Turn your head and cough, America.
Whether it's Katrina, the oil disaster, various Supreme Court decisions extending corporate reach, the Arizona immigration law, the wars in Afghanistan, economic destabilization, loss of production related jobs, or whatever confounding issue which has raised hackles and fists (along with stirring melodramatic passions and stoking the obligatory news cycle) it seems like they are also opportunities to gauge response rather than to actually solve the problems.
You'd think with all the available talent America has, its innate creativity and ingenuity, an intelligent and satisfying approach to even the most provocative and exploitable issues would be reached. Hell, it's been done: America used to pride itself on that ability alone.
But with a seemingly routine spate of snarl-ups defining the nation and signaling loud and clear the final act of American international supremacy, perhaps rather than a steep and sudden drop in competence, there is an actual method to the mediocrity.
Each snafu is a test of the country's reflexes; each overreach by Corporatis Colossus is but an R&D trial writ large. Want to find out how the crowd will react when a real catastrophe (read: change) occurs? Poke and prod. Set up simulacra. Fetishize dependency. Addict and distract. Shock 'em.
Skeptical? It isn't beyond the scope of corporately endowed think tanks to proffer such premises. It's their job to analyze from every possible angle sociopolitical scenarios in order to come up with as mathematically perfect a result as possible which suits their ideological area of study.
And what has come out of all the disaster-level situations that have arisen most notably since 9/11 (but began many years prior to that) is the indifference of the American public. Republican or Democrat, Libertarian or Liberal, Neo-Con or Neo-Kook, citizens talk a good game, brandishing flags and preaching participation. But really, it is all too clear that they will basically allow anything---anything---to happen, even if it clearly runs contrary to their own interests.
So sated with high-tech addictions, so soldered to their screens, so disconnected from the tactile reality of the world their bodies inhabit but their minds avoid, the American people give lip service to that Rosie the Riveter "We Can Do It!" spirit but have none of the actual desire to drive a rivet, let alone participate in their democracy.
And the folks who have pulled strings, made gas prices fluctuate, tell you of the boogie men with beards and turbans; the folks who make policy, who steer the herd----they are regularly gauging the responses of the American public to further hone their future schemes, schemes which depend on mass apathy.
So today, when the report of firecrackers cause nary a start; when the latest iGadget is front page news; when the national fixation is on salaciousness and opulence; when Democracy is turned into a spectator sport played in stadiums with bold, blinking corporate monikers; when fewer people read history; when schools have to teach to tests to obtain funding; when the disparity between rich and poor is the greatest it's ever been in this country---and the Powers that Be (who possess the Power than Can) don't do a thing, then you know you're being tested.
Okay. Bend over.
Follow Steven Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@TheStevenWeber
America will make necessary changes when it's truly necessary, to the general populace.
This is all anyone really need to take away from this blog... America Here's your mirror.
Good luck with the undereducated, over warred, greedy population that cant even wish affordable health care for each other. I am cheering for another team now.
or too afraid?
there are many safe ways to protest, and easy
The GOP and Bush start an avalanche down the side of our mountain and the right-wingers demand that Obama stop it half way down. And maybe America is so wrapped up in their own "exceptionalism" they will once again prove their "sweet delusions" and bring back the party of Gods, Guns, Gays and Greed.
I've never encountered so much misinformation, outright debauchery of historical fact, and just plain goofiness in my life.
But cha know what? They are filled with anger at the direction we're headed (understandably), and they're filled with the enthusiasm of the new student.
Thomas Jefferson said...Alexander Hamiliton believed...Arnie Saccnuson loved spelunking and low taxes!
The problem is, they, in their zest to suddenly learn something, have made the classic mistake of the lazy scholar. They turn to the easy pseudo-history, made available by the opportunistic snake oil salesmen.
Those now realizing there's a market in Teabaghistry. You don't have to get bogged down in annoying facts, or bore with long-winded nuances concerning the intricacies of history. Just tell them what they want to hear, and cash the check.
Glenn Beck University, is now online. Unaccredited, of course. You don't think the liberals would allow the accrediting of the truth, do you?
And giving too much attention to them, would be like the nation, faced with Sputnik in 1957, turning to the UFO enthusiasts to develope NASA. We don't need no stinking scientists!
So, how to harness all this enthisiasm for love of country and history, and get it directed away from Beck, and towards rebuilding this once great nation. A puzzle, no?
"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering."
NASA's job is not to make the Muslim world "feel good".
And the main thing that "tea baggers" are angry about are the continuing job-killing efforts of the Obama administration. So far, their "success" has been America's failure.
This is the best you can do? This is what keeps you awake at night?
And if you shake in your boots worrying about bearded men under your bed, doesn't it make more sense down the road for us to reach out to those we now demonize?
For your information, the Muslim world HAS made significant contributions to math, science and engineering. But go on portraying them as primitives and beneath us. We see how well that attitude has worked out for us.
he could invite people to a meeting, start a movement
just talk, like alot of huffpost
many celebrities here could get a big crowd together
But we mortals live on a treadmill, chasing the cheese for all perpetuity, turning the wheel as fast as our little legs can go, hoping our tails don't get caught in the gears. And, that's about the long and the short of it. Maybe if you can land a job as a rivet driver, you'll also be prequalified for that credit card and a home loan(If I'm prequalified, why do I need to fill out an application? Just send me the damn card!-Carlin)
Interesting times we live in...
With the ability to write online reviews of companies, products and services, no one has the excuse to just put up with it.
Move your money to a local credit union.
Get an estimate on solar panels.
Use less, take what you need.
We are the only ones to defeat Giant Corp.
Regards, Juliet Mae Spice guy.
The masses are asses but we need to be lead. We have not been asked to do anything, unlike the time of Rosie when all Americans were called to arms to participate on a personal level, be it by curbing consumption or donating time. Instead, we were told, as soon as September 12, 2001, to go on with our lives as usual. Go to the mall, spend, spend, spend...worry not, unless we tell you otherwise - be it by yellow, orange or red alert. A system as manipulated as we have been in order for billionaires to make more billions or for billionaires to win elections.
You're right, we will probably continue to simply and passively bend over and not baulk about it. We are purposefully too distracted with A.D.D., ADHD, OCD, OMG, and the rest of the alphabet disease list to be able to give a crap. It aint gonna stop any time soon and we'll never know we're being tested. That would require an attention span and we're all out!
Ever since LBJ created the profitable meat-grinder called Vietnam & Reagan legitimized selfishness and attacked civics, the "it's not my problem" every-man-for-himself ethos has corrupted American society.
There's no solving the problem until the concept of "social contract" is restored.
And yes, George Bush, the worst president since James Buchanan, left behind daunting economic and foreign policy catastrophes that are hard to undo unless we put the popular assumptions of the last 30 years behind us as well. We are destroying ourselves financially trying to be the world's cop. We refuse to come to grips with the shrinkage of the American middle class and the growing pauperization of all but the top 0.5 percent. Unless we put our money to work at home creating good jobs we will fall off a double dip precipice.
So, it's not about blame--even regarding the wreckage caused by a dodo like Bush--it's about closing the book on all the failed ideas that have nearly run us off the road.
Encouraging Americans to actually drive the rivet is needed. Some of us drove rivets politically for 40 years, already. We were facing tear gas canisters on Campuses for almost a decade of Viet Nam (I had to hitch to ralleys at 14yo being too young to drive), we lobbied with feminist friends for safe clean abortions before Roe vs Wade (and won), we marched since the early 70's for Gay Rights, we showed up at boring as sh*t caucuses, became delegates at more boring as sh*t conventions, and passed non discrimination state laws for LGBTs, we protested with ACT UP as our lovers and friends died in the streets, we housed 8 Katrina evacuees in OUR HOME who lost everything they hadn't packed for 3 days.
I'm getting old, been disabled for 25 years, and I'm f*ckin TIRED of fighting the SAME ignorance and hate we fought 50 years ago. So maybe I fight more through my computer screen, but I earned doing what I can, where I can.
Here's what I do fighting AZ SB 1070
Based on sly and the family stone....STAND http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7Yakl_xIkc
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-8/1210139/stand.jpg
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-8/1210139/giant.jpg
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-8/1210139/stand2.jpg
I no longer believe that we await the galvanizing event, but rather the leader who seize the day and galvanize The People. If President Obama were half the leader that FDR was, we would already be well on our way back to a government that serves The People. Obama needs to stop playing pragmatic politician and show a bit of bold leadership. He needs to take a stand against the corporatocracy like FDR did on election eve 1936:
“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”