* has convinced the American people that they have no control over events

[Skidmore]

in the world. That they are at the mercy of this huge religious onslaught from outside. They now believe that we are destined to fight the peoples of Islam for generations. And as long as we, as a nation accept this line of thinking and allow our government to poke the Islamic world in the eye, we will get the war the neocons want. It is a self-fulfilling neocon wish.

[ShortnFiery]

1. It's called Learned Helplessness

We need to get people fired up with a sense that The People United can counter these fascist beasties. They are only as powerful as we make them. The curtain has been pulled back on the whorish M$M cable media, revealing a bloated and sick-minded DICK Cheney.

We can turn this country around with our VOTES! They can't "Diebold" landslides. ;)

[HysteryDiagnosis]

7. Bloated with misplaced power

[darkmaestro019]

14. Thank you...I needed "learned helplessness"

about four hours ago in a totally unrelated context. I spent a paragraph or two saying what I could've said in two words.

Ah, it's like the best comebacks--you get them when it's way too late.

[ShortnFiery]

17. You're welcome ...

Every time I use that term (Learned Helplessness) I think of poor Pavlov's dogs being shocked on wire grates to a point where they would cower in a corner even if jumping to another grate would stop the shock. If left unchecked, subjects can look forward to an increased risk of "clinical depression."

We (The American People) must stop these evil leaders from "one party rule" taking over our government. Checks and balances are a must! Let's start with voting in a majority democratic Congress?

Hope does spring eternal! Never quit because God hates a quitter. :blush: :hi:

[magellan]

2. That's only because he's been able to run his "war"

...off the backs of volunteer enlisted so far. But wait till there's a draft. People will start to care when it's them or their sons and daughters who are being sent to fight the terraists.

The general disinterest and complacency of the American people is the only advantage Bush** and the rest of these criminals really have. It'll take having their noses stuck in Bush**'s mess for them to wake up.

[Felinity]

10. Wanna start an uproar?

Let's not discuss whether or not the neocons will start a draft. Let's not focus on whether it is necessary, or what the ramifications would be.

Let's focus on whether or not, should they start a draft, women will be drafted along with men. I don't think Americans are ready for that, but there are some strong arguments to justify it. It would lead to a robust and heated argument.

A lot of heads will start spinning, because it requires coming to terms with conflicting points of view within the minds of both the right and left (it does for me). Of course the freeper mind is incapable of holding two conflicting concepts in mind at the same time, so their may be some small explosions; but hopefully it would put a pox (a pox I say!) on the whole draft issue.

Will our daughters be drafted? Sounds media ready to me.

[Skidmore]

12. I've been thinking in those terms of late.

Not only will women be drafted but no deferments whatsoever. Money can't buy you love. You want a war, you sacrifice for it.

[H2O Man]

13. More than a year ago

DUer "Dems Will Win" linked the general plan that has been on the table for a "draft." It would include a wide range of positions in "service" to the country. It would include a significant portion of the draft-age citizens serving in positions that include, but are not limited to, the wars that the administration has started. The wide range would, according to the plan, mute most of the opposition to the draft by being "fair." In reality, of course, the wars on going to be planned by the ruling class, and fought by the non-ruling classes.

[Solly Mack]

3. Why do you think he sees himself as the "parent"..Bush is the Father

figure - there to protect you.

Only works if people are afraid and unsure...and looking for someone to protect them.

[WinkyDink]

9. Of course. He is the Father of our Homeland. He'd have used "Fatherland"

if he'd thought he could get away with it.

[Solly Mack]

18. Yep. The language he uses is carefully chosen for promoting

a sense of urgency in the nation so people will embrace authoritarian measures for a (false) sense of security...

the folksy manner meme is designed to relax people into accepting his policies (He's just like me! - and if he's just like me - then he would never do anything to hurt me)

[whistle]

4. Right, but Dubya does I suppose....bullshit!

[Skidmore]

5. He only has to create the perception that he does. Sketchy

details and he allows people to fill in the blanks. Why do you think they have spent so much effort on PR campaigns?

[H2O Man]

6. Exactly.

When I watch Bush's recent speeches, I cannot help but think that the grass roots needs to be spreading around copies of Ralph Waldo Emerson's classic speeches and writings .... particularly "Self-Reliance." (1841)

An essay on Emerson that I read a while back noted that he was influenced by Henry Clay's statement, "We look too much abroad .... Let us become real and true Americans."

Oliver Wendell Holmes called Emerson's speech at Harvard this nation's intellectuasl Declaration of Independence. In "Self-Reliance," Emerson wrote, "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." Bush attempts to create self-doubt in others, insulting that integrity, and to destroy self-reliance, force conformity, and create dependency.

"Whoso would be a man," Emerson noted, "must be a nonconformist. ..... What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. .... For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. ....

"The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; .... A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by the little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With a consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do ....

"There is a time in a man's education when he arrives at the conviction .... that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernal of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power that resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried."

It isn't the time to sit and hope that George Bush is going to do anything for us. Not anything good, anyhow. No, instead it is time for us to do for ourselves. Let us become real and true Americans. It's plowing time again.

[LunaSea]

8. Mission Accomplished...

[Skidmore]

11. Now, part deux. What do we know about psychology, counseling

techniques, and communication that can provide therapy to the nation? How do we teach a nation not to be passive?

[darkmaestro019]

15. I'd start by banning television for at least one year. (nt)

[Cocoa]

16. "The Power of Nightmares" addresses this at length

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=power+of+nightmares

[Skidmore]

19. Kick...

WE ARE NOT VICTIMS>

[struggle4progress]

20. It's the standard con game: "you can't do anything about it."

It's what the cons tells you when they want to put a toxic wastye dump in your community or when they want to take away your basic rights. It's why the newspapers and the TV never tell you about public hearings in advance. "Resistance is futile" is part of the usual ruling class propaganda.

[GeorgeGist]

21. But then why are the neocons...

so unsuccessful with their philosophy that nonsense makes people content?