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One Day You're Gonna Wake Up
One day you're gonna wake up, America.
And, like every other one since last you can remember, it's gonna be an ugly morning.
One day you're gonna wake up and go to your lousy job with its lousy salary and non-existent benefits. You might even remember the good job you once had. Or that the government you once supported gave tax breaks to companies like the one that exported that good job of yours to the Third World (which is what they're now starting to call your country). Or that that same government undermined the labor unions which fought to get you your good wages and benefits.
One day you're gonna wake up and be furious at the monstrous tax burden you are carrying, a tab which accounts for fifty of the seventy hours you must work each week just to eke by. You might even figure out why your tax bill is so high. You might remember that the government you once supported shifted the tax burden from the rich onto people like you, and from the taxpayers of the time onto those of today. And that they borrowed money in astonishing quantities to fund their sleight-of-hand, so that you work thirty hours a week just to pay the interest on a mountain of money borrowed decades ago.
One day you're gonna wake up in anger at the absurdly poor education your children are receiving. You're gonna remember that it wasn't always that way, that even after the military's voracious appetite was temporarily sated, your country still managed to find a few bucks to at least educate a workforce. No more. And you're gonna remember how you applauded when your educational system was twisted in to a test taking industry that is careful, above all, not to teach children how to think.
One day you're gonna wake up literally sick and tired. You're gonna want treatment for your maladies but you won't be able to touch the cost. You're gonna wonder what you were thinking when believed your country had the best healthcare system in the world, even though it was the only advanced democracy in the world that didn't provide universal care, even though it devoted fifty percent more of its economy than those other countries to pay for a system that left fifty million people uninsured, and even though there were massive layers of unnecessary and harmful private sector bureaucracy skimming hundreds of billions of dollars of profits out of the system in the name of free enterprise.
One day you're gonna wake up too tired to go to work anymore. You're gonna want to retire in dignity but will be left instead to laugh bitterly at the cruelty of that joke. And you're gonna wonder what in the world you had been thinking voting for a president who's primary goal was to allow Wall Street to raid Social Security, destroying what had once been considered the most successful domestic program in human history.
One day you're gonna wake up and wish that it wasn't so bloody hot, and that there weren't so many diseases and species eradications and violent storms lashing the planet. And maybe you'll even remember that you once supported a government that lied about the very existence of global warming - back when it might have been curtailed - a government that scuttled the barest remedy for the problem in order to protect oil company profits.
One day you're gonna wake up and wish you had a government that could simply and competently do the basic things it was designed for. A government that could protect you from foreign attack, that could come to your rescue after a devastating hurricane, that could properly manage a new program or other people's security. An administration that didn't pervert the purpose of every agency within the government to its opposite, using civil rights lawyers to fight civil rights, for example, or the EPA to protect polluters.
One day you're gonna wake up and cry out for simple justice, blindly applied without bias. And perhaps you'll remember when that principle died. When your country stood by and watched the politicization of its judicial system for purposes of partisanship, and said nothing. When it stood by and watched its highest law enforcement officials in the land lie about their failing memory of events and pretended to believe that was acceptable.
One day you're gonna wake up and wish that you weren't being drafted to go fight wars you don't believe in. You'll remember how soldiers were sent to their deaths for lies. You'll remember how badly they were treated when they came home maimed and twisted. You'll remember how real, patriotic, former soldiers were mocked and humiliated by dress-up, unpatriotic, former non-soldiers. And suddenly you'll understand why no one would volunteer for the military anymore, and why people like you had to be drafted.
One day you're gonna wake up and want very badly to run outside and scream in anger about a government that long ago stopped serving your interests in favor of the narrow interests of a tiny oligarchy. But instead you'll stay inside and keep your scream tucked safely in your belly. Because you'll know that in your country dissent has long since been outlawed, on pain of torture and death. You'll remember concepts like due process, limitations on government search, seizure and wiretapping, habeas corpus, trial by peers, legal representation and prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment as historical artifacts no longer even taught in schools.
On day you're gonna wake up and want so badly to change governments. You're gonna treasure the concept of democracy like no Soviet dissident ever did. You're gonna crave the opportunity to own your own government, to make your own societal choices, to make a change of direction never before so desperately necessary. And you're gonna wonder why you didn't speak up as you watched first-hand the dismantling of the democracy you had been handed by previous generations of patriots. You're gonna wish you had been patriotic enough yourself to demand, above all else, free and fair elections, and you're gonna shake your head in puzzlement at how you stood by watching in silence those that patently were not.
One day you're gonna wake up and want to get the hell out of your rotting, repressive country. You're gonna remember a time when that wasn't true. But, oddly enough, you'll find that other countries remember too. They'll remember your country's arrogance, its unilateralism, its walls, its racism, and its politicized abuse of immigrants. And they'll remember how your government undermined and violently replaced theirs whenever corporations from your country had their profits threatened. You're gonna want to leave, but there will be nowhere you'll be welcome. You're gonna find out that walls can face both directions.
One day you're gonna wake up in a hostile world where your country no longer has any friends. There will be governments of other countries - former long-standing allies - that cannot afford to have anything to do with you, lest their publics angrily remove them from office for collaborating with a country as hated as yours. Nor will those governments trust yours anyway. They will perhaps possess intelligence that could save your life, but they will not share it. They will possess forces that could help you survive real security threats, but they will not provide them. Your country will have become an international pariah, the South Africa of the twenty-first century.
And because no one will assist you, one day you're gonna wake up fearing for your life as your country is brutally attacked by angry militants deploying weapons of mass destruction against your cities. Long dormant connections in your brain will resurface, and you will dimly understand why. On this day - perhaps March 20, 2023 - you might be assisted in your comprehension by the message of one of the attackers, someone whose family your country callously destroyed in its mission accomplished in Iraq, and who spent the next twenty years plotting this day's revenge. And you will wonder again why you stood by as your country attacked Iraq on a completely bogus pretext. You'll remember applauding when this mailed fist was long ago sent. And, just as it comes hurling back in your direction at a lethal velocity, stamped "Return to Sender", you'll wonder what you were thinking. And you'll realize just how much you weren't.
One day you're gonna wake up, America, and you're gonna find out what was happening while you were sprawled on the couch watching endless mind-numbing loops of CSI, Desperate Housewives or Dancing with the Stars.
One day you're gonna wake up and realize that catching all the action during week seven of the 2011 NFL season really wasn't so critical in the greater scheme of things after all.
One day you're gonna wake up and wished you'd invested a little more energy into monitoring and choosing the people who made monumental decisions on your behalf.
One day, with a flash of remorse greater than you thought it possible that one human vessel could contain, you'll remember the ignored warning shots across your bow. Moments later, you'll discover the human capacity for searing remorse is actually even greater still, as you contemplate your inattention even to the shots that were fired right through the bow. With a fury you would yesterday have thought yourself incapable of, you'll hurriedly attempt to affix Band-Aids to the tattered splinters remaining from your country's once sturdy hull. But you'll learn quickly the toll of those years spent wasted in a civic coma. You'll find that no amount of patchwork can any longer save this sinking ship from its appointment with the dustbin of history.
In shame, you'll regret the callous arrogance with which you laughingly dismissed those who sounded the early clarion call. "We are destroying ourselves", they tried to tell you. But even on the rare occasion when you roused yourself from your stupor long enough to learn the slightest bit about the very threats that jeopardized your life and that of your species, still you found it more reassuring to follow the blustering worst amongst us, with their patently absurd pretended confidence, and their ever constant resort to the cheapest of false solutions, and the rudest of demeanors.
One day, you'll desperately search for hope of any sort, but none will remain. Nothing will be left to save you.
One day you'll realize that once there were solutions, but that that day is now long past. You'll see that human technological capacity ran its evolutionary race with wisdom, and the latter came in second. You'll sadly realize that you stood by while your country led the once great tool-making species to its own destruction.
One day you're gonna wake up, America, and realize how far it's all gone. But if that day isn't very soon, it won't matter.
Because one day you're gonna wake up, and it will be far, far too late.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (mailto:dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
70 Comments so far
Show AllIn all due respect to psilver58, the "conspiracy nuts" are those who believe the official story.
Born2bwild, has it!
Say something to some bighead friend that doesn't get it.
Walk away!
Let them start the argument.
What we are doing HERE (Common Dreams) is educating ourselves.
Be polite and respectful, stick to Rock Solid thinking.
Smile.
Don't get off the subject with stupid facts, emotions are what sells. Yes we can market too.
If they want to walk away, let them… they know you are right!
If they want to argue, just listen.. shut up. This lets them hear what they are saying, if you argue everybody shuts down. The rant will eventually end, then you can say something.
Throw the logic up in the air not at them! Or they will shut you out!
Everybody wants out of this war except the profiteers and lets refer to them as the 1%'ers.
When someone attacks you imagine them talking to a mirror, but don't attack back and play their game!
If each of us affects 1 person we double our size.
GOOD LUCK
As a teacher, I deal with trying to wake up students all the time. They are so programmed for taking tests and doing worksheets that they cannot think, and don't want to. It seems to be getting worse, too, especially as the kids raised on scripted teaching are now in high school and resist real thinking, even in a Film as Literature class. They just want to be entertained. But we must have hope, and create hope for the generations to come. I keep waking them up one at a time, I hope, just as this article can. Pass it on.
unfortunately none of the people that need to wake up are reading this, hence the conundrum
Right on, right on, right on!
greenman - That is why we must find other ways to communicate in a non-confrontational yet informed manner, and the people we communicate with must be from all walks of life. You know.
Then, I think (maybe I should say "I hope") many folks will begin to come around and perhaps things could snowball in a good sort of way......
Ken
Yeah . . . Good Luck and Sweet Dreams Ken . . .
If after all that has gone on and what is continuing to go on and still no reaction . . . I think your snowball melted on the couch with the remote in his/her cold dead hands . . .
Mendo Chuck - I choose to remain hopeful because I have faith in the human spirit.
Ken
Plus I know the young can teach the old and the old teach the young if people will just take time to listen.
Nobody said any of this would be easy, but.......Oh, forget it.
OMG... This article is fantastic and scary at the same time --- and so damn true. I've been telling all of my friends and family the majority of this stuff for the last 6 yrs and most of them just look at me like I'm crazy! I'm forwarding this article to everyone I know!
Mr. Green? You are SO right on!!!
Great article and it's later than we think. Yes we have to communicate with the others and wake them from their slumber. I live in a fascistic area but my local paper has an online version where articles, editorials and letters can be commented on. I do it. We have to be able to put out progressive ideas and unspin the lies in a nonconfrontational, common sense manner if we are to reach folks who've been fed corporate propaganda for years.
What a powerful and moving piece!
I've been thinking these same thoughts for years, but, like other commenters stated, when I express such thoughts people think I'm some kind of paranoid conspiracy theorist from Mars. I'm so glad to see that other people share my fears. The question is what to do about it? Is there anything we can do about it, or do we just have to let things run their course and reach rock bottom? Oddly enough, while I am pessimistic about the near term, I'm optimistic about the long term, which unfortunately might not arrive within my lifetime. The pessimistic part of me believes it's too late to change course. We're going to have to go the full route to total economic, societal, and political collapse before we can start over. Ironically, the accelerating destruction of our country and society that we're witnessing today is hastening the onset of the eventual rebirth, assuming we don't destroy ourselves first.
In a somewhat related vein, I've also been wondering at what point do we declare that our country is a fascist (i.e. corporatist) dictatorship? When did the people of Nazi Germany realize that their country had become a fascist dictatorship? I'm sure there were people then, just as there are now (such as myself), who were sounding the alarm bell long in advance of mass recognition of the true character of Germany's political system back then. Were they, too, dismissed as crackpots? It seems as if the threshold at which one recognizes that we've "crossed over" varies from person to person. There is no established threshold. And for some people, those with authoritarian personalities, such a threshold probably doesn't even exist at all, for totalitarianism is, for them, the most desirable political system. At any rate, we've been incrementally stepping towards totalitarianism for decades, and I believe all the elements are now in place. Does that mean we've arrived? Do we need some kind of confirmation, such as the mass incarceration of Americans? Oh wait, we do have that. I wouldn't be surprised to see the 2008 presidential election "postponed" because of some kind of national emergency. Maybe that will be the threshold when most people acknowledge that we've become a totalitarian nation.
Dave
I recently attended a talk given by Jean Michel Cousteau..when asked "what can we do to make a difference?" He said talk to people and tell them what you stand for...this is one of those articles that begs us to talk to people. Tell anyone who will listen to you WHAT YOU STAND FOR. Maybe not immediately or next week will you get someone to rethink but maybe soon and even if it's one person you can get to rethink what they stand for we all win!!! You go Ken! dlz
Some of us have already awakened. Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't sure if it was just a nightmare I was having, or I really had awakened to reality as it currently exists in the United States.
There is another level of awakening that has yet to occur in the U.S. It is a level of spiritual awakeneing in which we realize that American lives are not worth more than other people's lives. We all breathe the same (fouled) air and water. We all share sentient life on Planet Earth. We are all headed for the same fate, be it world peace and prosperity for all, or annhilation. Sorry to say it, but looks increasingly as though it's going to be one or the other.
I woke up 18 years ago and left America and have no plans to ever live there again. To me America is a fraud. The American dream is hollow, and make-believe. The institutions, needed by any society to provide example and leadership are sorely lacking in America. The political, religious, economic, and educational institutions are filled with injustice and hypocrisy. That's what Americans have to wake up to and change. I don't see it happening.
Hoa Binh
When your car is damaged in an accident and it costs more to repair it than junk it, it's called "totalled."
When your house is damaged by fire, flood, earthquake, etc., and it costs more to repair than to demolish and rebuild...
Enough with the metaphors...you get the picture.
I think it's already too late.
But great article, Professor Green, keep up the good work.
This is an outstanding article! I have just one little bitty complaint. Mr. Green is towing the party line instead of logically considering the issue when he mentions immigrants. I am as left-wing as they come; however, Tancredo, Buchanan, et. al are right about this issue! Deporting the illegals is like abortion: it's the lesser evil. How would you like to be a black, experienced construction worker in Atlanta when the corporation hires illegals to do your previously $25/hour job? Racism? I think not.
http://sucktheboob.blogspot.com
One day you're gonna wallow in self-indulgent, self-congratulatory, anticipatory Schadenfreude, as you boast about your own putative wisdom and rain contempt upon the benighted many for whom you pretend to have "compassion." Oh, wait - that day is today.
mr. green,
i am awake. i have pissed off friends. i am not welcome in some bars. my two boys are tired of hearing me. i am doing what i can. as i offered to mr. larson, see common dreams, come down to austin, texas and march in the front. i will stand by your side.
The idea of Americans remaining in Iraq (so as not to abandon the Iraqi people) has been compared to a quack surgeon remaining to complete a heart bypass operation so as not to abandon the patient. It is a matter of competence, not morality. Like fake surgeons, Americans are lost in a dream of arrogance. We think we have the ability to fix things.
David Green's exhortation to political action is inspirational. I wish he were in charge of the world. But we are not well educated people and we are very dangerous when we are motivated. I tend to think the less active Americans become the better off everyone else will be. Or, on the other hand, if we choose to remain assertive and predatory, then in the interest of expedited failure it is best for us also to remain stupid and ineffectual.
If we are going to wake up, we must all wake up at the same time and on the same page and with the same marching orders. We must wake up identically enlightened and intelligent and good hearted. If we can not do that we'll just be a mob of agitated idiots. Better we embrace apathy and drift into the future like Winken, Blinken and Nod, deep in our dream of words and simplistic paradigms and moronic factoids.
When I was young and wise I used to know exactly what we should do. Things are very messy now. Some of those sleepers are vampires. Today we are a nation of wide awake militants, wide awake pacifists, wide awake profiteers and wide awake moralists, all busy moving the American agenda along in conflicting directions. Should we wake up the couch potatos? Would that help? Should uneducated people participate in civic affairs?
The problem is that no matter how wide awake we are, we are still in the grip of one dream or another. Is gaining control of the motion of the human collective across the Ouija board of history a simple matter of snapping out of some kind of trance? We live at the effect of so many bad choices dating so far back that the source mistakes can't be fixed any more than plutonium can be stuffed back into the ground.
David Green is correct that our wooden shoe is probably headed for the rocks. We have done horrible things to other people, and if the scales of justice are not just another fiction we are probably in for a nasty comeuppance.
Are we facing the future that "V for Vendetta" predicted? I think so, because the majority of Americans (or British, as in the film) are too ignorant, unmotivated and addicted to consumerism to question the increasing pointlessness of their existence. Someone, sometime, will reach a level of frustration that will compel him or her to become a social vigilante. But, unlike the movies, there is no guarantee that real-life Americans will join a rebellion against the system. Most Americans do not want to admit complicity in the hideous conduct of our government.
Spyder, Don't let the hatemongers convince you that the enemy is the "illegals." It's the corporations. That's where the focus of your anger needs to be. While these so called populists may aim some criticism at the corporations for hiring illegals, they quickly turn their attention away from corporations and instead scapegoat "illegals," who are themselves victims of trade policies these same corporations have forced on us all. All workers are the vicitms here.
These "populist" and nativists are working in collusion with corporations, because by scapegoating illegals, and perhaps restricting immigration, then what? The labor union movement is pretty much dead and gone, so even if the "illegals" are kept out, you will still be working for shit wages. The corporations still win, except now the exploited American workers think they have won because they drove out the brown people. I think Marxists call this false consciousness.
Your writing directly channels the private thoughts of those of us who have already woken up. We're dazed by what we see.
The first step is having the courage to articulate these inner thoughts and fears, as you have done here. The next step is connecting with one another and figuring out what to do.
There is a movement afoot that's cognizant to varying degrees of what you've written. It's facilitated by the internet, by blogs which in turn facilitate newer approaches to organization and politics.
Life will go on, after America falls. There will be a spring after the winter. But all of us must prepare for the winter that is almost here.
The most costly of follies is to believe in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
- HL Mencken
We are most obviously engaged in that occupation, and it will cost more than we can afford. The whole world is paying the price of our stupor now, but we will pay in the end, which may not be all that far away.
no matter how we as individuals feel that we have already "got it" and just need to "give it" to others, the reality is we've only "got" a part of it. we need to still work at "living" it every moment! no slackin'!
After all
One day you will wake up and realize the meaning of
'What goes around comes around'.
You will find your 'capitalist dream' crushed like
the communist dream of the USSR.
It was your arrogance towards the descend of communism
making you invincible proclaiming that 'America is the greatest'.
What goes around comes around.
People like cheney, bush et al are filthy little worms in the endless line of time. In a million years nobody will wake up to remember earth.
Life is already going on after America failed. The question is will the species carry on if we continue to allow maniacs to control nuclear weapons and environmental policy. If spring comes and there's no human alive to witness it, is it still spring?
Is the constitution salvageable? Is the middle class? Is the US economy? Is the US as we know it? The answers to all these questions are unknown and unknowable. We should not forget that our models of reality, no matter how intelligent we may think we are, are pathetic simplifications of what is really "out there."
But it seems humans have survived throughout history by combining together to engage in common action for the benefit of those in the group, and that is all progressives can do now. And even if the US cause is hopeless, that is no reason for US progressives to give up, for the US is but a small part of the human race, and empires have come and gone before, but humankind has endured.
threeleggedfrog, Keep hoping (and hopping, for that matter!)One person at a time could be just enough.
To all: We cannot stop trying, even as our hearts are breaking that our nation's vitality is being squandered or cut short by exploitation. We must speak with conviction, but not anger; we must speak and listen, repeat and listen again, write and read and keep going until the sound of our voices are gentle morning alarms and heard through the culture's induced stupor.
I agree with you JP that the real enemies are the corporations and not the illegals. They are just trying to divert our anger in that direction AGAIN taking our focus away from the immediate dangers of the our corporatism.
This piece is so sad, but true. I have a friend in Seattle who always seemed to care about others so much. I hadn't spoken to her in awhile, but called her recently. I almost popped my cork when I heard her explain, "You know. I can't stand the news anymore. I'm so sick of hearing about Iraq! Why do I have to hear about that? Enough with Iraq already. Did you see Dancing with the Stars last week?"
OH MY GOD. When all these people with their blinders on wake up, I hope I'm not on the planet anymore. I don't want to share in their karma --- which is surely coming. That "return to sender" comment is right on. We're going to reap what we've sown. And it will be a nightmare. But then at least after the long nightmare, people in this country won't sleep-walk ever again.
born2bwild wrote: "no matter how we as individuals feel that we have already "got it" and just need to "give it" to others, the reality is we've only "got" a part of it."
Glad someone said this. Good article in some ways but IMO it too easily leads to a kind of perceptual arrogance.
Whose land is this in the "United States"? Where (and by what/whose violence, exploitation, genocide attemps, enslavement etc) did all these privileges/entitlements lost come from in the first place?
There are people who have known all along that this is a nightmare -- because of how the nightmare has treated them from the start, not because they are now or in some future losing what it gave to them to pay for their loyalty. People whose worlds and peace came to an end, or near-end, because of what it took to make the United States a nation in the first place, hundreds of years ago and into the present day.
The oft-repeated theme of "once it was great but now it has been/will be lost" tends not get into these realities. Whose perception and experience is at the center here and what understanding of the situation gets lost in the process?
I do feel something valuable in this article but think this needs pushing to go deeper as well.
"One day you're gonna wake up and want to get the hell out of your rotting, repressive country. "
Happened last year and I sold out, packed up the family, and left. Have not regretted it one second.
I don't know how to assimilate all the fine comments here. The problem I'm having has to do with why so many Americans have gone to sleep since the '04 election. I'm beginning to think it is an instinctual defense response to either having been complicit in the current mess by either voting for Bush and/or supporting the invasion of Iraq, or because the situation is so horrible and hopeless that they just can't deal with the carnage. Maybe the key to helping them wake up is to forgive them for their ignorance and to try to help them regain the hope that together we can actually make things better.
In the meantime, I have to keep myself together. Being able to share with the "awakened" here on Common Dreams really helps.
Thanks
i tend to side with those who say it is already too late...but i also suspect that opinion reflects my own laziness and curmudgeonliness.
but, i also tend to side with those who say it dosn't really matter if it is too late. we must behave as if everything matters a gread deal, that our work is to save the world and we must act as if it were possible not to fail...even if failure might be inevitable, there is nothing to do but work as if success were possible.
Will Durant wrote his volume "Ceasar and Christ"...its like reading the New York Times today.
The political stupidity, corruption, beaucratic bungling....
When some one like the generalTiberius tried to help his poor common soldiers, the senate clubbed him and his followers to death for trying to help those that fought so hard for Rome. All he was going to give them was a plot of land to live on to grow food.
The wars were trumped up to keep the generals and soldiers out of the way so that senators could play and get rich.
Its funny how history repeats itself over and over.
Today the money has gone to the top. The middle class is going. Greed is the god of today and all that want to deal in trivality are fullfilled. To say if you don't like it..get out is a copout. A stupid remark. We are not going to leave but we want to improve it. But we have no choices because...the corporate rich own both sides of the isle. There are no leaders on either side, just professional politicians. We desparetly need a real leader. At this point this ageing capitalistic society won't survive with out one. And now look at the line up on the stage. Where do they stand..and then can you trust what you see??
Illegal aliens are allowed in by corporate America because THEY want them here. The corporations are here to insure profits. They say that Americans won't do the jobs that the Mexicans do....the only reason why they won't is because it's hard living in the US on $3.00 an hour. If they paid their fellow countryman a LIVING wage, the work would be done.
It's going to be hard to live here in the next generation. The key is educating our people. Reading, not just our newspapers but overseas papers. The lock on information in this country is sickening.
Thank you David, (((((HUG))))) being in the minority, I woke up some time ago
and have not slept well since. On occasion, I manage a nap, I hope that you do too.
Ya know, she wasn't perfect, however, I loved her! My America is dying and
I miss her, she gave her heart and soul to a politician, all he had to do was
say that God sent him, I think she misunderstood that it wasn't "Rapture" it was "Rupture"....
She once had beautiful dreams and although awkward she held a
steady light for those who wanted to believe the world could be better, She
was raped, sold and her soul violated. Of course She's dying.
I left my country britain 16 years ago. We are a mini version of america. It's ugly for humankind. It's not just americans that need to wake up, it's the world. It's our world, not the politicians' and corporatists'. But they're stealing it, and destroying it. And we're standing idly by...
Empires have come and gone, but this is the first one with the techology to ensure no future empires. With lunatics in the asylum controlling it all. I feel there is real urgency to correct this.
The key to waking people up who refuse to wake up is understanding the vice-like grip that self-delusion has over them. The problem is that waking up for the ordinary person is unconsciously perceived to be the equivalent of their own death, and everything they ever lived for.
That is a heavy heavy price, and something is required to help deal with this 'death' if they are to awaken from their self-delusion.
Finally, we cannot wake anybody up, we can only help and guide them to wake themselves up.
Am I the only person here that works with the public everyday? My Daddy always told me that each generation is dumber than the last and he was right. All most Americans care about is getting their lottery tickets, the price of gas, the price of beer and what's on TV tonight......
Baseball n beer, football n beer, hockey n beer, basketball n beer, NASCAR n beer, golf n beer, hunting n beer, trucks n beer, sex n beer, golf n beer, boating n beer, 4 wheelin n beer, snowmobiling n beer, Survivor n beer, American idol n beer, college n beer, cigarettes n beer, Fox news n beer...
what did you say?
When those days come I wonder if any country will allow our children and grandchildren to immigrate or give them political asylum. I wonder if they will be the new refugees risking their lives and jail to flee our country where they have no life or hope. I wonder if this is the legacy we will leave them.
Mussolini, self-proclaimed father of modern fascism, defined it as the merging of the corporate state and the political state. Il Duce would recognise what he saw today all right, best personified by Cheney. Where does Halliburton end and the government begin? Where for that matter does the US military end and Blackwater begin?
However, as painful as it may be for the undoubtedly mostly good-hearted Americans that frequent this site, the myth of innate American 'goodness' is just that, a myth. From it's founding by twelve white, male, slave-owning freemasons, through the genocide of 60 million people as the land was stolen from them (along with several hundred million bison as collateral damage), through slavery cum apartheid back to slavery again in the workshops of the prison industrial complex, the massacres in the Philippines, the constant subversion and installation of brutal dictatorships throughout Central and South America to facilitate the rape and plunder of those lands, the slaughter of Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, and at least three million Iraqis in the last sixteen years alone. So I don't know what paradigmatic point in history the author pines for, but at any point in American history someone, somewhere was being killed or robbed by American imperialism.
That's the reality, the rest I'm afraid is just Hollywood. As George Carlin observed: "You know why they call it the American Dream? Because you have to be asleep to believe it."
In the August of 02 I accompanied my wife to her conference in D.C. She worked, I passed my days exploring the museums and government buildings. She wanted to go to the holocaust museum but didn't have time and tried to encourage me but I said I had studied all that stuff in college 40 years ago. We had read books, watched the grotesque horrors of the grainy documentary films of the death camps..... I new it all and didn't what to see any more.
Well my last day with about two hours left I found myself across from the Holocaust museum and like a robot was irresistibly drawn through it's doors. I raced through checking out the various levels of this somber and sad place. No one really smiles or talks in this place as it is a testament to how far adrift "civilized humans" can stray.
It was all there, the attack on the disenfranchised, the labor unions, the gypsies, the homosexuals, and later on, it all coalesced on the jew, who became the scapegoat for every negative shortcoming in the human psyche. It's like Reagan laid the ground work and Bush II was going to user in the 1000 years of the new rich Reich.
I recalled the famous quote by the black author James Baldwin: "What kind of man are you white man that you need a niger." I left the place stunned. Why wasn't there anyone protesting. I had hoped to join some protests when I first got to D.C. but look as I could, it was just business as 'unusual' in Washington. The only think I found close to a protest was some burned out old Viet Nam vet who's mind had disappeared somewhere between Danang and the Vets hospital. They let him have this little tent on the mall to carry on his harmless little protest from a war of the past.
Washington seemed asleep as America was asleep, opiated at the mall and sports contest; shooting up on tabloid television and eating corporate food; generally living live vicariously because we had lost all our individual initiative: to sing, to dance, to talk, to think, to catch a frisbee, to cure ourselves and to be human beings.
Since that day I go to every peace march here in Hololulu that they have, I write the occasional letter, and do the emails, and talk to people when they will listen. It's not enough.... I thought I would/could do more.... but my mind is clear. I will never join the flag waving wave no matter how big and bad it gets.
It's the 11th hour.... lets get going!
i find this article really insulting. i really don't like being told that one day i'm going to regret our decline.
You're all dreaming.
Maybe were dreaming, maybe were not. In reality, what difference does it make? --- You do recognize the concept of reality don't you?
Either way, look around, many are obviously suffering, and that just ain't "right", nor is it "left". It just is the pits because it could be so much better.
This article forcefully speaks about all that is wrong, and this is necessary, but in the end it says: "Because one day you're gonna wake up, and it will be far, far too late." I just can't stand that sentiment and it seems to be so prevalent here by many who frequent the Common Dreams site. Why even write the article if you think it is far, far too late, and what are you doing here if you are just a fatalistic defeatist. Do you just like to listen to yourself complain? Are you so bitter and sour that you like to revel in it?
If you must be a fatalistic defeatist, why not just go into a corner and play with yourself, and get out of the way of those of us who want to find solutions.
In all humbleness (IAH),
Ken
As with jbs's post, I've been called "looney", among other things when forwarding info like this...I'm doing my job, I think, however, I have to be resigned to the fact that the people who need to wake up won't wake until it is to late and the people to whom it most matters, our children and grandchildren, will have to find out for themselves and will have to fight their own battles.
Mr. Hausle I'd like to know just what bright spots on the horizon keep your gaze fixed. All of the legal and constitutional tools are in place to end the disaster this country has become, but with every passing day things just get worse. The opposition party has decided to just wait things out because they are convinced they will soon be back in full power - to line their pockets and enjoy the audacity had by the Rebublicans over the last ten years. Our government and our political system is a very bad joke on every human being not intraveneously hooked up to big money.
How many here have had the experience, at family get-togethers, of silently agreeing not to talk about "things" because it is just so - - BIZARRE ? Don't wanna think about the coming assault on Iran? Just tune into Survivor or watch overpaid jocks chase a little ball around taxpayer subsidized coliseums. And NASCAR - don't get me started.
Great article and comments. My sister left the country a couple years back. She'd say people ask why she is leaving. She said she would reply, You have to ask Why and look at them like they just didn't Get It. Like the readers here, I think we are awake and doing the best we can. I say fight until death. I wish the Fuck we had a strong leader to unite all the worthy issues. Someone to gather the people together and fight.
Survival should be considered before anything else. One should be knowledgeable of how to grow food, prepare game, disinfect water, and how to live in any environment. Think how fast the stores will empty of supplies when trucks don't arrive daily to stock the shelves. What will you do when electricity suddenly ceases to power your home. These things we take for granted are not cut in stone and are not guaranteed to be there always. What will you do when the dollar suddenly collapses because china and japan lose faith and stop buying our debt? Do you have any gold put away? Do you have any means to defend your family from looters?
No one wants to consider these things and think it will never happen, just as the German people thought Hitler was thier salvation seventy years ago. The economy and the stability of the world is more poised to fail than at any other time in history. The nation is beyond bankruptcy, monetarily and morally, the environment is dying a slow but sure death, our government has been highjacked and is being used to conquer the planet financed by american taxpayers and thier children and grand children. The constitution and the bill of rights have been trashed so now there is no protection against tyranny by the government. Media is nothing more than scripted lies expertly presented to totally fool the masses. Leaders who we expected to lead are indicted or resign in shame almost daily only to be replaced by another lying asshole to disappoint us all.
It is not a question of if anymore, but a matter of when. All indicators and more so, the obvious lack of compassion of those in power, point to very soon. Be prepared for basic survival as best you can. When it all comes apart there won't be anyone to carry your burden but youselves. Everything that floats eventually sinks and this country is floating in all manners. Fiat paper and digits on a screen will do little good when all collapses. be prepared first, then go about trying to effect a change for a better world.
Why is the United States still GREAT!
The Constitution is still giving "us" FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
In Russia, China, Colombia, Iraq and so many more countries, you don't live long when you attack the power structure!
Enjoy your Freedom!