We're the bad guys now.

[Dawggie]

I'm a boomer and while growing up I heard the horrors of what was done by the Japanese and Germans to our troops. Water torture, electrodes to tender parts of the body and other inhumanities to man. Now WE are the ones dishing out such atrocities.

We have secret prisons, we have "renditioning," we have carte blanch to do terrible things to whoever we decide to.

I am ashamed to be a citizen of the country that I grew up in.

Yes there have been beheadings and other tortures done to our people ON FILM and broadcasted as warnings.

But we are not supposed to be like them. At least they have the balls to admit to what they do.

We have taken America to a new low that we may or may not ever recover.

May god save us all.

[Dawggie]

1. Thank you all for the recs.

But without comment, this tread will sink to the obscurity that our current administration's actions have.

Peace

[existentialist]

5. I hear you.

I think almost every one here feels similarly.

One thing that occurs to me is to try to replace the "God Bless America" which has come to be stated as if it were a command given to God, with:

"May God have mercy on America."


Merry Christmas

[Dawggie]

8. And a merry christmas to you as well.

In hopes of a future.

[polichick]

2. K&R

It's amazing what can happen when people take their eyes off the ball!

[Dawggie]

21. Thanks. We becam complacent and now we pay the price.

I would like to hope that this has tought us all a lesson that will be a long time in remembering.

[acmavm]

3. While stating outright any beheadings of Americans (Daniel Pearl) or

attacks against American interests or ships in the Middle East are acts of aggression, I will also say that I understand full well why these things have happened, why we are not liked by so many in the Middle East (what an understatement).

We of the West have always supported the subjugation and/or confiscation of Arab/Persian lands. We have shown favor to those Europeans that, after WWII, went into Palestine and murdered the indiginous people and stole their homeland (sound familiar?). And we have continued to keep the Middle Eastern people out of the market place. (Please note that I am not talking about corrupt and greedy governments, I am talking about the people who inhabit the area.) We have ensured that generations of Middle Eastern men and women have been isolated and their futures have remained empty and bleak while we have supported corrupt regimes of royalty who don't give a rat's ass about their subjects or their welfare. We have supported Israel and its continual theft of the best land and the water in that area. (Hell, we even rolled over and played dead while Israel killed our own sailors during the 6-day war.) What would be amazing is if these people didn't resent us (best case scenario) or hate us (the reality after we attacked a defenseless and innocent civilian populace to steal their oil).

[Echo In Light]

4. It's been this way for a very long time. More people have awoken from the propagandistic slumber

Of old, and, largely due to the internet, the old ways for elites to manipulate the masses onto the the same page as them don't work so well ... well, it does work, but it doesn't hold sway as long. Corporate media outlets are in a panic over the loss of control their medium has over the public mind.

"God bless America?"

Not hardly...

Try "God forgive America."

[1monster]

6. What would this country have been like had there been no J. Edgar Hoover,

John Foster and Alan Dulles, Prescott Bush and all of his progeny, if Ronald Reagan had stuck to being a B movie star, if all the neonazicon leadership had never ventured into politics, banking, insurance, news and entertainment media, etc., etc., etc....

What would this world had been like without them, and without the people who buy the propoganda, and who support their policies because of ignorance or other remedial problems.

But then, human beings being we are, there probably would have been another set of villains who would have done just as much damage.

We are a flawed species and it will be our downfall.

[Dawggie]

7. I would disagree with you.

If those people never ventured into public affairs the world and our country would be much the better for it.

We are flawed and however there are those who enjoy taking advantage of those flaws and those that don't.

[defendandprotect]

11. Ancient questions: Man's Inhumanity to Man and how the few control the many?

Violence is the key --- stopping human violence.

[Echo In Light]

17. "Manufacturing consent" i.e. how the Few Big control The Many is...

The key disconnect people have in understanding their phony democracy. When said tactics are outlined for them, they resort to establishment defense, and relegate such objective, institutional analysis to the level of non existent "conspiracy theory."

[defendandprotect]

31. Not sure what you're saying here . . . ????

I'm familiar with Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" ---
however, it would be naive to think that patriarchal hierarchies aren't kept in place
with intimidation and violence when necessary ---

Our own CIA/FBI record -- plus Bush/Cheney --- would overpower any such suggestions!

[pretzel4gore]

12. you should read 'Babbitt' by Sinclair Lewis...

Lewis published 'Babbitt' in 1926....in Penguin's 1961 edition, here's the ending sentences of the Afterword:
"The drift of our commercial culture in the forty years since ‘Babbitt’ appeared suggests that Lewis did little to alter it, perhaps, but he was the first novelist to tell us explicitly into what stupid, and finally devastating social damnation we were drifting. Have we landed?"
Mark Schorer, University of California 1961 afterword to ‘Babbitt’
-------
the basic idea of the book is the bizman element in smalltown America- with all their potentials
right beside their ugly hangman mentality, their unbearable hypocrisy and mindless aw shucks cruelty, as typified by George Babbitt, a man who's bored and lonely and wants to do right but ...well it's obvious. Rarely has the bare fist of enforced conformity that exists everywhere in our culture, though nicely gloved in silk and flowers etc, rarely has a fictional story caught it like 'Babbitt' did (imho)... you easily see why George turns away from his liberal instincts (not just he, but his family, would be destroyed otherwise) and while that doesn't excuse Babbitt, as the afterword says, the book was part of a group of warning to the US political elite NOT TO allow the reactionarkies to get too far ahead...they'd be George Babbitt, if that ever happened.
And it did

[Dawggie]

19. Good catch. I haven't read Babbit in years.

I think I still have a first edition around here someplace. It would be nice to revisit.

[pretzel4gore]

22. the warning wasn't ignored

i think that's the strange part of bush, or rightwing reactionary success- the ruling class knew of the reactionarky, and what they'd do, and yet, not only 'lihop' but mihop! katharine graham famously spoke for the upper class twittery or 'elite' when she, referring to CIA's vile antics, said the newsmedia had A DUTY to lie if the system needed protection; in another context she told her audience ie the US governing class, that "we must never allow our wealth to get too great relating to the common people, or THEY TURN ON US AND TEAR US A NEW ASSHOLE!" or something to that effect...so the elite KNEW, but still the elite gave power to the most vicious monkee in all creation!
we need a 'head shake' emoticon

[Dawggie]

23. LOL... I think you're right!

I'd love to see that one.

[defendandprotect]

32. Babbit gives us a clue -- but we have to understand from a higher perspective ---

A bit of the story line . . .

QUOTE: Babbitt is more than an embodiment of what is wrong with America, however. He is a vivid and lifelike character searching for meaning in a life dominated by conformity and loneliness. Babbitt tries to rebel in every way he knows until a conservative organization threatens his business because of his new liberal ideas, at which point he falls back into the lifestyle of what Lewis called a “Standardized Citizen.” In a society that, today, retains many of the basic values that Lewis attacks, Babbitt’s struggle continues to engage readers and expose some of the deepest and most longstanding infirmities of American culture. UNQUOTE

http://www.enotes.com/babbitt -

------------------------

The truth of "smalltown America" then is the same as the truth today where we have such a dumbing down of the news audience, dumbing down of scientific information --- and
Hollywood was certainly dumbed down with censorship which was not only about human seuxality! Information is power and it is tightly controlled.

You get "standardized citizens" from control --- usually via hierarchies.

Our problems begin with patriarchy which is suicidal ---
and capitalism which is suicidal ---
And these systems are enforced via hierarchies --

ExxonMobil the most suicidal of the oil industry is still denying Global Warming
and continues to finance propaganda to distort and lie about it ---

We have had hierarchies of power throughout our system/society/culture --
and these hierarchies have been converted over the last decades to control on
fascist levels. Academia is now expected to be corporate --- to offer Deans
corporate salaries -- and is ever more closely aligned with corporate-government
in its alliance with the MIIC --- Military Industrial Intelligence Complex.



PS: AND . . . I would draw your attention to this word: "threatens"
The system of patriarchy and elitism is kept in place with intimidation and violence
when necessary. It would be naive to think otherwise.

[pretzel4gore]

34. simplicity is a virtue

the pig has always simplified his message, and he had to work with crap, so....let's just summarise. The rightwing 'conservative' argument is stupid...STUPID! STOOOPID! It is wrong from getgo: the privileges of the few DO NOT supercede the needs of the many. Period. Yet that is the 'republican' ie reactionary/conservative/corporatist... message in a nutshell.
examples:
the war on 'drugs' makes junk expensive-that's its purpose.
The war on terror is a war by terrorists (if the adage "terror is 'war' of the powerless, while war is 'terror' of the powerful" is true, which it is)
Until mr pig (please always be polite adddressing the rightwinger) is forced to give up control of the mass media, the entire issue is moot, and can be described any way one wants ie 'good versus bad' or 'nice versus ugly' or 'up versus the down' or 'cheap versus precious' etc...the point must be the conflict between 2 contending groups, only one which can be allowed to be victor- in this light even the stupidest rightwing goofball has no choice by to align himself with the majority, the faceless mob, versus the well spoken interesting and sexually charming rogue who argues for auschwitz and waterboarding and slavery and solitary confinement for infants and depression era wages etc....
The final, and most irrefutable argument against rightwing stupidity is that the planet isn't going to tolerate it, pollution, desecration, much longer, and God, if God exists, MIGHT have invested everything god had into the world as we know it...again whether this is right or wrong is a silly dilettantish discussion, as even the devil hisself cannot possibly risk GOD to die, which MIGHT happen if the lying liars continues to poison the debate and confuse the issues to confound humanity, upon which everything depends, and IF the mathematics of life suddenly fail....if civilization fail, then life fails

[defendandprotect]

37. Internet is a loop which will have to be closed . . .

YES --- !!!

"Until mr pig is forced to give up control of the mass media..."

Corporate-media's purpose is not only to lie, distort and reframe -- i.e., to create r-w
propaganda --- it exists to block real info.

That "blocking" is what creates "Main Street" and permits the lies of organized patriarchal religions to flourish.

I think there is "life" without the human species . . .
and a universe which will continue on.
However, the damage we have done seems to have sealed our own fate.

And, while it is the damage done by the few --- using violence --- I must still wonder at our
indirect and very real responsibility for not stopping them.

[annabanana]

13. Maybe our system would look more like Sweden's, or France's..

If the deep pockets hadn't freaked us out early & often with the hyped equation of communism with socialism. . . .and the criminal ruling class hadn't been able to cover their tracks for multiple generations....

[Selatius]

16. Hard to say, but whose to say those who would rise in their place would be any better than neocons?

The funny thing with playing "what if" with history is that outcomes have a fair chance of turning out completely different than expected. If you think the Neocons are the bottom of the barrel, I think you are in for an unpleasant surprise. There is always someone out there far worse.

[tom_paine]

9. It's very weird reading books from the Old American Republic describing the "bad guys"

Mostly my internal dialogue sound like this:

"Yeah, we do that now. That describes the American People. Wow, that's just what the MSM does. Uh-huh, we ae like that now."

Like watching "A Christmas Carol" and realzing that our national philsophy as determined by our Rulers and their Toadying Enablers is that of Ebenezer Scrooge.

How many people watch that movie in all it's many incarnations but their high brick wall of denial will not let them see that is what we all have become a part of.

Millions, undoubtedly. Tens of millions.

But in totalitarian nations like Imperial Amerika, especially those that used to be free nations, denial is perhaps the biggest driving force behind the evil of our Bushie Masters.

[defendandprotect]

10. Here at DU, happily, we can hear many voices against these practices and calls for

outsting the b------s. Sadly, there are Americans who, I can only presume out of fear and ignorance, support such insanities as war --- and even, heaven help us! --- Torture.

However --- I think if we wait for a "god" to save us, we will find that we are no more worthy
of his/her attention than the many before us who have suffered Crusades and Holocausts, Witch hunts,
intolerance and violence towards homosexuals and the 2 million in Iraq dead because their nation
happened to have an overabundance of oil.

The answer to stopping human violence must come from us --- or not at all.

[Skittles]

14. I hear you Dawggie

I feel the same way; I see my own country disappearing before my eyes. I do remember a time I was proud to be American but no more.

[Yuugal]

15. I'm not gonna self-hate

I've fought the dying of the light and still fight. It sure is getting dark out though.

[Perry Logan]

18. I think (hope) we're recovering from a botched fascist takeover.

[lonestarnot]

20. I do not and will not take responsibility for the facists that I have been fighting for 7 years.

[tbyg52]

24. I don't take *responsibility* either,

but I sure don't like seeing some symbols and monuments of our country and having an uncontrollable kneejerk negative reaction. Bushco has done that for me. I can imagine the reactions of people who don't live here....

[Dawggie]

25. I don't think anyone here would take responsibility.

But the fact is that the vast populace can be held accountable for allowing this to happen.

[Greyhound]

38. We've been like this for far longer than 7 years. It is only in the last 7 years,

under the imbecile prince, that it has become more blatant. Read Gen Butler's "War is a Racket", he did all these things and more over a hundred years ago. Read about James Polk's criminal assault on Mexico, read of the origins of our own civil war.

The difference between those times and these is that we were simply better at self delusion.

[NanceGreggs]

26. Well said, my friend ...

... well said.

:kick: and REC'D

[formercia]

27. Don't let them make you become like them.

It's what they want.

[Dawggie]

28. No chance, my friend.

[L0oniX]

29. Torture...the fun part of law enforcement.

:sarcasm:

[Greyhound]

30. If you are, in fact, a boomer, I would point out that you were in school when education was still

going on, and you wrote "broadcasted"! Talk about nails on a chalkboard...

Other than that, you are right and I too am ashamed and mightily pissed off.
:kick:

[Dawggie]

36. Oh dear god how embarrassing

I was an English major as well and do know better. Too many antihistamines?

[Karenina]

33. You've been "bad guys" for a L-O-N-G time.

Nice to see you waking up. Here have come fair trade coffee. Or better yet a hair of the dog that bit you! :toast:

[tuckessee]

35. Support the Troops!!!

Torturing folks & trampling sovereign nations is an honorable endeavour in modern America.

[Dangerman]

39. The Iraqis look to us as bad guys as well.

They never believed that we were there to "liberate" them from Saddam Hussein, we became worse than Saddam. Te Iraqis viewed us as bad guys and they have the right to fight us and drive us out of their country.