I've been to other countries and people are amazed at the lack of education in the United States and the propaganda which we call "News".
The corporate plutocracy that has taken over the government had a very effective plan: Demolish the education system and create a vast propaganda machine so that people don't even know their history and make them ignorant of the takeover. There was a time when Greek and Latin were required classes in public school. High School graduates were expected to know Civics and United States (and world) History, as well as classical literature. This is now a country where people spend hours watching tabloid gossip and the home shopping club on TV instead of reading. The emphasis in education toward "usefull skills for the job market" instead of learning how to think and base thoughts on historical context is frightening.

Like a bee to honey, I honed right on "in need of rebellion". In my circles almost everyday when people start discussing their issues with just surviving, paying for food, fuel and housing, after the "rich getting richer and poor getting poorer" comment comes "we need a rebellion". Then someone always says, "yeah, but it'll never happen. Americans are a bunch of sheep and afraid of rocking the boat. Don't want to upset the status quo." I keep wondering who these people are that are sheep, and asleep at the wheel of the 2 ton F250s. Perhaps they are us.

Revolutions don't have to take the traditional guns and roses format. They can be alternative revolutions...say, something radical like - just stop. Stop consuming. Stop buying. Close the highways. No more export/import from ANYWHERE else. Open the doors of all the locals businesses and redistribute the necessities so everyone has exactly the same amount of food, fuel and everyone has a place to stay out of the weather, safely. Then, slowly, slowly, really take a look at what we NEED to live, and what is FUELING THE CONSUMERISM monster that has us all by the shorthairs -- do this in the spring so we have three months to plant gardens, hunt, fish, decide what animals really need to be killed to feed us -- and so on and so on. JUST STOP CONSUMING. Don't allow it. BLock the roads into your towns and cities and decide to fend for yourselves until you see just how much you really need TVs from Taiwan, avocados from California, oranges from Florida, natural gas or oil from Iraq or ALaska...etc. etc.

This is would be the only REAL REVOLUTION worth fighting. If we do this now while we are NOT in crisis mode and being forced to do this anyway, much more painfully at the cost of lives, this would be a VERY POWERFUL WEAPON. But, it must well up and be the most important thing on our agenda. THis kind of grassroots rebellion for the purpose of saving ourselves and the planet and helping one another through to a BRAVE NEW WORLD, is proactive, expansive not contractive, and way outside of the box. Its out of their control but it IS in OUR control to do this -- and its the only thing that will work.

Radical? yes. Rebellious? Hell yes. Will it work? What's the worst that can happen? what will happen anyway. At least we make the choice ourselves and we take the wheel and decide our own destinies instead of having them decided for us by people who couldn't care less about who well we are faring. Sound familiar? Do you feel a stirring in your breasts? Talk amongst yourselves...how can this be done effectively? But don't wait until the "time is right" -- we don't have any left. Just do it. STOP. JUST STOP.

As a person of colour, a U.S. citisen but not an American (I was born in Kobe, Japan), and a person of low economic class, I must say that even though I hope to see a democrat in power who will hopefully fix this, I myself am rather discouraged by the games they played to get Bush in, from voting or doing anything. I mean, if there were a movement to turn this country around, yeah, I'd probably join it. But, like, me, start something? But maybe someone will. I'm just like, enough with the violence. I mean, this war was under the guise of 'we're going to get the terrourists', but the terrourists were an Afghani rebel group who did NOT represent Afghanistan, and the war is in IRAQ. I mean, like okay, I failed geography, too, mate, but I'm not THAT dumb. Seriously, innocent lives, thousands on both sides, from soldiers to babies are being crushed, and for what? Bloody gas, that's what. Bush is an ARSE who rode his daddy's coattails and borrowed his brother's (?) power. He doesn't deserve to be...anything. I speak better English than him XP.

A whole lot of frustration expressed here. Expression is about all any of you will get to release your frustration. Rebellion, that's a laugh. Even if we had a leader, which we don't and even if we had an organization, which we don't and even if there were 1000 times as many as write here it would be hopeless, peaceful or forceful.
Democracy is dead now -- only a fascade remains. Even capitalizm is dead. We are living in a modern day Feudalism, where the rich allow us to rant and rave. The Methane Bubble is near.

Once again, Uncle Howard rises above it all to see the big picture while so many of us just squabble. Thanks. I disagree with nothing he says, and have nothing to add. He says more in a quick interview than most people say in an entire book.

We're not going to elect our problems away, at least not this time. So it's up to us. Talk to your neighbors, your friends, your co-workers, your family. Let them know what's really going on. Chances are they are of the rank and file also, and thusly are the ones who truly have a stake in positive social change and have no legitimate reason to oppose it.

It is (or was) the job of the Democrats to oppose in no uncertain terms the coming of tyranny to this country - even if it costs them every seat in every governmental body in every state of the union and Repimplicans controlled everything. Instead, the Democrats equivocate, rationalize, lie and then head down to the bank to count their money. There is no meaningful opposition to the gradual coming of tyranny. The MSM is lower than any prostitute selling herself in Corkscrew Alley. Most of our fellow Americans are like the pod people in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". You can watch a great Frank Capra movie like "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and jump out of your seat with tears in your eyes and cheer when Jimmy Stewart defeats the villains. But when you get up the next day, shit will still smell like shit and the blank, stupid, smirking kisser of George Wanker Bush will still be lying his ass off to some donkey who calls himself/herself a journalist for station KRAP.

javier September 9th, 2008 11:24 pm

"There was no TV when the people were lining up to go to war with Spain. Boy they were keen. They didn't need TV to go at each other during the civil war. And those 2 glorious world wars can be blamed on TV either. The indians didn't die because of the main stream media and the US wasn't the last country to give up slavery because of the press. When the movies showing the indians getting killed appeared nobody forced the parentsd to send their children to them. And blacks didn't get srung up because they had a bad agent.....................lizard"

Back then, the (s)word was the bible. Today the (s)word is t.v. / MSM

Propaganda always has a tool.

Wow! These are some of the best discussions i've read in a long time on CD. Where the solutions to these problems will lie it's hard to tell, but if more and more americans start to publicly debate the ideas i've been reading (esp welshTerrier2, rtdrury, and malcolm martin's posts; nice!) this place might actually start to change for the better.

To keep this rebellion within each of us. We should arise from our sleep, drugs and speed ( we are traveling much too fast now ) . Know what our zodiac sign is. Then use our zodiac personality , which runs deep within us, to target our rebellion.

Here is mine, Pieces.. Are compasionate enforcers and like to make rules fair.

Examining where our tax money is being used in my local community and over all community. It seems like our government is thinking, feeling and doing as if it is a business.

Government is not a business.

Goverment is created to serve the community. Community of species. It must respect all species , not just the human species. It should have compassion and dogged belief that it serves all communities in its jurisdiction.

Here is most important question for any government employee to get right or be fired. What is a definition of community? If it does not include the words, all species. They lack the quality to be a government employee. They should get a job with a business instead. And we will help them get a job with the business in their community. By the way , I mean all government employees, including the Generals.

So to All zodiac signitories. Do what is in you.

toophat for you!

.

Obama needs to do one thing:

He needs to watch The Lion King, by himself.

Over and over - until it gets into his soul.

He must get in touch with the simple but

extremely powerful narratives it conveys.

Righteous Anger.

Reclaimed Moral Authority.

The collective spirit of his wounded land.

Then he must stand on that rock, and…

ROAR.

The Young Simba needs to claim the “audacity”

of King Mufasa’s fearlessness and valor.

Barack - Remember who you are!

THEN the Sheeple’s of America will say:

Banzai: Oh, Scar, it's just you.
Shenzi: We were afraid it was somebody important.
Banzai: Yeah, you know, like Mufasa.
Scar: I see.
Banzai: Now that's power.
Shenzi: Tell me about it. I just hear that name and I shudder.
Banzai: Mufasa!
Shenzi: Ooooh! Do it again!
Banzai: Mufasa!
Shenzi: Ooooh!
Banzai: Mufasa, Mufasa, Mufasa!
Shenzi: Ooooh!
[breaks into laughter]
Shenzi: And it tingles me!

It is really as simple as a kid’s movie…

Rafiki: It is time.

.

I wish HZ was correct, but the fact is Australia is adopting virtually all of U$A's failed policies by both the Liberal and Labor parties and it's trashing our living standards.
Many of us view U$A as a parasite nation which has been living way beyond its means since the 1950s.
{NB: The Liberal Party misrepresent the term liberal. They're right-wingers. The Labor Party routinely take for granted and sell out the working class for corporate bastards}
That's why I'm a member of the Greens Party. We currently attract 10%+ of primary votes, and electoral support increases with each succeeding election. We are now in over 100 countries through out the world and in 2001 formulated a global charter.
If you want change, you've got to make it happen. So vote Green or independent.
PS. My apologies on behalf of Ozzies for inflicting Rupert Murdoch on you. But please don't send him back. You deserve him more than we do.

General strike: one effective way out of corporate control and narrative--but when, how? A major depression/collapse first, perhaps? Entropy, disintegration are just as likely as a political revolution. Fascism is on the rise in the US. But the call for 'rebellion' still seems valid as an expression of hope. This discussion is not penetrating any significant part of the national discourse at this time. Jack London's _Iron Heel_ is a vision of how an oligarchy might be challenged, yet it was an old notion prior to the rise of corporate media as a dominant force affecting human consciousness, limiting the spectrum of debate. The margins of radical discourse may be growing, hard to measure, and perhaps too late to be proactive. In any case, Zinn should be encouraged to elaborate on this article.

If the number of people get out a vote I feel DIEBOLD couldn't handle the numbers and you may get real results. That is the cornerstone of Democracy none tampered with results.

Just kick back and let the USA finish its meltdown. Nobody listens to its ideas any more. Instead everyone is blazing a different path. For example, nobody follows the US healthcare model, but instead everyone is doing single payer after the successful models elsewhere.

Nobody is following the US model of freeways and cars/trucks. - Everyone is expanding their rail transport, following the models of other countries, getting off fossil fuels, and addressing global warming responsibly.

Nobody is following the US model of opening their borders to imports. Instead, everyone is keeping up the tariffs to protect their own industries, the highly successful model pioneered outside the USA.

Nobody is following the US model of petro-synthetic food production. Everyone is instead following the old traditions producing healthier organic food.

Nobody is following the US model of militarist foreign policy. Instead everyone is keeping their military expenditures very modest and are banning land mines and all those things.

Nobody is following the USA in allowing ridiculous unregulated financial market speculation. Instead everyone else is keeping the same strong regulations that allowed their economies to grow surpluses while the US economy plunges into debt.

Nobody is following the US model of war on drugs. Instead others are legalizing the various mild drugs such as cannibis and coca.

Nobody is following the US model of privatizing government services. Instead, others are keeping all traditional government services in the public sphere at one half the cost or less.

Nobody follows the USA in chucking the rule of law, chucking the rule of international law, and chucking international treaties. Instead everyone is strengthing the rule of laws and treaties in an alternate community of nations that excludes the USA.

Nobody is paying any attention to US ivy league business schools. Everybody knows their prescriptions would lead to millions of citizens rioting in the streets in other countries.

We had a coup on people's govt in sixty three and then stolen elections after that.

Right wing corp press and bs polls.

A govt torturing people; that's their msg to us.

"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"

You can either concede to the elite ruling class whose concern isn't the pubic good, and take no action. Voting democratic is taking no action.

Or you can vote third party as a start. Then start working with them on a local level. The Green Party certainly could use additional voices. They are open to points of view that support peace and justice. Are they perfect? Hell no, but significantly better than either corporate party.

And to those people who complain that the Green Party or Nader only come out every four years (which, by the way, isn't true), I ask them: What have the progressive members of the democratic party been able to accomplish in 8 years. EIGHT YEARS. The best they can come up with is Obama or worse yet, Hillary? Never mind Biden for VP.

It's simple, you want a different outcome, you have to change the input.

One thing is sure, as eloquently declared by Frederick Douglass- Change will not happen just by hoping for it.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress,” declared Frederick Douglass in 1857, in response to those who suggested that the great abolitionist was pushing too hard for an end to human bondage. “Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

We are the change. The new culture is being developed as we debate and make a thousand little personal changes. The new vision captures our minds and hearts before it manifests. The intersection of our ideas reforms our past beliefs and projects them into a fluid dynamic from which the new culture, or multiple cultures are born. Our decentralized understandings and lifeways render centralized economics and governance weak and ever more quaint. Chaos is an opportunity to form new and more effective strategies. Human talent is still our most precious resource. The effective management of high speed change through the application of new strategies makes order out of chaos. Applying one's talent to the new fluid culture with sustainably reasoned choices will in time supplant the old culture. Peaceful revolution results.

Howard Zinn ROCKS! His analysis is spot-on!

Zinn: "They don't understand the basic undemocratic nature of the American political system in which all power is concentrated within two parties which are not very far from one another and people cannot easily tell the difference."

-Thank you. It is true Democrats and Republican work like a hand in a glove. If the Democrats were really opposed to Bush and the Republicans they would have impeached him and stopped the war.

Zinn: "There always has been an opposition, but the opposition has always been either crushed or quieted, kept in the shadows, marginalised so their voices are not heard."

-I'm used to the crushing. Here on CD I've been called a Republican troll, a Rove ass, a leftoid, a radical leftist and a naive fool to mention a few for opposing the sold out Democrats that aren't worth a bucket of warm spit.

Zinn: "They do not hear the voices of the people all over this country who do not like the American leaders who want different policies."

-funny how Obama's supporters talk of "change" when we that are voting for 3rd parties are the ones that actually advocate change. Obama is a very conventional status quo politician with a running mate that has endorsed the Republican wars of aggression against both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Zinn: "I think also, people in the rest of the world should know that what they see in Iraq now is really a continuation of a long, long term of American imperial expansion in the world."

-if we are an empire then Obama/McCain are running for emperor. That's why they sound so bellicose and saber rattling.

Zinn would flinch at being called a Marxist, which is reflected in his hopes for "decent people" to launch a rebellion in the US. His uprising will certainly come though around the objective conditions he describes. But it will be lead by class conscious women and men, or Marxists, and they will not fight for whatever is left of our bourgeois democracy but to take power for the only element that deserves to wield it in these perilous times--the working class.

No effective anti-imperialist movement has ever developed inside any empire. There is a mythology among the petty bourgeois, the political circle that Zinn speaks from, that the US domestic anti-war movement had something to do with ending the Vietnam War. The fact is when the US helicopter was pulling those last wretched souls off the embassy roof in 1975 in what was then called Saigon, it marked the military defeat of the US by the Vietnamese people and their armed forces after a protracted guerrilla war. The Vietnamese people were led through this horrendous confrontation with Japanese, French and then US imperialism by Ho Chi Minh and other committed Marxist-Leninists (who understood they were in a class war) and Vietnamese nationalists. The capitalist labor camp that Vietnam has become since then does not change the history.

The Iraqi and Afghan people will end the US occupations of both countries. The US empire and its capitalist economic superstructure will continue to weaken and finally crash. That will create the objective conditions for the revolutionary America where you will be able to get at war criminals like Bush, Cheney, and Pelosi.

Zinn is a learned man and a humanist but the sad truth is that the petty bourgeois cannot defeat the capitalist ruling class! They rail against the outrages and inhumanity of the U.S. government and the Bush Administration. They point out the duplicity, the corruption, the hypocrisy, the inhumanity, and the utter criminality loosed in the world today but to no useful end since capitalism will not be reformed nor shamed to death. Pointing out the defects of capitalism has become as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. The ruling class brushes its liberal democratic critics off like gnats as long as they stay away from the third rail. But let one of these voices dare mention unity based on working class-consciousness and a mobilization to strike at profits and great danger would shortly thereafter visit.

No matter the danger, it must begin to be spoken by a warrior vanguard: socialism is the only way humankind will live into the distant future on this planet. Only a working class with a consciousness of itself and united across all racial, national and cultural boundaries is capable of seizing power. Only a working class in power will see to the end of this madness and willingly share our available resources for the sake of human survival.

There are just enough people enamoured with the current situation (i.e. being paid enough to stay quiet and enjoy the bread and circuses) to keep everything status quo. There just isn't enough of a groundswell to change anything and the deck has been stacked for some time. Voting 3rd party won't do anything either; the situation is too dire for any one man or group to fix.

However, there are ways to piss off even the elite. So we as a group need to think of a way to do that, perhaps taking away something the elite treasure above all. Ok, money, yes, of course, but how? Or what else can be taken away? Let's put our heads together and come up with something that will by default undermine the status quo.

I agree the country could and possibly will split into smaller, more managable regions, perhaps focusing inward more/becoming more self-sufficient vs. being motivated to buy stuff thus pumping our wealth away to countries with their own self-interests at heart (and why not - the U.S. is really no longer the center of the world).

Mr. Zinn said:

"Well, we got to this point because ... I suppose the American people have allowed it to get it to this point because there were enough Americans who were satisfied with their lives, just enough.

Of course, many Americans were not, that is why half of the population doesn't vote, they're alienated.

But there are just enough Americans who have been satisfied, you might say getting some of the "goodies" of the empire, just some of them, just enough people satisfied to support the system, so we got this way because of the ability of the system to maintain itself by satisfying just enough of the population to keep its legitimacy."

First, let me say that I have the greatest respect for Howard Zinn. I'm not sure, however, that his comments about the American people reflect the true nature of the problems we face.

Let's ask these questions:

1. To what degree should we hold the American people responsible for the actions of their government and the powerful, controlling forces inside the US?

2. Are enough Americans being satisfied just enough, as Zinn asserts, to enable the US government to retain its "legitimacy"?

3. Are Americans aware of the international actions of their government or should we reasonably expect them to be?

To my friends on the left, let me say this: whether we criticize the American people for their role in empire, however we define that, we cannot effect the changes we seek without their support. If we choose to find the American people guilty for their role in empire, our mission must, nevertheless emphasize education over confrontation. Few are persuaded while being attacked. We've made that critical error for far too long.

My answer to the above questions is that, if responsible, the American people are guilty of empire only through their negligence and their failure to take seriously their responsibility as national citizens and as global citizens.

I disagree with Zinn's assertion that too many Americans have been bought off by the good life. I don't think Americans are looking the other way; I just don't think they're looking at all. The crime is negligence; not cover-up and avoidance ... at least that's my take. I wouldn't be surprised to receive a sound thrashing on this belief; that's OK - the truth is I'm not sure I'm right.

Too many people I speak to genuinely find it too painful to discuss the horrors our corporate state has imposed on its own citizens and on foreign citizens as well. We are not taught the truth in our public schools. We are not taught the truth by our media. We are not taught the truth by major party candidates. Does Obama speak about empire? Of course not.

I'm afraid that most Americans believe that good and bad can be resolved with the struggle between the two major parties. If something is wrong, just vote in the other guys. The struggle they see isn't between justice and injustice; it's not between empire and autonomy; it's not between freedom and oppression; it's simply the Democrats versus the Republicans.

Again, they aren't averting their eyes from the great truths of our times; they are naively investing in false hopes. Should we hold them responsible for not learning more and for not understanding the times and the issues? Perhaps. Still, we on the left have failed them miserably.

Until the left finds a way to educate and persuade the masses, the changes we seek are not possible. With the inevitable collapse of empire, things will nevertheless change radically. We damned well better have opened a very real and very serious national dialog before that happens. If we fail to do so, the radical changes we will see will not be to our liking. If the masses are not ready to fight for the values we hold when the empire collapses, a much harsher oppression will be the inevitable result.

latest gallup poll shows mccain leading -- 117,500 rigged voting machines to
maybe 2 or 3 hundred tops for obamie n company

Leea,

There's plenty of ready evidence that "our" intellect needs work, but I think you'd better present a list of items to buttress your unsupported assertion that "our spirit is just fine." The list had better be at least twenty pages long to even begin to convince. Nah, we live not only in the United States of Amnesia but in the United States of Pusillanimity, and Howard Zinn has that right.

"just enough Americans who have been satisfied". If the ruling class can allow JUST ENOUGH Americans to be satisfied the exploitation of the majority can continue. The reason for leftist governments being elected in Latin America is explained by this revealing statement. Maybe this has always been the plan.

Desert Time Out

Will we all be gone before we can figure out what’s going on?
We can count time but it seems we can’t take a time out.

Wouldn’t it be nice to back up from the bang or inflate a moment
so we would have time to contemplate nada
like why the universe is flat or randomly structured

perhaps we could find some lost time.... maybe time before we started counting
like before the big bang when we weren’t even a pre tick
a black singularity just waiting ...pre everything....a pre form void..... like taxes due.......

but then there was the word

‘In the beginning was the word....’
was that a pre mirror word or pre big bang word

In the beginning was the word and..
was that the pre matter law or non verbalized law

In the beginning was the word and the.....
I think in a word so I am is a word

In the beginning was the word and the word....
can there be a word ‘I am’ without being

In the beginning was the word and the word was.....
was that a promise &/or a series of bits

In the beginning was the word and the word was with
was that the logos lured by the principal governing the universe?

‘In the beginning was the word and the word was with God.’

full stop

time for symbols
and symbols mean progress
marks in stone to praise priests ‘who knew accounting’
cuneiform forms in the dessert

voids in stone in the dessert ....einstein,

from the pre form void

ah

bliss... the one no revolution will miss

A dieing empire?!? By what measure?

We are living in an expanding empire.

We are not losing power or influence - we are gaining them.

We are losing or have already lost the hearts and minds of world.

The nation is drowning in bullshit.

Rebellion. Revolution. Insurrection.

Bless your heart, Howard, I wish it were so, but none will likely happen, neither in this country, the world, nor in any of our lifetimes.

The Controllers, you see, the corporations and politicians, control us, but they don’t and can’t control Earth.

The only solution to the problem is extinction, the extinction of the human species. Not by one or some or even many humans. Humans won’t likely commit their own extinction.

But Earth can cause our extinction. Remember, more than 99% of all species to ever live on this planet are now extinct.

Sadly, humans are moving ever closer to the moment when Earth will do what Earth does naturally--cause the extinction of Homo sapiens, the so-called intelligent one!

I hope we learn before it's too late, but...

The difference between the US empire and all the other empires in the past, is that the other empires absorbed the lands they conquered, but the USA does not absorb them, for fear of giving their new vassals some human rights, so instead just keeps them as vassal states

"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats

What rebellion? Sarah speaks for mainstream American women. Have it all, baby! Marry a professional and have a good job yourself, and don't worry about the poor and unemployed. They just aren't applying themselves! Drill for more oil and send the boys off to secure Iraq's oil. Gotta feed the SUV and heat the house that is bigger than a lot of churches! Can't take the kids to soccer in a compact. Wild animals belong in zoos - who needs all those Elk herds, seals, and bears and wolves...? Borrow, borrow, borrow and pay no taxes.

We're spoiled, naive and greedy, on the edge of disaster, and the Republicans promise to hold it all together. Somehow. (and abortion is a sin)

Zinn is a tool of the state. Notice he's calling out insurrection which will surely wind up the real opposition locked up or on a watch list. The REAL solution though is to en mass STOP SUPPORTING the CRIMINAL GOVERNMENT by TAX RESISTANCE! Stop paying taxes. Check exempt, work under the table, apply for SSI, stop paying taxes to people who are going to spend your taxes on jails to house you in and bullets to kill your neighbors.

rocyahsoul@yahoo.com
www.lamegame.name
Daniel Vincent Kelley

A good old friend of mine (who'se now deceased) said that in his observation of history, THE USA is ripe for the South American style military revolution of the 30s,40s,50s . . . .

The ONLY PROBLEM is that The US Military is hand-in-hand with the industrial complex, which has bought the politicos (ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL of them).

KEEP DANCING AMERICA. . . . . THE PIPER CAN WAIT!!!!!!

Quoting Howard Zinn:

"Well you know, whatever hope there is lies in that large number of Americans who are decent, who don't want to go to war, who don't want to kill other people.

"It is hard to see that hope because these Americans who feel that way have been shut out of the communications system, so their voices are not heard, they are not seen on the television screen, but they exist."

Nither is the average citizen's feedback immediatley apparent at the CommonDreams.org website! Their posts are "hidden." ... For shame, CommonDreams ownership! For shame!

and so the emperor has created an army of clones, and it is us

Living in a dying Empire sure sucks.

The american people are too obese to revolt...their will, their minds, their bodies have pigged out on mainstream 'fast-food' news garbage.

They will revolt only if there is real pain. But don't worry. That's what the big drug companies and their political shills in washington are there for...

As Leonard Cohen sings, "The fix is in...the good guys lost...

"may you live in interesting times"

The warmongers are about to go bankrupt. You can help- withdraw your money from the bank.

We should organize a progressive money withdraw.... en masse.

Quoting Howard Zinn from the above interview:

"I think ... a lot of people in the world think that this war in Iraq is an aberration, that before this the United States was a benign power.

"It has never been a benign power, from the very first, from the American Revolution, from the taking-over of Indian land, from the Mexican war, the Spanish-American war.

"It is embarrassing to say, but we have a long history in this country of violent expansion and I think not only do most people in other countries [not] know this, most Americans don't know this."

This is the brutal, murderous reality that the US political establishment -- along with the criminally-complicit mainstream media -- along with both a mis-informed and an ill-informed American public ... are assiduously unwilling to admit.

And unless these mass murders, current and historical, are acknowledged, the United States is doomed -- morally, ethically, biologically -- take your pick.

Here are just *some* of the recent war crimes US imperialism is responsible for.

-- According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (hardly a left-wing source of information), the US killed 2,250,000 million Vietnamese -- at least 900,000 of whom were civilians. They also either killed, wounded or made homeless over 14 million Indochinese.

-- Afghanistan is the 20th country the US has bombed since the end of World War II. All these countries have been poor, already-devastated countries. Many of them didn't have an air forces. With Iraq not even having a standing army. And Afghanistan having 1 in 7 people either starving or in imminent danger of starving *before* the US started bombing that country! (Note: Both McCain and Obama want to "escalate" the war in this country.)

-- Setting aside what the Western powers have done to what is now Iraq *before* the 20st century:

... The US raped Iraq by way of Gulf War I -- killing over 200,000 Iraqis.

... The US then raped Iraq a *second* time, via US and UK-led economic sanctions against the Iraq people -- killing over 1,000,000 Iraqis, many of them children.

For over 10 years, approximately, 300 children a day died as a direct result of these sanctions. ... The following is from a May 12, 1996 interview of Madeline Albright, Bill Clinton's Secretary of State, by Leslie Stahl on "60 Minutes."

-- Leslie Stahl: "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"

-- Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it."

This was the "body count" in 1996 -- with the total number of Iraqis who died as a direct result of the economic sanctions exceeding 1,000,000. See the following -- http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&domains=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.counterpunch.org&sitesearch=http%3A%2F%2Fw...

... The US is now in the process of raping Iraq for a *third* time, having
killed -- sorry, *murdered* -- an additional 1,000,000 Iraqis. See, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/31/6768/

People who are in denial for a long period of time are usually classified as insane. See the following, "Insanity in America" -- http://www.counterpunch.org/chuckman06032004.html

recommended reading, The Great Turning by David Korten

The Empire is bound to fall, but a better world is already being built. The stronger we make it, the better chance it will survive the storm.

Zinn: US 'In Need of Rebellion'
__________________________________

Incidentally-- isn't this kind of "inflammatory"?

If Zinn isn't careful, he'll be booted right off the genteel Reformed comments!

I have posted this concept here before with little notice. Progressives are blind to the power of life culture. No, I'm not speaking of the christian narrow life beliefs, but the broader life issues embodied by Indigenous beliefs.

Death reigns in American culture today. One need not list the death culture item by item because it permeates every aspect of American life. American politics today is just a reflection of the death culture.

Establishing a culture of Life is the ONLY path to defeat the death culture. Life is not a piecemeal process. One cannot support abortion and be against war, and visa versa. Life is all or nothing, and nothing less than a full and complete commitment to life will reverse the world's race toward destruction.

If American's cannot very soon adopt a comprehensive life culture then death will stalk us to an early end.

This "interview" was more of a taste, or tease, than a substantive dialogue.

What I liked most is that they didn't make a point of drawing out another tepid recommendation from Zinn to pull the lever for You-Know-Who.

There are in the US cultural elements which make it difficult for people to get together, to function as a genuine society rather than as a collection of individuals serving only themselves.

Though the list of such elements will be long, one is the tradition of strong individuality. And that has led to the diminution of the very idea of the common good. We get around in private cars rather than public transport. Individual cell phones have replaced public phones. City planning, of course, has been structured around the private vehicle—and that has its own consequences for land values, housing prices, air quality, and so forth.

The national values, unfortunately, are not all-embracing; they include only what's dear to me and mine, so to say.

A great truth of life is that no man is an island, that we are all spun together in this very grand and large enterprise called life, and whatever we do has an effect over the entire range of creation. In attending only to our own needs for comfort and material satisfaction, in increasing our material wealth without expanding our inner life—that is what causes not only a national decline, but also a personal decline. The two are inseparable, just as a green forest is made of individually green trees.

Huge financial fortunes are of no worth when the time comes to leave this life behind. Those who are slaves to their efforts to amass a fortune discover far too late that they have wasted all their time.

What the US faces, I submit, is a spiritual crisis, and what that means is that people have become blind to their inner nature, which is where real wealth lies.
Beyond a certain level of material wealth, little is gained in robbing from the self to gather more and more wealth.

It is not difficult to turn the life into better, more fulfilling one. There are techniques of spiritual development available now, making it possible for people to have both kinds of wealth, inner and outer. The transformation of the nation will come only when and if the individuals of the nation decide that they want to experience their true inner nature, which is one of peace and fulfillment. The Almighty Father has designed life that way, that what a man needs in this life is inside him. He needs only to gain access to that inner light and life.

The religions of the world do not offer a man a practical means to dive deep into his inner nature. Religions offer wonderful words and lofty ideals—but no means to achieve those great ideals.

It is not enough to pray and have good thoughts. Thousands of years of history have proven religion not only inadequate but also a divisive force pitting man against man and man against nature.

The mind has to transcend the boundaries of thought and reach boundless, infinite awareness. It is a universal state of life and anyone can reach it, easily and regularly.

The technique of transcending is taught worldwide to people of all flags, all religions, all stations of society, and all ages. It is simple. It is universal. It is effective.

www.tm.org

USA has been the most successful warring nation state on the planet the past 200+ years. From thirteen states on the Atlantic littoral it has won war after war to become what it is today, a replacement for the British Empire with bases and holdings all around the planet. USA a scarcely had a two year period in its history when its military was not attacking someone or other.It still puts more into military than everyone else put together,so, even with a bit of corruption (others have corruption too) it can do what it wants.
Democracy is relatively young in human history, and we haven't gone very far in figuring to how to work it. My reading of USA media is that a lot of USA people really like UK royalty. Sometimes USA politics seems to be the preserve of a group of families of the nobility, the York and Lancaster clans trying to wrest control for themselves, not with swords and shields, but by manipulating public opinion and running the voting system. Not many people worry about it.So, democracy could be shucked for some other government form quite easily.
USA has for a long time bled its wealth from other parts of the world. It still runs the world finances, and I don't see that ending soon.
Democracy might fade even more in USA, to be replaced by something more openly authoritarian; the structures are already in place.
I don't see the USA sinking under its own top heaviness; history suggests that one-time democracies can easily morph into other forms that can last a long time.

(But...if USA does break up into smaller units, we in Mexico and Canada have a few 'irrendentia' memories of our own we might like to reconsider...Heh,heh,heh!)

"Your destiny is a mystery to us."
- Chief Seattle 1854

http://www.barefootsworld.net/seattle.html

I wonder if American power (corporate owned state power) really is in decline? Look around the world. The US now has a ring of compliant states surrounding Russia, American corporations are dominating the Chinese economy, and now has the biggest military presence, ever, in the middle east. The US owns the oceans and is the sole dominating presence in space. Military bases, Naval task forces, spy satellites are everywhere, there are no rivals. Where's the decline? It's not a decline from the perspective of an apologist for American Empire.

The US has lost it's moral legitimacy? Did it ever have moral legitimacy? From it's inception it has acted as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The guys with the big guns won and their decline is a long way off, however much we may despise them.

The easiest, most convenient, most accessible way to rebel -- to "rise up" -- is to vote for a progressive third party candidate.

Let's say the Election is, again, rigged (and keep in mind that US elections have been rigged going back many, many years) -- let's say the Election in November is rigged, that still doesn't take away the dramatic impact a strong showing by a third party candidate would have on the political status quo.

What if before the Election, Nader and McKinney are, together, polling 8-10% of the vote. If the polls indicate they are at that level, then it would be hard to "fix" their vote-total at anything significantly less than 8-10%. ... And 8-10% represents a vote-total that neither the political establishment nor their Sicilian messenger boys, the mainstream media, can ignore.

So the short-term goal is not to win -- at least not for now -- but, rather, to increase Ralph Nader's 2000 vote total of 2.7% to, say, 5% or 6% -- or, along with Cynthia McKinney, to get the combined progressive vote to, say, 8-10% of the electorate.

And that's a realistic, do-able short-term goal.

Quoting from a recent article by Donna Volatile,

"McCain is a war mongering bully who is in your face, Obama, on the other hand, is a smooth talker, whose own Foreign policy positions aren't too far removed from McCain's and one has to wonder which is worse, or indeed if there really is any difference at all. (The idea of voting for the lesser of two evils, McCain being the more evil, according to Obama supporters, seems ludicrous given that both of these candidates will ultimately do the bidding of their masters and the master plan is the same for both parties. This should be quite apparent by now and if it isn't, well, by all means vote for Obama and reap your just rewards...Do you really think 'Obomba's' idea of war will be kinder and gentler than McCain's?...)

"Obama supporters will tell you 'but he's honest and so sincere', and 'he's run a clean campaign' or 'he's one of us' (that one always gets me) but they remain blinded to what is obvious to many on the radical left and many on the traditional conservative/libertarian right: Obama is a player and he is playing the game of the global elitists.

"Since he has all but secured his party's nomination, he's becoming more militaristic by the minute, in both tone and by his stance on several key Foreign policy issues.

"Obama and his VP Choice, Senator Biden, however, are not the crux of the problem but rather the mainstream voters are the problem as they continue to enable the corrupt two party system by consistently supporting the candidates being foisted upon them by controllers who select them in the first place and who are reinforced by the mainstream media machine in the second. These are not choices, these are lack of choices and if voters continue to participate in this sham, then they truly get what they deserve!

"With Obama supporters, the phrase 'blinded by the light' takes on a whole new meaning. What part don't you get?! (This is the party threatening to place demonstrators at the DNC in recently erected detention camps and the party whose House majority leader, Nancy Pelosi, ridicules the anti-war movement and the homeless: 'If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they'd be arrested for loitering but because they have 'Impeach Bush' across their chest, it's the First Amendment.' Funny how both parties get upset over that whole free speech thing...)

"What is most stunning about delusional Obama supporters is, when confronted by the aforementioned facts about Obama, they counter with this inane idea that Obama is only 'saying' these things, he doesn't really mean them, it's only to get elected and once he gets elected the true altruistic essence of the man will save us all from tyranny! (Can we say reality check?!)

"Their indefensible support of this double talker is beyond comprehension. ...

If you want to help put a stop to the rigged election game, if you really want to make a difference and you want your voice of disapproval to be heard, then do VOTE! Vote for ANYBODY but the two buffoons, who have been pre-selected for you by the global elitist machine. Send a message, loud and clear: We refuse your choices.

"Vote Nader, vote McKinney, vote Ron Paul, vote Bob Barr, write in a vote, do whatever but don't support the corrupt system. Commit to a protest vote. Vote your conscience, do not vote under the 'lesser of two-evils' threat because then YOU are part of the problem, not part of the possible solution. (We've been on this trip too many times before ... From 'hope and help is on the way' Kerry to Obama's constant harping on 'Change We Can Believe In', you have been sold a bill of goods from first to last. For all of Obama's talk of change, his words and actions show quite clearly, he means more of the same...)

"For those die hard Obama supporters who refuse to see the hand writing on the wall... YOU are the problem... For those die-hard Hillary Clinton supporters, promising to vote for McCain because your war-monger wasn't the chosen one, seek psychiatric help immediately.

"And one more thing ... Evil is evil, bad is bad, wrong is wrong regardless of sex, race, creed or color.

"And another thing ... If you vote for Obama, you are neither liberal nor are you progressive, so let's get that straight. If you vote for Obama, you are a neoliberal, so get use to it.

"Stop making excuses, there are none and time is running out as an even larger war may be in the making.

"Get those blinders off!

"This is your wake up call!"

(Words in parenthesis Ms. Volatile's)

Click here for the entire article -- http://www.counterpunch.org/volatile08282008.html

This was not the greatest interview considering the source that was available to tap. What "they" don't understand is that apathy is not selective once it sets in--it goes to everyone and everything.

If and when civil disobediance escalates (because as JFK once said,"those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable") the same average achlubs who don't know and don't care about these issues will feel the same way toward those in law enforcement who start getting shot, beaten, or even killed when rage boils over into action.

It is already happening with "our troops" who are all volunteers and increasingly discovering that more and more people really don't much care about their sacrifice from having been in combat be it physical or emotional.

Poet

Bring it on!

quickstepper,
Guess what? The mainstream media is controlled by corporations, and although he doesn't mention it with those words, it is implied when he says corporations control this country. Duh!

Great as always Howard.

It's going to be harder, if not impossible to achieve this change today by dissent, organizing and mass protest. The oligarchy has seen to this.

As if it weren't enough that they steal our public treasure, we continually empower the oligarchy by giving them our money. We buy their stuff and use their banks. We watch, hear and read their media, buy their computers, their stock, food, cars, homes, education, healthcare, transportation, fuel, energy and everything else from them. We have become completely dependent on the oligarchy.

Bloodless means to shackle Mammon, like incorporating We the People or adopting direct democracy by means of Senator Gravel's National Initiative for Democracy are suspect and ignored.

Working within the rigged electoral system isn't working. Passionate pleas to vote third party fall on deaf ears. And starting a civil war against our providers won't fly with the majority.

People are glued to the MSM, praying for miracles, drowning in alcohol, binging on junk food and waving the flag.

Chances of success by historic means are slim. Crowd control devices abound and police repression and publicly traded prisons are de rigeur. Plus nobody wins in war except for maybe oligarchy war profiteers.

At least we still have CD for catharsis.

An open rebellion would lead to mass slaughter, the quick imposition of martial law and subsequent bullet proof totalitarian rule in this country by the Praetorian party, formerly known as the Repimplicans and the Democrats. Neither George Wanker Bush, Cheesedick Cheney nor Nancy Pelosi are going to let anyone threaten one penny of their fortunes, their power or their privilege. In the 1960's the Black Panthers got an enormous amount of publicity since the MSM of its time made a lot of money scaring white people with images of gun toting black men. In the larger sense, the Panthers had no real political power, yet men like Mark Clark and Fred Hampton were openly murdered by the Bushes and Cheneys of their day.

The vast majority of Americans no longer value their civil liberties; they are, as Scott Ritter has said, consumers and no longer citizens. That's the true heart of darkness in the decline of the United States. If that cannot be reversed then it truly is all over. You would think that the easily visible decline of the middle class would eventually result in a progressive government that was dedicated to putting a stop to that decline. It seems, however, that the worse things get for the boorgies, the more they love the Repimplicans. It's irrational; it makes absolutely no sense, but that's the history of the human race, once neatly summed up by Raymond Chandler who wrote that humanity always acts like a gangster gleefully trying out his first machine gun.

It seems like when Empires die, they either slowly fade into another (England morphed into the US after WWII) or they die violently, with a nationalistic frenzy and pogrom at the end (Italy and Germany)

The question is how will the USA go? Or will we go like the USSR did (more than likely) where the US will split into different countries?

Zinn: US 'In Need of Rebellion'

I agree, but ya, right. Where are we going to fit that in between nose to the grindstone and blowtorch to the ass trying to buy the next pet rock?

I keep seeing the same old, same old: blame the corporate media for doing their job: which is making money. Just because the media is "Constitutionally protected" doesn't mean it is Constitutionally obligated - corporate media IS Constitutionally obligated to make stockholders maximum profits!

And blame the Republicans for making themselves rich when they call themselves "The business party"? That is why people have businesses: to get rich! And blame the Democrats for taking care of the rich without whose money they couldn't get elected? And blame the Democratic politicians for helping the rich when most of the leaders of the Democratic party are also rich?

Yes, blame Bush, blame big money, blame media, blame parties, blame, blame, blame: blame any and everybody but yourselves and your fellow citizens. Because if you did that you'd be admitting that the majority of the citizens of the United States are greedy, lazy, enablers of mass murder for profit as the greedy, lazy mass murderers they enable by putting into office.

"If there is any hope, the hope lies in the American people."

Much as I admire Dr. Zinn, as an American, I'm afraid I don't think so. I don't see that there is any real opposition here, and in any case the corporates (Democrats and Republicans) have too tight a grip on everything. There was a time when we could have fought them, but the frigging pacifists decided their idealism was more important than human lives or democracy or human rights or anything else. I think it's now like the case in Germany during the late 30s and early 40s (tho much more violent and much better armed); it's gotten too bad for the people within the country to deal with it. Like with the Nazis, it will take people outside the nation to wake up and deal with it and defeat it once and for all.

What disgusts me the most is that I hear so many people outside the US criticizing the US and yet they are the ones (especially the Europeans) who perpetuate it by doing business with it, maintaining relations with it, contributing to its wars and so on. It's my belief that, at this point, it's business interests outside the US who keep it going. Without their support and continued financing the Democrats and Republicans would be out of power in a day.

remember the greeks?,the romans?,the british, the usa, they and hundreds of empires before them, if you do not believe that a sky god, made all this evidence of a long evolutionary past, complete with fossil samples and supportive empirical studies, simply to "test ones faith", then history repeats as each new iteration of greed, reaches the point where keeping the populace sickly, fat, uninformed and frightened, is the last form of control, as the imbalance of wealth becomes obscene.

by instilling fear and suspicion in the populations, manufacturing "news" containing only the official line, with the odd bit of scandal to appear balanced, the few control the many.

as with all of the empires that preceded the latest greatest "new world order" experiment, it all comes to a boil shortly after this point, resulting in many lives lost and vast treasures being "redistributed" among the many, in a not so pretty, but inevitable way.

simplify now
get off the merry-go round
buy local and only what you need
it's gonna get a lot uglier before it gets better, try to insulate yourself from the crunch.

those who do not depend on all the gadgets and crap will not notice when the whole web comes tumbling down, the unfortunate "wired" ones will be left twisting in the void..

I have lived outside of the States for 20 years and when asked what's wrong with my country I say you have to separate the America people from the American government. When asked why do the American people continue to support the Bush gang I tell them that they don't support him or his policies. I tell them that the people of America can't even get rid of guns in our society, so how can you expect the people to take away the favorite toys of our fathers and the main source of income for their empire.
Hoa binh