God Damn America - My version......(Rant warning)

[cliffordu]

I know why Bush and Cheney want to bomb the shit out of Iran.

It's about the oil, stupid. It's about getting and keeping the oil. Maintaining access to the oil in Iraq.

This isn't so much about Iraq, or Iran, though. That's the short view. The long view is that this is the first front in the nascent conflict with our oil-consumption doppelganger, the Chinese.

Peking brags about satellite killers while training their two million-man army. Their economy is starving for cheap oil just enough to begin the fight for it, just like we are.

It's on. They will bring it.

The definition of insanity is doing exactly the same thing, the same way, and expecting different results.

Why don't we just change energy strategy? Why do we act like it's 1959?

Because that's who we are.

We are: Good buddies with the Saudis, those rotten fuckers who beat and jail rape victims. The very country the terrorists REALLY come from.

We are: The people who allowed a despot "President" to turn loose a 100,000 man shadow army operating outside any chain of command, decency or the Geneva Convention, killing any Iraqi they please.

We are: Allowing torture in our name.

We are: Standing idly by while the Iranian "terror threat" gets pumped up to war.

It's all for US, ya know. So we can have our malls and our fake religions, our Super Bowl, our political junk food dressed up as debate, our food "products". Mostly, though, what this REALLY boils down to:

Our One True Religion.

Unbridled Consumption.


We are NOT: Going to be Inconvenienced one fucking bit.

We won't move from the suburbs, won't stop driving SUV'S. Won't change a fucking thing we believe we have a right to, which is anything we want.

We are: Willing to kill millions, maybe billions, to perpetuate a lifestyle that can only be described as degenerate in the suffering it engenders and allows worldwide.

Until the oil runs out.

We are: One Ipod away from an infantile nervous breakdown over the loss of this gluttony we have mistaken for "freedom."

We are: Incapable of growing our own food, mending our own clothes, participating in our own democracy beyond the beauty pageant that is our election "process".

We are: Complicit in every outrage, partners in every violation of the freedoms we espouse while crying over the dead we happily sacrifice to our avarice.

Then we complain about gas prices.

Then we drive to the mall.

Maybe they really do hate us for our freedoms.



:patriot:

[Glorfindel]

1. Greed and glut = freedom?

Maybe we deserve to be hated for our "freedoms." I swear to you, if anyone had told me in April 1968 that we'd end up 40 years later where we are now, I'd have laughed in his or her face. How in heaven's name did we come to this sorry plight? I'm nowhere near as articulate as you are, but I share and support your sentiments. :kick:

[cliffordu]

2. I don't know why it seems not many get this.

I don't understand why there isn't blood in the streets over the coming attack on Iran.

Bush said it today....Cheney said it all last month...

And yet, not one word of protest. NADA.

I wonder who we really are sometimes.

[backscatter712]

3. They don't hate us for our freedoms.

I'll say that I hate Bush and Cheney and the rest of the BFEE for their freedoms. Because they shouldn't have freedoms - they belong in prison after all the crimes they've committed!

[Name removed]

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[silverojo]

4. OK, condemn Americans all you like

But when's the last time you got off your ass, shut down your computer, and took up arms to stop any of this shit from happening?

Until you've actually done something besides piss and moan, or do some cushy volunteer work for a candidate, or stand around at a protest that doesn't make a blip on the nightly news, you're just as complicit as the rest of us.

Quit acting so superior, because you're just another American consumer...of computers, of internet access services, of the electricity required to run your computer, and of everything else that gets you to and from work and all through the day.

[cliffordu]

5. Well.....Let's see.....

I wrote "we" on purpose, not "you".....I am just as guilty of everything I said.

Except:

After 9/11 I became determined to not give the Saudis (where the Madrassas are) another dime I didn’t absolutely have to.

I sold my Mc Mansion. (In reality, a one bedroom shack). I moved into a small town. I got rid of my cars. I got a cargo bicycle. I bought an old Airstream.

I stopped buying anything new made in China. I lowered my heat signature. That's a cute name for carbon footprint.

This is not about being a hippie or liberal or global warming. It is about the disgust I have for allowing a belief system that condones the beating and jailing of rape victims a vote in how I live my life.

They will bleed us dry, send money to terrorist groups set up like charities and give shelter to our enemies all because we are incapable of doing without their oil. Instead of talking about it, I got out.

What started as a simple desire to simplify my life and reduce my energy consumption has resulted in becoming a kind of incubator for as much freedom from oil as I can find.

As long as we are dependent upon OPEC or Venezuela for ANYTHING we are NOT a free nation. The more dependent we become, the less free we are.

I am not completely fucking stupid. I understand that almost all my food and perishables are trucked in. I am thinking about how to avoid as much of this as possible.


I spent 50 bucks on gasoline last year Not one dollar this year.

I buy used computers and second hand clothing. I buy NOTHING new that's Chinese.

I owe no corporation, financial institution or man a dime.

I am, in every sense that I can be, Free.


:patriot:

[earth mom]

6. Great Post! Many of us get what you're saying-that's why we wanted Gore or Edwards for president.

Instead we're stuck with 3 interchangeable corporately owned whores who will continue with the status quo and continue to FUBAR this country as well as shred the Constitution it was founded upon.

So yeah, your post is dead on EXCEPT that I think the people of this country will get a most rude awakening when WW 3 begins and it's not gonna be pretty. :nuke:

[SteinbachMB]

7. Unbridled consumption?

A lot happens before something is consumed. In the end, I blame TV. Imagine a world without TV. It would be a lot simpler; kind of like the way it was 70 years ago. But, alas....

[lame54]

9. I think they just want an excuse to drop a nuke...

What's the point of having those toys if you don't get to use them?