"What the Hell's Going On?" It's a simple yet completely fair question given all that's happened over the last nine years. But still, there is almost no unified consensus to this question in the U.S. Try asking friends and family. Feel free to present it as a party game.
They'll probably respond with something like, "What's going on with what? Heidi and Spencer? American Idol? LeBron?" This will take you to phase two of the question "With the whole country." At this point answers like "Everyone's corrupt" or "Stupid republicans" or "Damn liberals" will kick in. Give them three points and another roll of the dice or push of the pop-a-matic for this answer. Too often we don't give enough credit to these answers in that at least they acknowledge something is wrong. They are broad and sometimes pointed at the wrong target but the level of anger and sense of things being broken is dead on. At least these people aren't on the Clueless Square right before "Go," "Baltic Avenue" and "America is Number One!"
A more dispiriting and just as common answer is the faux big-picture amateur historian perspective of "things go in cycles" or "things were worse a hundred years ago." Both points are true but ultimately play up a powerlessness which is great news for those in power who are in fact F'n things up. I would also argue that the engine of "cycles" as it pertains to law, government, economics and war is human action and choice. We don't give the guys who manage our baseball teams the "cycles" out so why do we give it to our representatives and money managers. One point and loss of turn.
"They're all a bunch of crooks" is another common answer. And it's just as powerless as the "things go in cycles" response. It usually leads to not voting and not looking for reliable sources of information and news because after all, "they're all a bunch of crooks." How come when we are robbed by an actual bunch of crooks at gun point we don't say, "What are you gonna do? They'll all a bunch of crooks." No, we call the police and demand swift action, and then we call A and E and shoot a true crime show.
This excuse is also music to the ears of the ineffective and privileged, who by all rights should have a mob outside their house or at least be hissed at every time they go out to dinner. (By the way, what happened to hissing? I haven't seen it since the end of Dangerous Liaisons. It works, and people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and John Yoo should get a wave of it every time they enter a restaurant. That's borderline civic duty type of stuff.)
As tricky as it seems, the answer to "What's going on?" is, I would argue, actually pretty simple. And here it is:
Since FDR's New Deal, corporations and wealthy families have been non-stop finding new ways to get tax breaks, deregulation and entitlements from the government. The crush of lobbyists on Washington and purchase of the media by corporations has created a big business-run government and a worthless press leaving Americans screwed and ill-informed. The end.
Now granted, this very simple explanation of "What's Going on?" has to be adapted and modified to fit different situations. But it's pretty easy. Dick Cheney and Bush's rise to power were built on tons of money from corporations and a dulled press. The almost weekly murder suicides where someone shoots a lot of people and then kills himself are based on the NRA lobby halting even the most basic gun control. Our invasion of Iraq was tied to big energy companies and corporations that would profit from defense contracts. The lack of health care and no caps for credit card interest rates come directly from the fact that 75% of Congress is bought and paid for. Etc., etc.
Even the courting of the religious right fits this model. The corporate right fires up the religious right against gay marriage and abortion and uses their votes to push their deregulation and tax cuts for the rich. It's an old trick. The House of Saud has the same arrangement with the Mullahs in Saudi Arabia. The House of Saud gets rich, parties, and leaves the majority of the country broke and without basic resources and the Mullahs tell the people to be mad about women showing their ankles.
This is basic stuff. Ask any foreigner what's up with the U.S. and they will answer quickly and with no thrill of getting an answer right: "They got corrupt with all the corporations."
Yet turn on Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, any TV news and they act as though the whole economy falling apart is a giant mystery. God forbid they talk about regulations. God forbid they mention that the first case of Swine flu happened near a factory farm. And can you imagine seeing a piece about why corporations have the same rights as a human being? And we will never see any in-depth coverage on bias in the corporate media.
Instead they sell and push the agenda their corporate bosses want: fear, isolation, confusion, sex but scary sex, helplessness. And the ratings drop and the newspapers stop selling and music stops selling and the cars stop selling and everyone keeps wondering how this can all happen.
America dealt with it through witch hunts, escapism, pop-culture sadism. We may have not entirely taken Bush's "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" literally, but we did take it seriously.
Corruption starts with a people refusing to deal with their pain and suffering, usually by trying to stick it on others. Although pre-9/11 America wasn't exactly on the level of Gandhi, the difference after 9/11 is difficult to ignore.
Americans' first, immediate, instinctive responses to the 9/11 attacks were courage, heroism, compassion, generosity, and solidarity. Bush and Cheney put an end to that. They and the media told people how they were supposed to feel, and courage was the first thing to go. They turned us into a mob.
But Bush and Cheney are out of office, but we are still advocating mob mentality. Should we hiss and holler at those we hate, the larger the mass of people, the better?
"corporations and a dulled press"
I spend a good part of my day jumping straight up and down. Sometimes I holler. (No, usually I holler). I yell at corporations who've been behind war, torture, and a wrecked economy. And I yell at the press who didn't cover their warring, torturing and wrecking, and instead are sitting on tv having genteel conversations with the dull press. The press that is owned by the corporations. Coincedence? I think not.
Alberto Gonzales at the Correspondents dinner. A war criminal who ought to be scraping his tin cup on the cell bars is instead passing the butter to a member of the press at a fancy do. I hollered.
When we do something about those 2 - the corporations and the press - and we force a divorce, preferably nasty so that the press turns on the corporations, we will finally find out "what the hell is going on". Marriage made in h*ll.
The media barely covers the real crimes, They think if they don't investigate it, we will lose interest.
Please remember that this is exactly how Bush and fellow war criminals were able to perpetrate their high crimes against the world.
The economic crisis is another product of the Bush Administration, nobody will investigate because the repugs point fingers at everyone else
TELL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TO SUPPORT HR1207, THE BILL TO AUDIT THE FEDERAL RESERVE.
"The corporate right fires up the religious right against gay marriage and abortion and uses their votes to push their deregulation and tax cuts for the rich. It's an old trick."
I just had never made that connection before, I feel kind of silly not connecting the dots on that. The tea parties were an extension of that, for sure.
We got this way by becoming a nation of complacent complainers. We need journalists like you! We need you to get US fired up and help keep our eye ON the important stuff, not distracted by a shiney object.
keep this stuff coming! :)
We've been taught that anyone can get rich, to be poor is a choice and that opposing corporate interests in government automatically means that we must be advocating that the state step in and run business. We're so indoctrinated to fear the idea of state-run industry in the Soviet model that we haven't, until recently, considered that we might be falling off the edge while keeping a vigilant watch in the direction opposite that cliff.
And to those who say we haven't been indoctrinated throughout the 20th century?
“The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief” - Jacques Ellul
“(Propaganda) proceeds by psychological manipulations, character modifications, by creation of stereotypes useful when the time comes - The two great routes that this sub-propaganda takes are the conditioned reflex and the myth." - Jacques Elull
No doubt many reading this would say, "We aren't indoctrinated or propagandized, impossible!" but I acknowledge the strong possibility that we are and suggest It's time for Americans to think about this stuff, rather than just react.
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/NATLClinton-Gushed-Over-Hsus-Campaign-Work.html
Corporations, individuals, politicians does it matter who we are talking about? People in power become corrupt and self interested. There is no point in blaming others for what is wrong in the country or economy. History repeats itself over and over again. There have been ups and downs since this nation was founded. Each generation has its own problems, but greed, hunger, hatred, etc. never cease. All you can do is what is in your own control to help others out and make your world, your time in history the best as possible.
So, just how DO we get laws passed to make lobbying and/or campaign contributions by corporations and corporate interests illegal? How do we get laws passed that require corporations be treated as what they are - businesses - and stop treating them as equal or superior to citizens?
The only thing I can think of - that might even possibly work - would be for EVERYONE to boycott EVERYTHING for a set period of time, to bring everything to a screeching halt. What could they do to stop us? Take away our jobs, or homes, or put us in debt for generations? Whoops, they have already done and continue to do that. But, until a vast majority of our nations citizens is ready and willing to band together to make such a thing possible, nothing will change. I'm not holding my breath until THAT happens though.
Solution, scale back government, and get rid of the income tax.
We are entering into a two level nation. If you are in the minority of the few, you'll be very rich, but then if you're in the majority of the many, you'll be dirt poor...at least that's they way Bush/Cheney has planned it for the past eight years.