Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Facts, and Understanding, Are Often in Conflict: Living in a Culture of Delusion Leads to Denial, Ignorance and Worse
What do we have a right to know? In this web-based age, where we can Google almost everything, you'd think we would be better informed than we are.
We have Freedom of Information laws and a President who has promised transparency, offering some details on what he's doing on an easy to access website.
Yet, there is much more that we still don't know, and maybe never will
At long last, a report on CIA abuse of detainees came out, but years after the fact, and in a heavily "redacted" form—i.e. censored. Already the prosecutor chosen to prosecute says there's not enough information there to do so. Duh?
The Presidents "Pay Czar" is afraid to release what he's found out about corporate compensation for fear it might lead, heaven forbid, to naming "targets of populist anger."
Reuters reports, "Kenneth Feinberg has said he is uncertain how much information will be made public. Privacy laws and fears that highly compensated executives will become targets for populist anger argue for limiting such disclosure.
"Feinberg, speaking on Martha's Vineyard on August 16 in his only public remarks since becoming President Obama's point-man on executive pay, called the issue of disclosure 'a serious problem.'
"'There is a tension between not wanting to put on the front page of every newspaper in the country the specific compensation packages of these individuals ... versus the public's right to know,' he said."
What are they afraid of? Apparently, embarrassing protest. Here's the worry cited: an earlier disclosure sparked criticism of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "and prompted left-leaning groups to organize bus tours to visit the homes of AIG employees."
OMG, Oh no!
Sometimes the scales of justice tip in the public's direction. A judge is ordering the Federal Reserve Bank to reveal information it has insisted on keeping secret. That's a good thing.
Bloomberg reports,"Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska rejected the central bank's argument that the records aren't covered by the law because their disclosure would harm borrowers' competitive positions. The collateral lists 'are central to understanding and assessing the government's response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression,' according to the lawsuit that led to yesterday's ruling." No doubt the Bank will appeal!
The absence of information, pervasive media misinformation and the spin control exercised by powerful lobbies influences what people know, think, and think about. Or, more likely, don't think about!
It gets even worse when people cling to beliefs even when they are not true, as if there is a need to believe, facts be damned.
James Howard Kuntsler has been tracking the financial decline. He writes, "The key to the current madness, of course, is this expectation, this wish, really, that all the rackets, games, dodges, scams, and workarounds that American banking, business, and government devised over the past thirty years—to cover up the dismal fact that we produce so little of real value these days—will just magically return to full throttle, like a machine that has spent a few weeks in the repair shop. This is not going to happen, of course."
Sounds right, but will people who so want the economy to miraculously bounce back accept this reality or do they prefer ambiguity and denial?
A new study even says that many of us lean towards comfortable truths, and reject uncomfortable ones.
One Journal reports: "In a study published in the most recent issue of the journal Sociological Inquiry, sociologists from four major research institutions focus on one of the most curious aspects of the 2004 presidential election: the strength and resilience of the belief among many Americans that Saddam Hussein was linked to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Although this belief influenced the 2004 election, they claim it did not result from pro-Bush propaganda, but from an urgent need by many Americans to seek justification for a war already in progress.
"The findings may illuminate reasons why some people form false beliefs about the pros and cons of health-care reform or regarding President Obama's citizenship, for example.
"The study, 'There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred Justification' calls such unsubstantiated beliefs 'a serious challenge to democratic theory and practice' and considers how and why it was maintained by so many voters for so long in the absence of supporting evidence."
So, our culture not only forges consciousness but also manufactures false consciousness.
Take the idea of equality. We think our country is embracing more equality when, in fact, facts point in another direction, i.e, towards greater and greater economic inequality.
Writing in the London Review of Books, Walter Benn Michaels challenges our illusions on this issue in an essay on "Who Cares about the White Working Class?" edited by Kjartan Páll Sveinsson:
"An obvious question, then, is how we are to understand the fact that we've made so much progress in some areas while going backwards in others. And an almost equally obvious answer is that the areas in which we've made progress have been those which are in fundamental accord with the deepest values of neoliberalism, and the one where we haven't isn't.
"We can put the point more directly by observing that increasing tolerance of economic inequality and increasing intolerance of racism, sexism and homophobia—of discrimination as such—are fundamental characteristics of neoliberalism. Hence the extraordinary advances in the battle against discrimination, and hence also its limits as a contribution to any left-wing politics. The increased inequalities of neoliberalism were not caused by racism and sexism and won't be cured by—they aren't even addressed by— anti-racism or anti-sexism....
"Thus the primacy of anti-discrimination not only performs the economic function of making markets more efficient, it also performs the therapeutic function of making those of us who have benefited from those markets sleep better at night."
The truth is: we continue to live a world of delusions. See Chris Hedges' new book, Empire of Illusion, for more detail.
The fight for transparency and more information is critical, but it has to be accompanied by an effort to explain "the facts" and connect the dots. That's the only way to find truth.
61 Comments so far
Show Allin the world of increasing scarcity created by neo-liberalism, with its origin in the false demographics of the psychopathic employee of the british east india company, the priest thomas malthus, the winners win and watch as the losers die, tearing at each other's throats...
Here's the real core of the issue that is not even whispered: the status quo wants to dismantle the health care system for at least 20% of the population.
This "rationing" is being done in the service of a man-made Malthusian scenario.
Why? Because, it has finally dawned on the ruling class that their survival depends on a drastic reduction of the earth's population because of unsustainability issues and projected scarcity of resources (forget oil, how about water?). Look around, and you will notice genocides happening (at present, mostly in Africa), Monsanto hording agricultural patents (for eventual political power and control), and a huge "flu" epidemic (whether swine or not) lurking in the near future.
So, denying health care access through exorbitant insurance premiums is just another "tool" of population control; of course, the social Darwinists will rejoice at the outcome of this sinister scenario that will reinforce their ideology of the survival of the ruling class over the downtrodden. Compound this with the financial catastrophes (both present and future) and you have a total picture. The arrogance and blatantly belligerent BEHAVIOR of the health, financial, and media industrial-complexes is the "canary in the mine."
The underbelly of any issue resides many "layers" under...requiring deep thinking and "step" thinking, beyond just reading between the lines or the small print. A society that has stripped pure analytical thinking from its educational curriculum is bound to perish under the tsunami of misinformation.
the increasingly open defiance of both corporations and the tri-branched national government to, at the very least, acknowledge, much less address, exposed criminal behavior is troubling, as it certainly indicates a quickening agenda and a sinister approach...
it appears they still have the fear of consequence, but current activities point toward a tighter reign on the populace through constant surveillance, legal loopholes and increasing incarceration, supported by unmanned, automated weaponry of both large and small size, as well as potential biological agents...
at some point, legal proceedings, and reluctance or willingness to divulge information will become moot...simply knowing identity and location will be enough...
Your right about the "layers" pavroviandog. And, unfortunately, I have to say that your theories are not implausible in the least. You're certainly right about us having stripped analytical thinking form our curriculum. I have entered into the mindset, after much research and reflection, that most of this crap is no accident. So yeah, I'm pretty much with you.
Here is a discloser--you live in a country where there are many greedy rich pigs that think of you are stupid--and will continue to thrive because you are lazy and weak--and completely complacent--you have allowed your masters to lie, kill, torture, cheat and steal, without so much as a wimper or peep. So what are you going to do about it?--NOTHING!
Well, 0necaptjim, we are doing something about it.
The organized actions of more and more Americans are having an effect on discussions about the economy, the bank bailouts, the health care reform bill, the exploration in the Arctic for new oil and gas lands, declassifying NSA security memos, reforming a broken MSM system, protesting the ownership of more media channels by larger corporations, closing down Guantanamo Bay.
Those just off the top of my head and all recent public issues where law makers, the press and the main street person can see that America is in a rebuilding phase with so many institutions failing and having to publically ask for help to fix their own broken mess.
"DO NOTHING" is what we used to do, not anymore. I write and sign petitions and bills for the Healthcare reform movement, I take action to go down to the City Hall and protest for health care reform, immigrant rights, giving away public money to Wall Street etc.
I've gotten to a personal tipping point in my life and I've asked my friends and family to help get involved as well. How about you, could you help us out by organizing a Health Care Reform meeting in your home, to talk about the health care movement and what your friends and family need to get medical treatment.
The human brain is hard-wired to believe the unbelievable and to fear that which is believed. What is religion after all? In all things there are the rejects.
"The study, 'There Must Be a Reason:... how and why it was maintained by so many voters for so long in the absence of supporting evidence."
That is basically what religious faith is. Most religions look at faith as a "virtue". So basically believing in things without supporting evidence is a very good thing.
Until the majority of people get beyond this way of thinking, things will not change.
matthew loughran
when you have too many merkins just believing in god and guns its no wonder why they will get screwed again.
this is a good article by Mr. Schechter.
i think there are some people of faith( christian, muslim,buddist,jewish) who are against the mindless militarism, the inequality and the police state this country has become.
it is up to people like all of us here to push back against the reactionary and stupid people and policies of this country. we can continue to do in many ways.
it would also help if people support third parties like the greens alot more.
matt
My four middle-aged children are really struggling with fear and delusion. It seems that demonstrating the old virtues has become a low-value option. And it is tempting to consider that, as Americans, we might feel that life owes us more than we put into it.
But the reality is, WHEN THE GAME IS RIGGED, we're terrified there will be no chips left to sweep up from the floor.
I urge everyone to read the article 'There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred Justification' from Sociological Inquiry. It helps in the understanding of far-right "thinking." Of course the same is true of some far-left thinking.
What? You mean that there is tolerance of economic inequality in America? I mean, isn't everybody middle class here? Yes, I am being ironic. I have had people tell me that the United States is not a debtor nation. Talk about denial, and worse. Thank you for this article, though it does scare me.
"I have had people tell me that the United States is not a debtor nation."
I hope you are joking....or at least it was Pelosi?
The Presidents "Pay Czar" is afraid to release what he's found out about corporate compensation for fear it might lead, heaven forbid, to naming "targets of populist anger."
Yea, I think if people know they are being enslaved they are a bit more likely to resist than if they are told they are "free" and "equal" and can determine the policies of the country through voting. "Freedumb" is the state of being so dumb you think you are free, and in Merika, everybody can have Freedumb!
Try this on for size:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/45503
Excellent video from the AfterDowningStreet website about reporters at FOX TV Corporation producing a news report critical of Monsanto for health violations in this country. I had heard about this story from a year ago and wondered what ever happened to it. Now I see why it's not going to be a very popular issue on the evening news programs.
Money, advertising and legal representation are the reasons that I feel that the MSM have completely failed to do their job in America. Even among those Americans that actually bother to try and watch the news programming on television anymore. The biggest corporate loss of all might turn out to be the loss of our First Amendment right to be able to get the news from a source that would try to get it out to us, whatever the cost.
@ hman August 27th, 2009 6:08 pm: The major TV news organizations in this country are run by the entertainment divisions of their respective networks; one right-wing corporation, Clear Channel, controls about 80 percent of what's on the radio; and the major printed media are run by corporations that all receive nice tax breaks and other concessions from Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats. None of these entities have any stake in providing real news or the truth to the public. Olbermann and Maddow being the glaring exceptions, the old rules of journalism have been buried deep in Rupert Murdoch's backyard, next to Orwell's rotting corpse.
Without a truly free press that has an adversarial relationship with the government and corporations, we are bound to fail as a democratic state and, as this article points out, as well as the prescient James Howard Kunstler, we haven't hit bottom yet. As Kunstler points out:
"What we've been seeing is nothing more than a massive pump-and-dump operation in the stock markets, most of it executed by programmed robot traders, with the trading nut provided by taxpayers current and future. These shenanigans add up to new risks and fragilities so extreme that the next time a grain of sand catches in the exquisite machinery they will sink the USA as a viable enterprise. We will end up discrediting not just capitalism, but also the idea of capital per se, that is, of deployable acquired wealth. As this occurs, of course, events on-the-ground will give new meaning to the term 'reality television.'"
-- James Howard Kunstler, "Financial Crisis Called Off," August 24, 2009.
http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/08/financial-crisis-called-off.html
Even our current Socialism-for-Millionaires-with-Crumbs-for-the-Serfs system will collapse once the Asians and our other foreign investors -- the only thing keeping us afloat -- decide to cut their losses and let us sink. That's in progress as the working- and middle-classes can no longer afford even to shop at Walmart for lead-based Chinese toys.
We might then have a future rebellion of the dimensions of the French Revolution as the peasantry wake up as to who has been lying to them but, more likely, we'll simply curl into a ball of self-pity as the lights are turned off, medicating ourselves against reality with substances legal and illegal until the landlord comes to put us out in the street. At that point, even the Teabaggers may be angry at the people who have really been screwing them, but it will be too late. They'll be shooting each other in rage as the wealthy move offshore to join their money.
If the alternative that you mention is so well wrapped up...the outcome is certain as soon as our Foreign investors take their capital investments away, then the bonfires of Liberty will burn.
Our future and the future of our children will burn until we take back our for- profit government. I have been reading as much as I can about the government mechanisms that control our public institutions, I didn't take up the task of reading about our private institutions running our public institutions. I am not too old to start fighting this monster with a more sensible set of tools, I just hope that my opposition can benefit someone besides the for profit government.
Freedom, Liberty, Ethics, Humanity are all principles that mean progress for our citizens. The crime of stealing a people's government institutions is a crime that has only ever resulted in War. Revolution, Crime, Poverty and Division are all phases of renewal in the long struggle to overcome War. I hope that we can overcome this struggle and find America again.
Not a bad article.
I wonder when one of these Bozo's is going to connect the fact of off shoring of jobs and industries, of manufacturing to the disparity of wealth? We can't mandate equality, but we can sure bring back the reasos for it.
Its fairly simple if you get past the ideologies and smarmy elitism.
One of the reasons people form "false" beliefs about Health Care as presented by this Congress is the dishonesty of presentation, the lies by omission and the forthright lies about it.
The United States these days overwhelmingly smells like hot tar, an odor that, since childhood, has always reminded me of everything that’s wrong in the world.
"offering some details on what he's doing on an easy to access website"
Bait and butcher - treats to lure the cattle into the slauughterhouse.
"...will people who so want the economy to miraculously bounce back accept this reality or do they prefer ambiguity and denial?"
"The Great Recession is over," says Richard W. Fisher, president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (08-26-09)
Any more silly questions?
"So, our culture not only forges consciousness but also manufactures false consciousness."
And 'they' know that, see: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." And then FOX and fellow travelers broadcast that new reality 24/7 until the 'false consciousness' is firmly implanted...
The thing is though, Fisher's statement is almost certainly true. We have most likely entered into positive GDP territory. Sure, we will likely have more years of pain with high unemployment and weak growth. It will still feel like a recession, but probably not by definition. It's best to live with facts. We could call the coming years something like the Great Stagnation.
Data graphs do not go linear. A little blip in the curve needs not to correlate to the principal direction. GDP data does not necessarily relate to an improvement in overall economy. It is influenced for example by Wall street manipulation.
Stagnation would imply that we can maintain the status quo. This is very unlikely. We will see an increase in poor and rich with nothing much left in the middle.
Perfect serfdom.
"Stagflation" was the description that I heard being argued about as to it's merit as a measure of our economy during the Bush years.
"The Great Recession is over," says Richard W. Fisher.
FOR HIM.
For us the Great Recession started in 2001 and is now morphing into the Greater Depression.
Remember folks, they'll never admit we are in trouble they can't handle. NEVER. The facts state otherwise. The crash already occurred last September. The daily misery won't make the media until they do a documentary about the Greater Depression well after we are out of it for real (2030 or so). So don't wait for the "We are in deep shit" announcement. It will never come. But nevertheless, we have become an unwitting Darwinian scientific experiment. Will greed conquer altruism? If so, then greed will be heralded by scientists as an evolutionary population control mechanism to ensure the survival of a species. In biology you can compute the increase in bacterial populations using natural logarithmic increase. Perhaps these brave new scientists will be able to compute the decrease in human population based on the percentage of greedy assholes in the population.
You want reality? We are in trouble that Bernake cannot handle. Our currency is being undermined. The BRIC countries are breaking away from the dollar. Be frugal and save what you can. The dollar will still work here but not abroad. Most people can't accept that. Fine. Whatever.
ah! the delusions of the sheeple...
now that is a deep and smelly can of worms
better to look at what they "do" know - forget history (too boring), forget science (huh), forget technology (too hard)
the sheeple rise in the morning to mary povich destroying one black woman after another with unrequited paternity tests. then its on to macdonald's for the heart attack breakfast, with fat boy limbaugh on the radio.
sometimes they sit in hospital emergency wards waiting for someone to look at their festering wounds.
sometimes they interrupt public meetings.
they like to protest commies, arabs, and birth certificates.
in the evening they watch white guys arrest black guys on "reality" shows.
all the while decrying socialism which they profoundly have no understanding of, terrorism of which their coutnry is the world's biggest practicioner, they nurse their racism, blindly support the zion state of israel, and all of that peppered with the hate speak of the christian war mongering "ministers".
good stuff.
i read here on CD a few months ago: 1/3 of americans are funtionally illiterate, that is to say, they can't read the papers or put any context on what they can read.
1/3 of amercians believe we are in the end times and that jesus himself will soon be back to gather his flock for the flight to the hale bop comet, or heaven, depends on the gas money.
1/3 of americans believe that when you die your soul goes to a garage outside of buffalo. just kidding...
a few weeks ago one of the anti-healthcare reformers got in a fight at an event and he was injured. when they tried to take him to the hospital he said no - he didn't have any insurance.
that, in a nutshell, is the united states of fascist and corporate america.
make yourselves comfortable...its going to be a long flight.
It's by now a tiresome irony maybe, but the misrule in our country is increasingly indistinguishable from how the USSR came to be run. There, the porcines were Party elites and the upper level nomenklatura - basically nitwits and thugs who manipulated the high sounding Soviet constitution to do just what they damn well pleased with the lives and labor of millions.
And we dumb Yanks. We were fooled into spending trillions to win the so called Cold War, only have a corporate run government entrench itself right before our eyes, right here at home.
If it wasn't all so brutally sickening, a person might inclined to laugh.
Brilliant comparison!
"And we dumb Yanks. We were fooled into spending trillions to win the so called Cold War, only have a corporate run government entrench itself right before our eyes, right here at home."
That needs to be put on billboards on every super highway in the country and lighted with neon at night. It needs to put on the ad blimps for a year or so.
We were (ARE) punked.
There is a film called Katyn, premise 1940 - Stalin invades Poland orders the liquidation of 22,000 in Katyn forest - families try to uncover the truth.
Denial is big.
Let's admit that not only does it effect the people, it effects the power and intellectual elites, and not only does it effect those elites, it effects those of us who would criticize them.
I do not mean that elite disinformation is unintentional. Lying and delusion tend to complement rather than exclude each other.
However, the means of denial seem to have changed with the shift to digital media. Americans have largely lost suppositions of journalism that was "objective" because the newscaster wore a tie, the station played unsyncopated music, or the paper was printed sanctioned elementary-school vocabulary with few subordinate conjunctions in a regular serif font with few pictures outside the ads.
Notions of objective journalism did give us a few sterling reporters like Seymour Hersch and Robert Fisk, and aspects of their work surely informed people like Amy Goodman, Dahr Jamail, and Jeremy Scahill. But I think the notion that evolves from this later work and from "those blogs," including this one, has improvements.
"Objectivity" never existed. There's a such thing as honesty and dishonesty, but no one can view without a point of view. Amputating the history, drama, theory, and poetry from prose to call it "reporting" masks point of view, but does not create or improve objectivity. Insofar as reporters do care about news, it reduces sincerety, at least, and with that, at least some aspects of honesty.
Instead, businesses selling "objective news" sold readers and viewers on the fantasy that reporting in a denatured tone of prose projected "Just the facts, Ma'am." With that, they could sell the idea that some denatured viewpoint somewhere within a predictable range of corporate and beltway opinion could be labelled "more-or-less" or "basically" factual, and that a few huffy paragraphs quibbling over specifics within this same range could be considered a "range of public opinion."
Let us continue to replace this notion of objectivity with a recognition of palpable authorship, of transparency, of signature.
That appears to be what readers are doing.
By transparency, I do not mean to quit using opaque pen names like "bardamu." Rather, the pieces are written straightforwardly as opinions and will be taken as such even when bardamu insists (petulantly!) that they be fact. Names like "Naomi Klein," "Glenn Greenwald," or "Noam Chomsky" come with more authority because their bearers have traceable track records that support some measure of trust, but not, or very little, because they publish in The Nation or Salon or elsewhere.
At the moment publication in print still has something to do with this, but that's natural, since track records remain from a print-era past. But this influence will fade.
I doubt this means an end to denial, but I think we have an opening to reduce the homogeneity of false premise, false issue-framing, and false convergences that have supported it.
We're past due for a look at the falsehoods of academia while we're at it.
Hmn . . . .
Here is a letter that closed down a New York Times forum at 29 posts. What else am I to think? Frequently the posts there run to over 400. And at 29, usually, you have a 99 per cent chance of it appearing-- it will be a long time before they stop accepting new entries. Of course the post can't be abusive. Is this? I don't think so. I just think it's the truth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The editorialist's statement, that, "Afghan misgovernment is the Taliban's most important ally and most effective recruiting agent" is exceptionally naive. All sensible people everywhere know that the true subject to this sentence is "American occupation."
But, if you work for the New York Times where you were blithely led into the Iraq war by William Safire and Thomas Friedman, and you didn't go into some kind of religious transformation afterwards, almost anyone can probably lead you now in a similar, ongoing mistake in Afghanistan.
You said nothing wrong or even controversial. Journalists are paid whores. They always protect their johns. They don't like people connecting the dots. We need more people like you giving it to them with both barrels.
Thank you.
"Facts, and Understanding, Are Often in Conflict: Living in a Culture of Delusion Leads to Denial, Ignorance and Worse".
My own personal culture of denial was shattered after I read this article:
“Collateral Damage” by E. P Heidner, part I and II.
>>> www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner <<<
The two documents have just recently been published and are very well researched and referenced (over 400 footnotes).
The articles are lengthy and comprehensive, some parts not easy to follow and they need to be read with an open mind.
I found this insight into the cancer on the body politic extremely hard to swallow and very painful to digest. Human hope and defiance of realization refuse to accept facts, logic and analysis.
The implications changed how I look at politics, economy, history, finance, war and terrorism. Many persons in the documents are well known; many are right now in pivotal positions of politics and finance. These people do shape OUR life and that of our children right now. The details are stunning. The consequences are BEYOND BELIEF.
Do read it.
The plutocratic oligarchy that has been in control form the beginning demands that they teach the 'followers how to follow' and the best way to do that is start teaching them not to question authority, and those that do; can expect different treatment.
If the Plutocratic Oligarchy can convince more people over the course of their lives from the earliest ages, NOT to question authority, then it is easier to fool them into doing exactly what you want them to do, all along the way.
The fact that a buffoon like GW Bush could even get close to the 'broom closet' much less the 'Governors Mansion in Austin' then 'the whore house @ 1600 Pen. Ave.' (come to think if it --he was 'right at home' in both of them)----and he still has the 'approval' of millions of americans even after the many revelations of so many crimes against so many innocent people, in at least three countries. People are lining up to invite him to the 'rodeo'--or---4th of July bar-b-Q ---or name a child or two---George Walker --some of them girls maybe"Georgia Walkeret"----------------
If as many people were complaining about the 'billions in bonus payments' to the very same people who caused their economic problems as were about 'Obama Care'----there might be enough to pay for "Obama Care"--at least on a test basis--(it might help to stop sending 10 + billion per year to the 'most deadly terrorist nation' in the mid-east---Israel----that is some more money that could go to some better uses---but not if no one 'questions it'.
The '12 decent Americans I speak of often' might do better to find another country to live in---the USA is headed for disaster. They seem to be getting 'dumber and dumber every day', and they certainly seem on the verge of turning on each other. The last time they did that they killed off 10% of their population-- and that was with comparatively 'primitive weaponry'---and try not forget, the USA is the only nation in history to use Nuclear (or is that 'nuculer')----it would be foolish to think they would not be capable of using them on themselves. All that is needed in any certain emergency is for some 'absolute fool' that "really believes in his heart that Jesus will appear---after he flips the 'nuc switch' and the USA will get that 'mushroom cloud' they are afraid of.
"If the USA were another nation, the USA would invade the USA to keep the world safe from the USA; and they would be justified"---------------------
Good Luck America, you really need it.
I'm not sure whether to laugh, or cry.
Hey 'Cuz',
Just 'saddle up with us'----and ride away.
I was visited by a local shaman yesterday at sundown. He showed me how to do it. So, I will see you there, my brother! It won't be long now. Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiip!!!!
Moondoggy, hello! Laugh until you cry. Then start a one page monthly political newsletter and bless your village with it. Information. Reality. Though subjective is still based in truths....wouldn't it be fun to elucidate a few!
Give them to folks, find a store or two would let you leave them on their counter.
This is my next step I think. We have farmers markets here what not, might be fun.
Most Very best to you, erratically as usual, joe.
I'm bored as hell with politics as usual. It's too slow and the crooks always win. While everyone else is looking west, I see a tidal wave coming from the east. Changes are afoot that'll make politics a footnote.
"The truth is: we continue to live a world of delusions. See Chris Hedges' new book, Empire of Illusion, for more deatail."
Ya know, Gautama Buddha said exactly this 2500 years ago!!
The resulting philosophy is called Bhuddism.
So what's taking so long to embrace it?
Same old same old...same shit, different day.
My mommy always told me not to say or do anything I would not want to have reported on the front page of the newspaper. (Not that I always listened when young!)
I have a suggestion to the executives: If your annual take is so outrageous that reporting it in the newspaper would inspire angry drive by mobs, then don't take so much. It's called integrity.
Didn't you get any home training?
Joe
Bankers CEOs in france, apparently, have accepted to having their pay CAPPED.
or else - the probably figure - there's NO telling what the French common people are going to resort to...even if means trashing their "infrastructures" as they did with marie-antoinette and company...
compared to the french, generally, americans are wimps.
"the areas in which we've made progress have been those which are in fundamental accord with the deepest values of neoliberalism, and the one where we haven't isn't.
"We can put the point more directly by observing that increasing tolerance of economic inequality and increasing intolerance of racism, sexism and homophobia—of discrimination as such—are fundamental characteristics of neoliberalism. Hence the extraordinary advances in the battle against discrimination, and hence also its limits as a contribution to any left-wing politics. The increased inequalities of neoliberalism were not caused by racism and sexism and won't be cured by—they aren't even addressed by— anti-racism or anti-sexism...."
This the first time I've seen this stated in any "left-of-center" publication, in my 40 years of following this stuff.
It's by time. The left is going to have to take a more sophisticated view of things, that encompasses the complexity of issues and their interrelation, if it is ever going to exert any positive influence on events.
"In this web-based age, where we can Google almost everything, you'd think we would be better informed than we are."
Not really. People always trumpet the internet as bringing the "age of information" but it's completely disorganized and inferior in many ways to long-established library systems.
Imagine a library with no organization, transient content, and (most tellingly) a teenager's diary about his favorite bands given equivalent placement to a physicist's research, opinion not distinguished from evidence. Plus, content that can disappear forever at any given moment, with no way of retrieving it. That's the internet.
as some have said for years -- and as true as ever:
"Americans are the most entertained people on earth
-- and the least informed".
i have personally come across PLENTY, far too many, americans that actually CAN'T even name their OWN 50 states of the "union"..let alone tell where WHAT "west coast" or "east coast" is ANYMORE....and likely have NO idea what their own "anthem" says when it says "from sea to shining sea".......
or can't even tell that the Pacific OCean is WEST of washington DC and is BIGGER than the atlantic ocean -
let alone tell anything of significance and COMMON world knowledge where some country IS ....
if many americans can't even tell what their own constitution says - or what an "amendment" is - how can they be expected to even know a damn thing of importance about the rest of the world except when the leaders say "we are UNDER THREAT" from such and such country they never previously knew even existed? much less to even understand that there are different cultures who DON'T necessarily "think american"? but actually think they OWN their OWN countries?.
..but then imagine that same library revealing that the old kind of library - the one with "information authorities" was nothing more than a conspiracy of liars and molders of reality (The New York Times' "all the news that's fit to print" for ex).
See: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/AllNewsFit_Herman.html
It's really like the blue pill or the red pill in The Matrix. Do we want the responsibility of the internet or the comfy, spoon-fed created world by the now-proven historical manipulators and reality fabricators?
Once Americans finally grow up and learn that freedom is responsibility (and guns or war is irresponsibility), the internet will fit right in. Until that day comes, let's not kill the last manifestation of democracy and freedom in America. Let's relish the fact that we can challenge old (and hopefully new) authority.
Freedom can be scary. That's why many Americans (and right-wing governments everywhere) hate People's freedoms and try to take it away from them every chance they get.
"WE AMERICANS CAREFULLY NURTURE AN ATTITUDE OF DETACHED INDIFFERENCE TOWARDS ..
... the suffering of others...
even if we are the cause of it."
it was written by an american poet...but I can not recall the name.
Self-criticism hurts, but we have to admit the left is awakening from a whopping big delusion.
It's hard to believe that, just a few months ago, they were calling Obama a light-bringer. In retrospect, one wonders what these folks were ON.
We also can see the illusion was a confection of the media. Obama's campaign even received an advertising award. This is rather painful for us lefties, who like to think we're smart.
Here's one lesson: we should vet our candidates. It would only have taken a minute, for example, to find out that Sen. Obama voted for theCheney energy bill--something no real Democrat would do.
Here's another: we should beware of any candidate the media likes. The media loved Obama--at least compared to other Democrats--and he's a neoliberal's dream.
VIDEO: Kingdom of the Democrats, starring moi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxjHHxyoaM4