming more and more stupid with each passing day. Now that reality TV becomes the only topic of conversation, no one cares enough to care but still ask "Why is everything costing so much?" I am at the point of just smacking people really hard like the nuns used to do back in the day and yell snap out of it. But sadly I don't.

[LanternWaste]

61. We have I-Pods and Game Console System...

We have I-Pods and Gaming Console System... with effective neo-opiates of the masses like those, who could want for anything more?

"War in Iraq? Don't care-- new downloads from the coolest band."

"High gas prices? Fuck off-- I'm about to level up just as soon as I shoot this hooker."

"Irresponsible government? So what-- I'm uploading new pictures of my cat smoking Kronic to MySpace..."

[warren pease]

65. The reasons are so entwined with the American creation myth that...

...people literally go temporarily crazy -- which is to say, experience severe cognitive dissonance to the point of going nearly catatonic -- when confronted with verifiable facts that chip away at their entire concept of what it means to be an American.

This happens when talk turns to stolen elections, 9/11 truth, lies re Afghanistan, Iraq and now Iran, fucking torture if you can believe that's even a topic in an allegedly advanced country in the 21st century, killing habeas corpus and six of the first 10 amendments. People just assume the three-monkey position and refuse to see, hear or touch this evil heresy.

So where do they get these neuroses and why are alternative explanations for obviously ambiguous (charitably) events so horrifying? Parents, school, work, corporate culture, mortgages, debt, turning conservative because they think that's the best way to protect their kids from the harsh world... All kinds of ways, but even in that group, there's one source of world-class stupidity that's made toadying to authority an art form, fraudulent reporting the standard and practices disinformation by omission every single day. Yup, it's the star of all star fuckers...

Even though they're easy targets, US mass media is right at the top of the list of malevolent influences that have done such a fantastic job of getting Americans to accept life in a parallel universe based on delusion and advertising.

Almost single handedly, they've taken old Bill Casey's vision of a completely controlled society and applied to the task their usual enthusiasm for fucking over the American people. As Casey said at his first staff meeting as CIA director in 1981, "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."

American mass media lost the thread of the story decades ago and are now only qualified to dish pop culture infotainment masquerading as useful knowledge; report breathlessly on the latest D-class celebrity screw-up; and act as stenographers and cheerleaders for the latest batch of official Bush administration lies.

Among other insanities, this explains why John Stossel is a network star while Bill Moyers is on PBS. Not that PBS is necessarily exempt from mass media criticism; as long as there's Gwen Ifill around to do the Bushean suck-up, PBS will always have a fond place in the loathsome hearts of the Bush administration's media orthodoxy police.

I think that's a very short and inadequate answer to the OP's question. There are tons of books on the subject of nationalism and how to get people to identify with myths and symbolism while carefully avoiding fact-checking the underlying stories. But for a thorough and very readable analysis of how we've been betrayed by mass media, I'd suggest picking up Rob McChesney's "The Problem with the Media: US Communications Politics in the 21st Century."

The book is a highly critical dissection of the indispensable role US mass media played, and continues to play, by providing the narrative that justifies destroying the formerly thriving American middle-class in the name of corporate values and the good of the oligarchy. Not content to create consensus for rewarding the rich simply for being rich, they even get the middle class screwees to blame themselves for the intentional, systematic screwing they're getting from every single allegedly respectable American institution.

After all, one man's financial crisis is another's buying opportunity. And in a society that functions as a zero sum game, that kind of predatory behavior is all part of the great American engine of free enterprise and the Spencerian form of social Darwinism that tells us the rich are rich because they're superior beings and us mere peasants have no right to demonize the rich for their innate wonderfulness.

The message is, "Forget it. They won, you lost. And it's all your fault because you weren't born with the right set of tools or a better set of parents. Meanwhile, please fuck off and die as quickly as possible. Your country thanks you."

So yeah, I'm a huge fan of corporate media and the various Raygun-Bushean FCC policies (and don't let Clinton slide for that 1996 Telecom Act) that have reduced to six the number of conglomerates that control about 85 percent of everything Americans see on TV, hear on radio, or read in newspapers and magazines.

They've managed to take a country that actually made a free press part of its constitution, and turned it into a modern journalistic version of the USSR, where Pravda and Tass were known liars and nobody took anything they said remotely seriously.

Fortunately, it seems M$M is finally starting to experience a widespread loss of credibility. Unfortunately, the basic American chowder-head isn't capable of separating news from infotainment, so Paris and Brittany scandals carry the same weight as multiple counts of high treason committed by all high-ranking members of the Bush administration.

Scary, isn't it?


wp

[zorahopkins]

66. VH-1, MTV, Comedy Central, Lifetime, Spike, .......

One answer to your question is to consider that TV is the new opiate of the masses.

[katty]

67. lord, where do I begin?! what's wrong??!!! it's crumbling