What Kind Of A Nation Has The U.S. Become?

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

What Kind Of A Nation Has The U.S. Become?
(posted with permission from) http://sane-ramblings.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-kind-of-nation-has-us-become.html

Continuing death and destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, creating ever more widows and orphans and crippling many other people and Americans look the other way, as if it was not happening. Iraqi and Afghan children dying from lack of medical care and once again, Americans look the other way.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., 2.5 million Americans had their jobless benefits run out and are desperately struggling to support their families. many could lose the roofs over their heads and Americans look the other way. Why? Because to help these people would raise the deficit, yet the amount of money involved is petty cash compared with the vast out of control military spending.

Is this a U.S. you are proud of? Does it represent your values? If not, please raise your voice for compassion, for human dignity, for sanity for you could make a difference in the lives of others. Let us end these wars and rescue our brethren over there and rescue our brethren over here.

Dick

[Deep13]

1. Mean, selfish and stupid. nt

[yella_dawg]

3. You forgot materialistic and self centered.

Just sayin'.

[emilyg]

7. add vulgar.

[Blue Owl]

2. Money grubbing, short-sighted, complacent

n/t

[Steely_Dan]

4. Couldn't Agree More....n/t

[Individualist]

5. The Corrupt Corporate States of America

[OZark Dem]

6. It would not take a rocket scientist to figure it out

Take a portion of the moneys being spent overseas and find an application for it here that would increase employment. Perhaps fund a factory or two that would bring outsourced jobs back. Then the feeder businesses that provide the assemblies and raw materials. What would 50 Billion do for life in the middle of one of the poor states.

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

9. Thank you for that excellent comment....

And Welcome to DU!
:hi:

[Bragi]

18. If i might rephrase your question:

What would 3 trillion do for life across America?"

(Note: 3 trillion = a trillion for war, a trillion for the bank bail-out, a trillion for stimulus.)

[stray cat]

8. Do you mean is was better during slavery, the civil rights era, Vietnam, the depression?

[Zenlitened]

31. Clumsy, as usual. - n/t

[Uncle Joe]

10. An empire.

Every empire; that ever existed exuded arrogance and hubris is the bedrock foundation for every abusive policy; whether foreign or domestic.

Thanks for the thread, No DUplicitous DUpe.

[Newest Reality]

11. One can also ask ...

What kind of a nation has the U.S. been?

There has always been an inside and an outside into the workings of this country. I think, in the past, the average person was encouraged to be naive about the insidious details with the threat of being unpatriotic nipping at their heels if they dared to look deeply and question. That kind of thing would have been more difficult as well since you would have had to do some research at the library and have access to scholars who had even dared to research these matters.

In the course of a critical time, with more access to information and with a potential for more in-depth, retrospectives on the nuts and bolts of American history, veils do get pulled back and tales of mythological proportions are being knocked down like the statues of old dictators.

So, despite the immense proportions of the debacle we now witness, slathered in calculated agitprop incubated in the fetid womb of corporate mass media and spewed like demon's semen into the minds of those who are willing to take it all, the America you thought you knew is not necessarily the America that ever was.

Perhaps the cognitive dissonance that is spreading like a cultural virus and unsettling the equilibrium of the Plato's cave dwellers is a result of the information disconnect. The cave may have been updated and they now have comfy couches made of platitudes and well-crafted rhetoric and get to watch the shadows of what's going on behind the scenes snuggled before a corporately controlled television set, and the chains are now invisible, but still, no mention is made by the Shadow Makers of the Sun that dawns with majestic brilliance just outside.

When you do go out and see the Sun rising, it can be a shock and your eyes have to adjust to seeing things exposed in such vivid detail.

[Warpy]

12. It's a typical empire

squandering money throwing its weight around abroad while neglecting everything within its borders, allowing a small class of empire builders to loot riches worldwide and even from its own people, abandoning civil rights at home to stifle protest against Empire.

Either it will collapse suddenly all on its own or there will be another big war to wrest empire from us. May we have the sense and grace to do the former.

[raccoon]

15. Great post! nt

[edhopper]

13. It's become

everything the Republicans want.

[movonne]

40. You hit the nail on the head....this is exactly what they want....get rid

of social services, get rid of unions, get rid of abortion and let the wealthy get richer, the poor get poorer...

[wiggs]

14. article about quality of life in different countries. It has to do

with a lot more than just money and things

[Bloofer_Lady]

16. US fought the revolution so that greedy businessmen wouldn't have to pay taxes

When we were a colony we paid less taxes than any other British holding, and yet the businessmen who ran things back then thought that they were paying too much. We have a long proud tradition in this country of being greedy and self centered. It isn't anything new.

[Hydra]

44. Welcome to DU!

And I have to laugh, seeing the myths we perpetuate. Most of the founders felt people like me couldn't be trusted with power.

[Bragi]

17. America has become a docile, subservient nation

You can ship out people's jobs, steal their savings, cancel their pensions, foreclose on their mortgages, and no-one will do a damn thing.

The beauty for the corporate overlords who run things is that the victims will even blame themselves for this abuse.

When you steal these things from Greeks, for example, they at least have the dignity to riot a bit.

[MineralMan]

19. What do you see as the mechanisms that can change this?

That's the real question, I think. If you can answer that, then we have a start.

How do you think these conditions can be changed?

[Bragi]

20. I personally think it's too late

Though community-level actions may be useful, I don't see meaningful political action being terribly influential in coming years as the environment collapses and energy resources run down.

All a reasonable person can do is to do their best to avoid at a personal level the horrific calamities that will be America's lot over the next few decades. Community-level action may be helpful, though, in mitigating the worst of it, or at least buying time.

[provis99]

21. Fascist.

[L0oniX]

22. We are imperial terrorsts!

[Nye Bevan]

23. A country where a young black man can be elected President

A man who would have been enslaved 150 years ago, and sent to the back of the bus 50 years ago, and who would have been in danger of being lynched if he looked at a white person the wrong way.

Just trying to counteract some of the negativity in this thread.

[Bragi]

27. Many countries have black men as heads of state

This isn't exactly a uniquely American accomplishment.

[taught_me_patience]

36. Not in the western world

Obama might be the first black leader in western civilization.

[Nye Bevan]

37. Oh yeah, you're right. Zimbabwe beat us to it. (nt)

[snooper2]

29. Oh come on, let there be a pure complain thread..

by folks sitting in their comfy chairs waiting for their SO to get home from work :P

[piratefish08]

24. a nation-building oligarchy.

[rrneck]

25. Somehow these two items seem to go together...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmSMdCBjEuA

and,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient

[leveymg]

26. A little less certain in its own manifest destiny, perhaps, a bit less naive and comfortable.

A typical Empire under fiscal stress, experiencing domestic political corruption and paralysis, declining international influence, and a falling standard of living for its masses.

No longer the unquestioned center and master of its own world.

Rome in the 3rd Century, England after the First World War, France in the 1930s, the Soviet Union circa 1988 all come to mind.

[Bragi]

28. Put simply: a nation in decline /nt

[leveymg]

38. Maybe a little more worldly. Maybe less of a threat. Maybe. Could go the other way:

A wounded but not entirely exhausted empire, we could become more aggressive and desperate - Dubya was a Double-down President. We may have some more. The Spanish in the late 1600s, the simultaneous burn-out of the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires in the 17th and 18th Centuries, the imperial overreach and overthrow of Romanovs in the early 20th Century, Germany in the 1930s come to mind.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. An Imperial society losing it's empire. A consumer economy without consumers.

We became dependent on our economic colonies and now have to defend them at our expense. In order to do that we have to have consumers paying taxes and buying goods. But, we no longer produce the goods that sell, so we import them which means millions of lost jobs, which means fewer consumers.

Rinse, repeat, etc, until complete bankruptcy or the "playing field" is leveled so that our workers are working but getting paid a lot less.

See Rome, Britain, and the USSR for precedents.

[SammyWinstonJack]

32. K&R

:patriot: :puke:

[PufPuf23]

33. Unfortunately, a 21st Century fascist empire in decline and on a losing

streak.

[taught_me_patience]

34. I'm still proud of America. We are a diverse nation

which makes it very desirable for immigrants to want to move here.

[bobbolink]

35. Three million homeless people, 1.65 million school children with no home to return to after school.

Shame!

[rock]

39. A poor one n/t

[theophilus]

41. Greedy and Ignorant. I want my pre-Reagan country back!!!!1111 n/t

[KansDem]

42. I'm not certain, but I do think we should change our national symbol from an eagle to a tick...

to

[TBF]

43. The kind it has always been -

we started by wiping out indigenous people and then brought slaves over...

But I certainly agree with your statements re health care, continuing jobless benefits, and ending the wars.