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TechnoratiOne 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 AllThis is an amazing statement, but sadly, it is becoming the world we live in.
With all due respect to Mr. Hayes (above posting), I would add that there are other, significantly different outcomes re- the struggle that he and so many others have referenced here.
I do agree that the struggle between a "partnership" / democratic society, and a "power-over," / authoritarian one - is heating up as never before across the planet. I also see that the outcome is highly uncertain and can not be predicted.
I also see this process as, so to speak, a "test" of our species'- Homo Sapiens Sapiens' - viability.
The question is: will we succeed in creating/undergoing a massive and profound shift in our governing mental paradigms. These assumptions (cognitive frames that shape our thinking) have apparently governed our thought processes - and actions - for over 5,000 years. That is, we held onto and been directly by interconnected, unconscious systems of ideas. First things first: we need to become aware/conscious of, these matrices.
At this point in history the great majority of our habitual/accustomed thought-forms (and institutions) simply will not cut it. We need to grow new ones. If we manage to do so, we will create the breakthrough we so desperately need. If not, most likely we will experience societal regression or worse. And, apparently our species's survival instinct is already at work. Many of us are working on both inner healing/growth and effective social action.
For more info see:
"Paradigm Wars" by Mark Woodhouse, and
The Mayan Factor by Jose Arguelles.
Nothing is going to change. The elitist agenda is well on it's way to completion. The globalization of the New World Order, is also behind opening up the borders from Mexico to Canada. And we shall also join the trade agreements dictated to us by the EU under Javier Solana.
We are well on out way to the end of days, as predicted in the book of revelation, Jerimiah, Isaiah, Zepheniah, Daniel, and others.
Hold onto your butt and get ready for the forced implant of the RFID chip. DO NOT TAKE IT, OR ANYOTHER MARK THAT WILL ALOW BUYING AND SELLING. This is the mark of the beast, 666, as predicted, and will send all bearers of the mark to hell. Watch Javier Solana! He holds the 3 highest seats in the EU, and has proposed a peace inititive after the Oslo accords. A 7 year covenant with Israel. See Daniel 9:27. This will lead the world to Aramageddon. Our only hope is faith and conversion to Jesus Christ as Lord and savior. You will remember this, forever. JH
And perhaps one day we will all wake up and realize that the people began to lose their sovereignty that day in Dallas on 11/22 when "officials" solved the murder of the century within 24 hours and categorized all who questioned the new orthodoxy as "conspiracy theorists." And perhaps we will begin to realize that the official orthodoxy was reinforced a dozen times since in the name of "fighting the communists," "fighting the terrorists," or "fighting" this or "fighting" that. Always fighting something in the name of "national security," which has nothing to do with securing you or me and everything to do with securing "they" who rule from the inside out and from the top down.
Perhaps one day we will even wake up and see that the 9/11 "conspiracy nuts" were right: "they" did it to us as a pretext to getting us to surrender our Constitution and Bill of Rights; so they could justify spying on our computers, phone calls, purchases, and snail mail; so they could pass the Military Commissions Act that suspends even Habeas Corpus (sending us back to the middle ages); so they could usurp the right of the people to declare war (so they could send our sons and daughters to foreign lands to fight a permanent "war on terror"); so they could require a "national ID"; so they could dissolve the United States of America into a North American Union; so they could eventually dissolve the whole world into one New World Order that they will rule.
As Huxley taught, unless we wake up most of the human race will one day find itself in permanent slavery and loving it. By then the same public mind control that got us to swallow both the Kennedy assassination and 9/11 with nary a burp will be so sophisticated that even Brave New World will seem "stone age" by comparison.
Bravo Professor Green.
In partial defense of those Americans who have been rendered absurd by their culture, and that includes all of us to a degree, may I suggest to you and your grateful audience that you not underestimate the forces at work in furtherance of this process. Beginning in the early 20th century and continuing to present,the money and effort and genius that has been poured into the process of reducing Americans to brainless, consuming, politically enfeebled, ethically degraded robots is not well understood. The powerful forces of corporate thought(and behavior) control must be appreciated before blithely condemning the victims of this psychic tsunami as an embarrassing collection of Forrest Gumps.
Democracy has always wrought terror and disgust in the hearts and minds of the wealthy and powerful, our founding fathers were no exception. And they have dedicated themselves to undermining it at every turn throughout history. I emphasize that I am not merely referring to totalitarian monsters but to our cultural heroes of the Madison, Holmes, Churchill and FDR ilk as well. Case at point. The introdution of the "Marconi", radio's original name, was a source of great concern to American business and government leaders in the early 1900's. Their nightmare was that this new technology would now make it impossible to lie to the public with impunity because the radio would promote communication between and among members of the great mass of humanity thus undermining the, theretofore, privileged informational monopoly of our grandest citizens. A very dangerous and threatening development!In response, the apotheosis of propaganda as an institution. Public relations became an enormously powerful and deliberately invisible force in directing the lives of American citizens. Every aspect of personal life was touched by this invisible hand. And never for the benefit of those being manipulated.
It would be useful to become acquainted with the writings of Edward Bernays, Walter Lippman, Ivy Lee, William Filene, to name a few. George Orwell was a professional propagandist for England's ministry of Information(propaganda) for a period. Yes, THAT George Orwell (nee Eric Blaire). To his credit he eventually quit in disgust, and claims to have refused to participate in various disinformation campaigns while so employed.
Edward Bernays, widely credited as the father of modern propaganda, was a nephew of Sigmund Freud, and was so successful in his many campaigns, one such promoted cigarette smoking among American women with huge success, that Josef Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda used Bernay's book, entitled, ironically enough, "Propaganda", as his primary source in convincing the German's to follow Hitler over the edge.
Today, Rupert Murdock carries the flag and employs Bill O'Reilly, his replacement for Father Coughlin.
When the oxygen mask drops out of the overhead, puts yours on first; otherwise, you are of no use to anyone else around you.
Hmm. And if perhaps the "oxygen" falls down in front of you and not some others because of an unjust system that privileges you and yours in a nasty hierarchy of ugly imposed power dynamics ... and if you are an insider to a legacy and culture that has persistently lied, violated, stolen and pushed its members to perceive up as down and down as up ... then what is your responsibility if that oxygen seemingly magically comes down for you and you see that others valued less by this system don't have the same easy access you have?
Do you take it for yourself without question because you assume (perhaps without evidence and perhaps even with evidence to the contrary) that of course you have the ability to lead, decide for others, and think well when resources are available to you? Do you assume that that oxygen is there for you so easy "for a good reason" and take take take just because it's there for you? Do you choose to ignore that what is available for you is currently not available for others in a systematically connected relationship of horrific symbiotic imbalance?
Or -- do you choose to feel and to question the underlying power dynamics of your easy access? Do you choose to notice and question your culturally-bound perception and thus your overall approach to what resources are available?
The solution is not political or religious. It is Spiritual. We Are One, whether you believe it or not. As each effects the other and the total environment, so what each of us does, matters. As one of the writers above said, in paraphrase, it doesn't matter if what we choose to do on behalf of the rest of humankind and this creation known as the Earth changes anything, or not. What matters is that I do something to make it a better world for myself and those around me. No expectation that anything I do will make a difference, but knowing that I did something! Gandhi said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." I cannot change you anymore than you can change the way the planets orbit, but in some way each of us can influence those around us by being the example of cooperation and compassion. When the oxygen mask drops out of the overhead, puts yours on first; otherwise, you are of no use to anyone else around you. Your life is as significant as the next, and no more so. We Are One.
Peace,
st john
do i detect a note of cynicism?
Razor Wrote: 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?
I disagree very strongly with this approach as some sort of general strategy for everyone.
The first question I feel as necessary is: who should survive and why? Individualism -- "I should get the best for myself and my family just because I'm me and I can" -- is part of what created this situation in the first place, IMO. The assumption that people who can afford to get prepared are the ones who should survive is the same-old same-old mentality.
Why not ask who might have the best chance of fulfilling real responsibilities to this land, and get politically involved in fighting for/supporting the physical and cultural survival of those people and groups?
I wonder (and I truly do wonder, this is not some rhetorical statement) -- can we learn to act as part of a larger entity rather then as disconnected individuals determined to survive and hoard resources at any cost to what is around us?
please forward this on to anyone you feel needs to read it!
the importance of this is paramount.
Let's see...
The richest country on earth can't provide basic health care to a sixth of its citizens;
Some of these, pretty, teen-aged girls who've lost their legs in accidents, appear on local TV to beg for donations so that they can afford artificial legs;
So many of the country's citizens are dumb enough to sign up for mortgages that guarantee they'll owe more than their homes are worth within a year that the country's economy is threatened;
The country has more privately-owned guns than adults;
Those guns have killed more of the country's citizens since 1963 than all of the wars it has fought since its birth;
The noble sentiments of the country's constitution are daily perverted by single-issue zealots and circumvented by "leaders" more interested in re-election than in fundamental human rights;
The same leaders willingly send hundreds of thousands of their young citizens into harm's way in defense of their way of life, yet are unwilling to send their own children into the same peril;
Paris Hilton's incarceration makes the news;
Less than two thirds of the country's citizens can motivate themselves to vote;
The country's self-appointed intellectual elite are dilletantes who do nothing but angst publicly in blogs and chat rooms.
Instead of telling Mr. Green what a clairvoyant visionary he is for discerning the state of your own navels, what are you going to DO about it?......nothing. You're so busy wringing your hands you have no time left to roll up your sleeves. You deserve your fate.
Wake up indeed.
- Not an American
and oh, ask Hillary about Mena AK, and Clinton-Bush coke running
if she gets in you are fools, but then i return to El Salvador where i moved to in 1994, yes fascist right wing, but at least paradise
and good waves
From George Orwell's book 1984:
"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that even, it never happened — that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death."
- Book 1, Chapter 3
"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"
- Book 1, Chapter 3
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?...
"The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."
- Book 1, Chapter 5
this is a VERY good diatribe, it will be sent out
Viva La Gente, Viva La Revolucion
impeach and hang in public fool texans and ALL their cronies
Have you noticed the Bush/Cheney stickers have all but disappeared?
The pro-war people don't want to even talk about anything relating to war, and they aren't going around doing the Michael Moore parody either.
They wish YOU would just go away.
Bless you, David, for holding up this mirror and for your courage in putting into words this most obvious, terrible vision.
I don't know if in a previous life, you were Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, or Gandhi. But, whoever you were, I'm sure glad you're back...
[silence]
I,too have tried to talk some sense into friends and family but my sucsess rate is about 10% , I am coming to believe that we will slowly spin down to total chaos and possibly nuclear war before the human race can resume ,I hope to God this isnt the case but all great civilisations have dissapeared just to be replaced by another, the bible speakes about the last generation on the planet, and of the new heaven and new earth to come it says it will come with flaming fire ,the elements melting with fervent heat, this could be describing nuclear devestation, what would be left??
Vince Lawrence, here are two quick ideas that I have posted elsewhere, but don't ever seem to get a response. Anyhow.
1. Solar Power contest: This could be set up in so many different ways, but the idea would be to get people thinking about solar power and what kind of configuration would work best where they live. In my opinion, any kind of design should be very reliable and long-lasting. Solar is unlikely to ever provide levels of power those in the US have become accustomed to in a widespread way, but it can provide power for certain essential items (like a coffee maker!). I have played around with solar panels and discovered that just by using a few inexpensive mirrors you can almost double the power output. This just makes sense - use cheap materials to enhance the performance of more expensive materials. I'm sure there are brighter minds than mine who could come up with some incredible configurations. Heck it could even be a "reality-TV" contest.
2. I think any kind of "profits" made from CO2 regulation (such as those associated with a carbon tax or from carbon trading) need to be distributed either directly to the people or in a manner that definitively is in the interest of the people. Ideally, this could be done in a way that creates very desirable incentives and pressures those responsible for emissions to make changes to reduce said emissions. Obviously, this would require considerable planning and thought so that it can be implemented as intended, and certain interests might vehemently oppose the concept.
In my mind this is somewhat analgous to what might have occurred if starting in the 1830's in the US railroads were owned by the people in the area they served. The connection is with respect to the idea of "transport". CO2 pollution is transported globally and railroads transported goods over many lands, and it seems to me that all those affected by the transport should share equally in any profits. For example, if there was a North Carolina railroad company, then all of the citizens of North Carolina would share equally in any "profits" made by that company. I know there are many opinions on the economic aspects of this sort of thing, and I'm not trying to start an off-topic debate on that here, but it seems to me that our situation could have been so much better if the railroads had been "owned by the public they affected" rather than owned by robber barons for whom profit was paramount.
Anyhow, in my humble opinion, if people truly start talking and working together in a non-confrontational way there are so many incredible ideas that could turn things around. If you are interested, more info on this and other things is presented at my website: www.kjh-es.com.
Peace,
Ken
Heart-wrenching reality!
One can only hope that die-hard Republicans will vote for Ron Paul and the rest of us will vote for Dennis Kucinich.
In light of the widespread ignorance in this country, my optimism is quickly dwindling.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
You're all dreaming.
i find this article really insulting. i really don't like being told that one day i'm going to regret our decline.
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!
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."
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.
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?
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......
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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'!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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 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
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
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.
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!!!
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.
Mendo Chuck - I choose to remain hopeful because I have faith in the human spirit.
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 . . .
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
Right on, right on, right on!
unfortunately none of the people that need to wake up are reading this, hence the conundrum
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.
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
In all due respect to psilver58, the "conspiracy nuts" are those who believe the official story.