We the people are starting to look pretty ridiculous.

[Philosoraptor]

We often go on about our awful, stupid leaders and we knock the neo cons and the crooks and liars and yet, here we all are, putting up with it, day after day, year after year.

I can't decide who I hold in lower regard, them or us. Of course I hate them for all the right reasons, but look at us, look at what we've learned to accept with smiles.

We are under the illusion that we have to obey the laws, when our elected officials don't have to. We live in fear of terror when our own leaders are the number one terrorists.

We are past the point of looking ridiculous and impotent. We are really well into shame on us territory. Our so called leaders are crazier than shit house rats, and most folks seem o.k. with it. The nation is collapsing and the world is about to explode and nobody seems to be all that upset about it.

The vaunted founding fathers would be quite disappointed to see the revolution reversed and they'd be disgusted with our lack of response to garish tyranny and rule by royal family and dynasty.

But just look at us as a people, look at us as others see us, and its not a pretty sight.

[undeterred]

1. We don't have the power

or at least not the same kind of power that they do. We need to organize, run for office, show up, confront them at every turn... not just some of us, all of us. Power goes to those who show up and its amazing how few show up.

[paparush]

7. Look at the people in Mexico...there is power in just being present.

Power in refusing to leave. Power in mass numbers of people in one place at one time. Power in shutting down a city. Look at Ukraine and you see the same thing. Non violent protest. Ghandi said fill the jails.

Power like this sends a message to the world that WE THE PEOPLE do not support our current Regime.

This is what we MUST do when Bush** cranks up the Iran rhetoric. When they start rolling out the bogus "intelligence". We must have MASSIVE, peaceful demonstrations that last for days and weeks.

This model has worked.

Women's suffrage
Ghandi and English Rule.
The Vietnam era peace movement.
MLK and civil rights.

[bryant69]

8. While we're at it why don't we wish for a pony

I mean as long as we are making impossibilities part of our plans.

[paparush]

10. Not impossible...but not without sacrifice.

We must be willing to:

-Disrupt our daily routines
-yes, that means jobs
-yes, that means leaving the creature comforts of home

-Be arrested for our beliefs
-yes, that means coming face to face with tyranny

-Stay until critical mass is reached.


If thousands of Mexican citizens can practice this model, why can't thousands of Americans?

Help me understand this.

[bryant69]

13. Because Americans are lazy assholes

Havne't you been paying attention?

Bryant

[RethugAssKicker]

15. Yeah, but we might miss American Idol. !

[novalib]

16. We DON'T HAVE the POWER???!!!!!!!!

We don't have the power??!!!

WE don't have the power??!!

OF COURSE WE HAVE THE FUCKING POWER!!!!

It's just that some of us don't exercise the power we have!!

You said it yourself -- we need to organize, run for office, show up, confront.

And, I would add, OBJECT and REFUSE TO COOPERATE in the Plan for our own subjugation!!

We can CHOOSE to let the bastards win OR we can CHOOSE to be the powerful people we already ARE!!

[orwell]

2. "I can't decide who I hold in lower regard, them or us."

That's a no-brainer...us.

Our so-called leaders are a mirror of our own inadequecies as a body politic. Even though the elections were stolen, it was close enough to steal. We are still willing to think we can get something for nothing, more services with less taxes, rising home prices while homes actually depreciate, rising wages when many will work for far less, rising standards of living on the backs of much of the world's poor, rising resource consumption with falling real goods output, rising literacy levels with falling educational quality. We are living in dreamland so we elect leaders who sing us to sleep, purring soft lullabies to soothe our cries of ignorance.

We have met the enemy and he/she is us...

[bryant69]

3. Yep - we are well and truley fucked

And we deserve it. You could argue that the victims of the 9/11 bombings were innocent victims - but if a similar or even worse catastrophe were to hit right now, would the victims really be innocent? Are any of us innocent? Or is america a mad dog that needs to be put down? And i mean America as a nation and as a collection of equally guilty individuals.

I don't know - I'd rather believe otherwise, but you are making a pretty persuasive case with your various posts Philosoraptor.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Protagoras]

4. while I agree

I think this became evident when the nation didn't erupt after the 2004 election (or the 2000 election). To be fair in 2000 it was a new thing. But by 2004 our European allies stopped feeling as charitable or understanding because we clearly didn't "get it" the first time around.

Wasn't there a front page on one of the British newspapers asking how 50 million people could be so stupid? Can't find that link anymore but I think I'd like to revisit it.

[Greyhound]

12. It was The Mirror and it was 60 million.

In case you have forgotten, there were thousands in the streets after the coup of 2000, and none of our leaders supported them, in fact they told us to go home and get back to work like the insignificant proles that we have become, and this allowed the M$M to ignore them until they did go away.

[Protagoras]

17. I haven't forgotten because I have the pictures

having been out on the streets in major protests thoughout most of the last 6 years.

That being said, we thousands obviously haven't been enough. It needs to be Millions, and we need to focus our efforts and voices MUCH more effectively. Perhaps at the media that so effectively diminishes our efforts. Also at the leaders of our own party who conveniently look the other way.

Thank you very much for reminding me that it was the Mirror. I need to find a copy of that page and hang it on my wall.

[Greyhound]

18. Leadership is the only difference between the coup of 2000 and

the shining light that is now coming from Mexico. The have a completely controlled corporate media, in fact, everything in Mexico is controlled by the corporations and the five families that own them.

They have Obrador, we have elitist shitheads.

[sui generis]

5. it all boils down to ONE thing

information.

We used to read the notices nailed to the gallows in the town square, printed in fledgling newspapers where editors took their job of neutral reporting somewhat seriously and "partisanship" really was a dirty word that meant you thought more of your party than of the common good.

Today, we are spoon fed tripe by breathless anchors speculating things that a normal person with a closed head injury on acid wouldn't think of just to be sure that they weren't being outreported by their competitor, and pretty soon we have a solid week of Jill Carroll in the news EVERY SINGLE MINUTE, followed by an idiot who could not have possibly done "it", breathlessly hedged by every news anchor out there.

The news we receive is told "by authority" for authority; and apparently even the white house can call a network and ask them to hold a potentially scandalous (for the administration) story for "national security reasons" until they can insert their own paid PSA lookalike anchors and newsdesk stories into the newsstream.

The government controls the media, and unless there's real political blood in the water and a sure kill the media won't report anything that isn't spin-dried, fluffed and folded for public consumption.

[Nozebro]

11. The government doesn't control the media. That isn't necessary. The

media that matters (BIG media co's) is and always has been rightwing, even fascistic.

[sui generis]

14. there's a bit of truth to that but

Media is big business. The only reason movies and news and sports exist and are broadcast are to provide a vehicle for advertising; entertainment is second, and useful information is last.

So if the best way to keep big business together is to accrete smaller organizations, like Clearwater did, then the kinds of investors who are interested in building monopolies are inherently attracted to the opportunity that a corrupt republican administration presents, and so will do what they can to bias the news in favor of the legal workarounds that allow them to exist and manipulate advertisers and collude on pricing in the music industry and profit as a megalopoly with minimum oversight.

Banks attract robbers; henhouses attract foxes, that is the way things are.

The real problem becomes when the foxes are running the henhouses. . . .

[The2ndWheel]

6. Funny thing about those founding fathers

Taking out that they had to steal land from other people just for a second.

They had to go to another land mass to defeat their overlords. If America had actually been India when Columbus ran into it, there would be no America.

We don't have anywhere to go to set up a new world.

Who knows, maybe if we sail west again, we can find something. Just no killing this time.

[Tyler Durden]

9. STARTING to look ridiculous? TOO LATE.

Bud we have looked like CLASS "A" CHUMPS since November/December 2004.

The rest of the world looks at us like one would look at a mean drunk swinging a ball bat and cursing all within earshot. They keep waiting for the cops to show up and throw us in the tank, or if they get lucky, we'll just pass out on the sidewalk.

It is an embarassment to be a citizen of the US under these circumstances.