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TechnoratiAmericans Unwilling to Face Reality
It's not as though no one saw it coming. Here's the economist Michael Hudson, writing in the May 2006 issue of Harper's Magazine: "The reality is that, although home ownership may be a wise choice for many people, this particular real-estate bubble has been carefully engineered to lure home buyers into circumstances detrimental to their own best interests. . . . The bubble will burst, and when it does, the people who thought they would be living the easy life of a landlord will soon find that what they really signed up for was the hard servitude of debt serfdom."
Other commentators, including this paper's editorial writers and Warren Buffet, said similar things about the derivatives market. It was prescient stuff for anybody who cared to listen, but hardly anybody did. Americans, perhaps even more than other people, have difficulty embracing the concept of "reality."
In part, this is religious. America remains the land of infinite redemption where any crook can suddenly go straight. In part, it stems from our turbo-charged ethos of capitalism. America has always been the land of get-rich-quick and damn the consequences. We are a nation of fantasists, and things have to get really bad before a politician has the right to trade in hard truth.
So far, I don't think they've gotten bad enough. Even with all the frenzied commentary about the credit crisis now choking the media (while the financial geniuses assembled at the corner of Wall and K Streets scramble to save their hides), I'm struck more by what's not being said than what is.
Every day I add to a list of critical omissions from the debate. Where, for example, is the voice of organized labor? In previous generations, we could have expected to see the president of the AFL-CIO or the United Auto Workers on the sets of the major talk shows. Apart from David Brancaccio's NOW on PBS, I couldn't find a single TV program that featured what might be called a "labor leader."
Where are the alternative candidates for president like Ralph Nader and Bob Barr? I was pleased to hear that Nader, a long-time critic of the deregulated economy, was permitted to appear on CNN and The O'Reilly Factor after the second McCain-Obama debate, but the time for that was before the House passed the bailout bill.
Why is the heavy financial support for Barack Obama and John McCain from Wall Street off limits for discussion? It's unlikely they will be asked about it in tonight's debate - the two parties write the rules to discourage tough questions - but some impertinent journalist might. If you can't get the media-trained Obama to give a straight answer, why not simply present a graphic contrasting Obama's Reno speech supporting the bailout and Nader's argument against it?
For that matter, in its recent take-down of Alan Greenspan and Clinton administration deregulation (including the refusal to regulate derivatives trading), why didn't The New York Times mention that former Clinton Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers are principal advisers to Obama on the economy? In the same vein, why isn't Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, challenged on his slow response to the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failures?
The only serious critic I've found was interviewed in France's Le Monde: Columbia finance Prof. Rama Cont argues that six months ago the bailout of the two mortgage agencies would have cost $100 billion instead of an eventual $400 billion to $500 billion. Who pocketed the difference, thanks to Paulson's "indulgence" of his former colleagues? According to Cont, it was short sellers at Goldman Sachs and hedge funds.
Meanwhile, where are the deep thinkers who might enlighten us in this hour of fear, including Karl Marx? Don't laugh. Marx had much to say about the so-called "contradictions of capitalism" that bears re-reading today. Nothing he wrote is perfectly applicable to subprime mortgages and the derivatives crapshoot. But Marx's understanding that unfettered capitalism, while fantastically productive, leads to instability by concentrating wealth in too few hands - that a mass-production/mass-consumption society is fundamentally incompatible with oligarchic control of wealth - is something even Rush Limbaugh could appreciate.
If Marx is too rich for your blood, at least we might hear from John Gray, the renegade former adviser to Margaret Thatcher. Gray is today's most intelligent critic of globalization and "free trade." He could explain to a television audience that a great deal of America's "real economy" (as opposed to an economy based on derivatives trading and shopping at Wal-Mart) has already left the country for cheap-labor locales such the Pearl River Delta, in China, and the south bank of the Rio Grande, never to return. And he could describe the destruction wreaked on traditional societies that suddenly become host to outsourced American factories. Youngstown and Utica are hurting, to be sure, but it's no picnic either these days for the working class in Nogales or Dongguan.
Finally, there are the great realist novelists, who often see more clearly than journalists. So far, my Google search has not picked up any excerpts from Zola's novel Money being read on the nightly news. In this brilliant chronicle of a speculative stock bubble, launched by a character named Saccard in 1860s Paris, Zola cuts right to the heart of America's boom-and-bust neurosis: "Wasn't such great and rapid prosperity the result of the methods for which [Saccard] was now being blamed. All of this came together. If one accepted the success, one had to accept the risks. When you overheat a machine, it sometimes explodes."
47 Comments so far
Show AllPerhaps america would be more willing to face reality if they had access to alternative points of view. Our corporate media serves its masters by being CHEERLEADERS for the corporate point of view. How about full honest debates with a wider spectrum of opinions? The brainwashing that one has to be either a Democrat or a Republican warps us and keeps us from leaders who can lead us in a very different direction. Getting caught up in the "horse race" and needing to "win" keeps us from facing reality. Regardless of where you live, my hope for change rests in votes for Nader or McKinney.
One of the greatest acts of treason by the politicians and the mainstream media was the selling of the capitalist system.
The way it was sold was that it was in our interests without ever explaining how capitalism actually worked. If they had explained instead of repeating over and over again about the joys of capitalism not a single person would ever have accepted it.
Capitalism is an elitist system created to seduce us into pandering to our own worst traits whilst at the same time blinding us to the fact that capitalism was a means for the Ruling Elite to acquire complete control of all the resources on the planet and turn 99.999% of us into slaves and declaring themselves gods.
The bailout is just handing our money to the Ruling Elite without actually doing a thing to "save" the economy, it is actually meant to destroy what little is left of social infrastructure.
The capitalist mantra is 'greed is good at any cost' and now we are seeing this cost and how we have been duped by this lie.
Right now we stand at a crossroads and are being fleeced yet again by politicians who are not working for the interests of the majority of the people they are meant to serve but actually serving a very tiny number of people who are dictating what they do and say. Have we not learned anything from the continuous lies of the politiicans?
You see the politicians want us to continue the capitalist system until the time comes for the Ruling Elite to take control of a totalitarism society something akin to what George Orwell warned us about in 1984, we are already alarmingly close to this but we still have time to avert it.
What we have to realise is that the politicians are just tools and that political parties are there to divide us internally in our own nations, just as nation states are there to divide us internationally - we are all one, yes we may look different ( a good thing ) but we are all one - humanity.
Wars are waged to keep us living in fear and to instill hatred amongst us and all we are doing by this is hastening our own suicide whilst the Ruling Elite make untold billions from the sale of weapons from the military-industrial complex.
It is up to us to stop this madness and it will never happen if we continue to rely on politicians who serve the Ruling Elite, we have to do it ourselves by taking control of our own lives and destiny.
The time has come for capitalism to end.
Think outside the box.
It is time that a system is created where every man and woman is equal, no matter what they do in society, a system where we work for the greater good of all humanity, a system where we pool our resources for creativity and not destruction. A system where peace, harmony and unity are the foundation, a system which can maybe called Equalitism.
We have to work together, no matter our personal differences to end Capitalism and the Ruling Elite before it is too late.
peace and love
all is illusion...there is no government
Americans face reality several times a week on reality based tv. It is just like my family, isn't it just like yours??????????
Upon reading "Das Kapital" at an early age, I have always felt that the
"Capitalist" System would eventually implode. Karl Marx was indeed a forward
looking thinker, as was Albert Einstein.
The United States could slip into a "Fascist" state, if the Corporate control
of the Media is not somehow breached.
Its already a fascist police state.
-- EKATON --
The good path begs hardship and yet we willingly walk it with civility and guarded love. Indignities do not diminish our dignity. We carry the seeds of wisdom into an unknowable future and share it freely with those who can hear. Then we just endure, finding our happiness where we know it lies, in the earned lifeways of enlightened simplicity and harmony. It is there that we exist in community.
The United States isn't ruled by predatory elites. Predatory elites operate in the shadows of society, but the real ruler is...
TV.
Nothing plays in politics unless it plays on TV, and all the talk about evil villains on Wall Street is just another distraction.
Public discourse is dominated by TV, and it's exactly like lobotomizing the entire electorate.
Nothing but slogans and sound bites. No history. Economics represented by a few crude mottos from the neo-cons. All other social sciences entirely unheard of.
The decerebrated public blunders from one disaster to another, and it doesn't need any help from evil villains to break both legs.
Posters on sites like CommonDreams absolutely can't accept the fact that their little voices are as nothing compared to TV.
As nothing.
Mice whisper together in corners of the internet, while the enormous voice of TV decides every issue.
TV can't support a discussion of derivatives, and the few editorials that John MacArthur mentions were lost in millions of distractions, while predatory elites stole hundreds of billions of dollars.
There's no way to eliminate predatory elites, which are a brute fact of every human society, and no matter how many wise little editorials may be published in The Providence Journal or on CommonDreams, as long as the public is stupefied by TV...
None of the wise editorials really matter.
Predatory elites cannot be eliminated, but commercial TV isn't a fundamental part of human nature.
That thing can be destroyed, if we have the will to destroy it.
But isn't it easier to write a wise little editorial, or a wise little comment, and pretend that it matters?
Jacob Freeze
Yes, I am reminded of the main character's wife in Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" . . . always mesmerized by the images and stories coming from the movies shown daily on their television wall. The main character (can't remember his name) was always just as sick and fed up with her and her obsession as he was with his "fireman's job" of burning.
Americans have become that woman in the story. And the ruling elite love it.
Jacob with this and your previous posts on this thread, you have said it as well as anyone. TV is the great fascist tool..mesmerization on a massive scale. By far, TV has done more damage to the mind of the human race than any war or drug. It's tasteless (pun intended) and odorless, causes no obvious physical damage, it's very cheap when calculated over a 24/7 basis and is virtually accessible to everyone. The perfect, legal drug to keep the masses under control.
For the sake of your own soul, America, break free and experience your own creativity.
Here's the thing, Jacob.
I totally agree with you that the ruling class has total control over the top down media. And that top down media is overwhelming our little whispering in the corners.
The only thing we have going for us is that they are spouting bullshit in furtherance of the oppression and robbing of the masses. So we have truth and resistance on our side.
Will we win? Probably not. Someone pointed out on another thread that the most likely scenario is that martial law will be installed, resistors will be removed and terminated and the compliant remainders will have better lives with us gone (more for them).
But what can we do but try to make a better world for all?
"But what can we do but try to make a better world for all?"
What can we do?
We can destroy commercial TV.
How?
In the first instance, with humility. Constantly flattering the TV audience is an essential element of the business of con-men like Obama, Karl Rove, and all the other mass hypnotists who thrive on TV.
"You geniuses of the TV audience can easily resist the power of full motion and sound advertising. You aren't really puppets for advertising puppet-masters who decide what you want and what you think you need."
But everything that the TV audience thinks it needs, everything that the TV audience thinks it wants, everything is chosen and decided for it by mass advertising, and full motion and sound video is an essential and irresistible element of the mechanics of mass domination.
The apparent reality of video acts too strongly on the unconscious for compensation by conscious reservations. A tiny fringe of immune individuals may stand outside the realm of mass advertising, but trying to build a democracy on the basis of so few is like trying to build a democracy on the basis of chess prodigies.
We have to be humble enough to realize that commercial video advertising is too seductive for most of us to resist.
Commercial TV can be destroyed, if we have the will to destroy, but...
Most of us are so thoroughly addicted that the idea of destroying commercial TV sounds like a bad joke.
"You want to take away my drug? You must be joking!"
American society and American politics obviously need an intervention, but this isn't the sort of intervention that Oprah is willing to arrange.
Jacob Freeze
I don't see how you can destroy commercial TV with humility.
I think we have to have the humility to admit that we're stooges for TV before we can fight it.
Here we are commenting on an article that claims "six months ago the bailout of the two mortgage agencies would have cost $100 billion instead of an eventual $400 billion to $500 billion. Who pocketed the difference, thanks to Paulson's "indulgence" of his former colleagues? According to Cont, it was short sellers at Goldman Sachs and hedge funds."
This is a rather large crime. The biggest bank robbery ever (Brinks) netted about $10 million. This was 30,000 times bigger.
While $300 billion was being stolen by Goldman Sachs, while this unthinkably enormous crime was being committed, what were the rest of us doing?
We were watching TV.
Jacob Freeze
I'm just pursuing the analogy between TV and a drug that's too seductive for most people to resist.
The first step in typical 12-step programs is "recognizing a higher power."
In this case, the "higher power" happens to be evil, and nobody is going to seriously attack commericial TV until we have the humility to recognize that it's stronger than we are.
Here we are commenting on an article that claims short-sellers at Goldman Sachs may have pocketed as much as $300 billion in the last few months before Fannie Mae collapsed.
"Six months ago the bailout of the two mortgage agencies would have cost $100 billion instead of an eventual $400 billion to $500 billion. Who pocketed the difference, thanks to Paulson's "indulgence" of his former colleagues? According to Cont, it was short sellers at Goldman Sachs and hedge funds."
What were the rest of us doing while this unthinkably enormous crime was being committed?
We were watching TV.
Jacob Freeze
It's not just the elites but the American people exploiting each other in nastier ways. Have you seen the way people hiss and sneer at the idea of community service on news media blogs, radio, and even TV itself? America is not a Christian nation when it does not believe in true love but extreme selfishness.
i have a theory about USA, or about countries that don't have a good left. Well the thing is that countries that are on the verge of collapse and don't have a good left like USA have revolutions indeed, even popular revolutions, however, these revolutions don't breed socialist systems, but fascist systems dictatorial right wing regimens, and that's what will happen in America. An Adolf Hitler will rise out of US chaos not a socialist system
"why not simply present a graphic contrasting Obama's Reno speech supporting the bailout and Nader's argument against it?"
Everyone knows O'Bama serves elites while Nader serves the people. We don't need any more evidence of that. What we need to show is the elite boot on the necks of the people that prevents them from voting their better interests, election after election. The news is out: Other societies enjoy the same standard of living as Americans for only half the time, effort, and energy.
You need a Congress and the courts that would support Nader's great ideas. I'm not sure he will be able to do much better than Obama. Maybe Nader could sign executive orders but I'm not sure Congress or the courts will let him do it even though it will be towards the people's benefit. Besides, based on the comments on the news media blogs and on the TV, even Obama's moderate ideas are getting hisses and sneers. If we Americans were not so selfish and arrogant, President Nader would have won in 1980 and we wouldn't have Ronnie Raygun to screw this country up.
I don't think America and the future president Obama will change things as fundamentally as we would like to think (and as much as we really need). The reason I say this is that things are still not as bad as they were in the Great Depression--the last time there was REAL reform in this country.
Allthough the current economy is nothing to be happy about, it was far worse in the early 30's when FDR was swept into office. Then we had an official unemployment rate of 25% (unofficially probably closer to 40%) and those with jobs had sharply cut wages. The present housing crisis, while bad, can't compare to back then; when in New York alone 5000 families a week were being evicted. When banks were failing by the thousands. My dad was a farmer and he remembers that corn was selling for - 5 cents a bushel--you took corn to the local elevator and you had to pay them five cents to take it.
Americans are so wrapped-up in the myth of Yankee self-reliance that only something as drastic as the Great Depression makes us look at real change.
Another critical factor present back in the 30's but not present today--a strong sense of solidarity in the laboring classes. It was the fear of the laboring classes in this country finally uniting and taking over the truly frightened the ruling economic elite into allowing fundamental reforms to save themselves.
Even with all these factors on his side, FDR still faced tremendous opposition to his reforms; and even an attempted military coup to drive him from office.
So while I do feel that Obama will make some changes, I don't think he or the American people--under the present situation--are going to truly tackle the fundamental problems that need to be tackled for true reform to take place.
You are right, people in this country are too apathetic, too unemotional, too ignorant indeed. And that's right, there has been a sort of *devolution* in this country, probably with the help of technology. Because technology makes people dumber
You're correct about everything except perhaps the emotional part. People are showing emotion but in the wrong direction. We're still a nation where people will persecute those who believe in community organization, sharing, understanding, and true love. Maybe that's why divorce rates in this country are the highest against any other country in the world, no?
Yes, the diminution of the honest man and woman who believes in community and cooperation, not competition, has been sharply evident. An arrogant ignorance based upon the size of one's bank accounts has been an ever increasing theme in America. The competitive crooks rule. Wealth and power flow to the dishonest and deceitful. Screwing the other guy has become a nationally accepted game and anyone who plays fair is seen as a fool and an easy mark. Communitarians have been increasingly squeezed out of American life as the hard cold edge of social darwinism has laid them low. Yet we persist in our diminished capacity, adjusting to our lives of increasing economic hardship with hope under assault. We remain true to our values and cultivate the soil so that in seeding the next generation diminished hope may grow once again in the hearts of the young. That is our solace.
I'm not sure we're unwilling to face reality---but the 'dominate' group is hell bent and determined that we don't see reality. Too busy as 'debt slaves', it keeps the average American stuck on the rat treadmill and unable to look up and see what's happening.
We will have to confront this 'dominator' system--and there are plenty of folks offering new alternatives. Check out Riane Eisler's Real Wealth of Nations...creating a caring economy. It outlines a full spectrum economy that would enable us to shift out of the consumer/dominator economy into a full spectrum/caring economy--it would offer a long term solution and enable us all to wake to real life again. Check it out www.partnershipway.org
Americans are taught not to take responsibility for their actions and reinforced at every opportunity, by those who do not want to relinquish control of government of this country to its rightful owners.
It's just so much easier to "vote" once every four years.
The pretense of real choice is choreographed with song and dance.
Go ahead and groan if you like, but you can't beat " ♪ Tea for Two ♪ "!
THE CAUSE OF WHY USA IS FUCKED UP IS *PHYSICAL TIREDNESS* OF US CITIZENS WHICH LEADS US CITIZENS TO TURN INTO "PHILOSOPHICAL ZOMBIES"
My theory is that US citizens are tired, not ignorant. That's right *tiredness* itself from chores, work, and a very hyperactive lifestyle of America leads US citizens to alienate themselves from being curious about politics. life in USA is real exhausting lead even to fatigue, to back problems, life in this country is hard, people have to drive a lot in this *dysfunctional country*
The Democratic Party is a wing of the 1 party system. Like Gore Vidal said, i suspect that is the main reason of why Democrat High Cupula leaders (Not Kucinich) but its highest leaders never insult or attack Republican Party. You miht wanna recall how Bill Clinton deffended Bush with a passion when Chavez called Bush the devil at the UN speech
Remember how many many times Obama says "Mccain is a great war hero. And we must work together in a "bipartizan" way to stop "dictators" like Chavez" hmmmm
what we have here in USA is a *conspiracy* of both parties trying to make us poorer and poorer, using our taxes and wealth while we get poorer the democrats-republicans and their corporate allies get richer and richer
i read in a forum that the problem with US citizens and voters is that people in this country are too argumentative, skeptical, negative and contrarian. In such environment of contrarianism and close-mindedness is very hard to come to a conclusion and to reach an agreement among most people toward the need of creating a third political united party with 1 single goal. But US citizens take libertarianism to an extreme, this excessive libertarian thinking even destroys *national identity*, nationalism, collective cooperation, and patriotism
each US citizen thinks like Plato and Aristotle. what i mean is that each person in this country thinks that their opinions are 100% truth (no questions asked). People have ingrained convictions instead of evidence-based arguments and are not open to change ideas about the world. That's why people in this country vote for Democrats and Republicans every 4 year, it's like if US citizens were *philosophical zombies* instead of rational human beings capable of analyzing situations
Americans need buhdism, budhism is a good tactic. According to Buhdism philosophy, people should clear and clean their minds of all mental garbage and taboos and leave it like a blank piece of paper, and then US citizens could start from scratch
I think the cause is an excess of wrong information, and information overload that people in this country have
people get information from CNN, from Lou Dobbs, from FOX news, but then from Free Speech TV, and then from Keith Oberman,a nd from many different sources at the same time, however people are not capable of comparing each source and learning which source of information is the most truthful one and which one the most deiceptful
.
"My theory is that US citizens are tired"
Pretty good point. Americans work longer and harder than any other first world country or second world for that matter.
And a good point about the information. How do you know? Heck I've seen Lou Dobbs named many times as this or that but when I went to check him out, watched some shows, I didn't see any of that stuff everyone accused him of.
Hows a guy working two jobs going to sift thru stuff?
No we don't. Compare us to Japanese or S. Koreans.
"Compare us to Japanese or S. Koreans."
First of all, their standards of living are entirely different. Secondly, not every American is a lazy butt as you suggest. Working hard doesn't mean accepting near-slave wages. By the way, they're way ahead in digital technologies and are getting higher speed internet and higher quality phone services at decent prices thanks to good regulation. Contrastingly, this country especially in rural areas, will get piss poor service but be expected to pay OBSCENELY high fees thanks to "deregulation". So not only are they earning well but they're getting their bangs for the buck. I don't know about you but I'm sick and tired of America getting stuck in the loser's column thanks to Raygunomics and yankee self-confident ignorant people such as yourself. And did I forget to mention, in those countries, there's a spirit of sharing unlike here where it's always "me-me-me". You should go visit those countries and learn some manners from them. At least I learned my lessons from my parents who lived through the Great Depression Era.
I don't care for Marx, but wisdom is where you find it.
"But Marx's understanding that unfettered capitalism, while fantastically productive, leads to instability by concentrating wealth in too few hands - that a mass-production/mass-consumption society is fundamentally incompatible with oligarchic control of wealth"
Thats the truth. Unfettered capitalism isn't capitalism at all. Its robbery of the many by the few. Regulated capitalism has proven to deliver the best to the most. Unfettered capitalism has just delivered what we have. A mess riddled with corruption.
Regulations will be restored and we will pull out of this hole. Hopefully this time we have learned something.
I seriously doubt you've ever read two pages of Marx. You've ingested thru osmosis a foregone conclusion that Marx was a Stalinist, or some similar simple-mindedness only Americans cultivate. We've been sooooo brainwashed against anything that even remotely sounds like Marxism, after our 50-year Cold War with a state that was almost never Marxist to begin with and became even less so as the totalitarian years piled up, the former USSR, and with its even more grotesque standard bearer, Maoism, that we don't know what Marxism even means. Marx would have had nothing to do with either Stalin or Mao, and though he couldn't predict the derivatives market, he wouldn't be surprised at the present self-destruction of capitalism.
Marx was a scientist, not a crazy thinker. Marx is part of wisdom that we need in order to fix the world
Maybe we can use Marx's wisdom to reduce the excess population. Marxism certainly worked for reducing the population of the Ukraine in the 1930s, and in China in the 1950s.
And don't forget that when the USSR became "free" in 1991, millions of Russians died. 700,000 excess deaths a year for a decade, until the "evil" Putin replaced the "democracy loving" Yeltsin. (He who shelled the Parliment with tanks).
We were told that "the life expectancy of Russians dropped from 69 to 58". In one year!!!!
That's the beauty of capitalism! It can turn mass deaths into a life expectancy drop.
And create mass deaths where there were none.
Capitalism certainly worked to reduce the populations of Europe and East Asia during WWI and WWII. Not only the capitalism of the Axis powers but also the capitalism of the Axis suppliers (USA, etc).
Capitalism has reduced population a lot more than Marxism. Stalin was a state-capitalist, USA, Hitler, Pinochet and most capitalist governments have killed milliond of people. So capitalism is really the one who is efficient at reducing people, not "marxism" like you label Ukraine's government. By the way there hasn't been any socialist system yet, and marxism is not a political system. Marxism is a philosophy by the way, not a political system. But if you are talking about that socialism has reduced worl population, you are wrong, because there hasn't been any socialist system tried in this world.
.
I had a hard time understanding this article while reading it through my rose colored glasses. Say.... where did I put the remote?
"America has always been the land of get-rich-quick".
Not just America. Anywhere capitalism gets out of hand. Read "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds."
The Brits had an economic bubble in the 1700's, the "South Seas Bubble" as people tried to get in on the quick pounds to be made in spices, etc. My favorite scam was the endeavor to raise funds 'for a purpose to be named later' (which the credulous forked over money for with abandon).
The Dutch had a bubble over tulips.
Go shopping!
americans wouldn't know what reality was if it kicked them in the balls
hey wait....it just did with the wall street bailout and yup, they didn't notice
to begin to discuss the mega move of american banks to take over the world banking system with this false flag economic disaster would assume knowledge on the part of the american public and who is stupid enough to think that
don't worry, martial law is just around the corner - this is the plan for the government to provide for you - three hots and a cot as they say
bad news is, there still won't be any health care - but the cheese sandwiches are good
cheers, b
Americans are varied. Last week I got into a rousing discussion in my workplace cafeteria. Many of the minimum wage workers were right on with their understanding of what was happening.
Some people are as dumb as rocks. But there are some very intelligent people who are working menial jobs.
The thing is, only people who support the ruling class viewpoints are allowed to speak on the corporate media. Our understanding of our fellow Americans comes from the top down, through the media. If a body falls in New Orleans or Galveston, and its not recorded by the media, did it happen?
Talk to people around you, and you get a different picture.
America was founded upon an unwillingness to face reality, the reality that markets require victims and that governments (and their religious ideological support structures) were instituted to protect markets from their victims.
I faced reality when I left the country in the year that Reagan left office. I was forty years old at the time. If I stayed I would probably be suffering because of the economic disaster brought upon the middle class. But today I doing just fine. I work when I want and live like I want. I have no credit cards, no bank accounts, no stock, no social security, no medical insurance, and best of all, no debt. I control my life and how I spend my time and money. I left America to regain that control. I've never regretted my decision.
Hoa binh
Where do you live?
Saigon
Since1492,
I have a decent job at the moment, but unfortunately it is temporary, and I am considering getting a TESL certificate next summer, then finding work as an English teacher outside the U.S., with the hope that I will find the sort of freedom you enjoy. If you are willing, I would like to correspond with you as opportunity permits regarding this issue. Thank you.
Peace.
ntm1972
P.S. I am scheduled for minor surgery tomorrow, but there will be a week-long convalescence period, and so I may not be able to respond as soon as I would like. Of course, even though it is minor surgery and I have insurance through my employer, I anticipate that my share of the bill will run into the thousands... yet one more reason to say 'good-bye' to a country that has become a hell on earth for so many.
Let's go serfin' now
Everybody's learnin' how
Come on and be sorry with me
My apologies to The Beach Boys