Are Americans a Broken People?
POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 18, 2026 03:15
VIEWED: 19858
PAGE 5 of 29
PN is hard right? Granted, the religiousness and the anti-homosexuality, but politically I thought he was kind of an equal opportunity attacker. He appears to hate Ah-nold, Larry Craig, and any corrupt Republicans caught in affairs or sexting teens as much as he hates anyone on the left.
Wulf... I guess he's hard right in that he's libertarian and a bit of a nationalist, though he's not classic hard right.
To be hard right in America, I thought you had to support everything the Republican party does and all their platforms/messages. DT told me you had a few of those in the past, but that they mostly went away after Obama was elected.
Guess you would all know better than I would if Geezer is hard right, but I don't think not responding to PN or Wulf is necessarily agreement with them. >_>
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PN is a typical LaRouche, as are many of the "tea-baggers". (That name suggests.... eewwww.) Anyway, the characterizations of "left" and "right" don't mean anything (altho I think "authoritarian" and "non-authoritarian" is a solid categorization.)
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GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME
--justifiably reducing increments of liberty?
--WhoDied
_______________________
Yeah, we're mostly just giving each other significant glances and laughing incessantly.
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What is the language in the Declaration of Independence? Something about the people putting up with a long string of abuses and usurpations, tolerating what already is, rather than rebelling against it? ( Or am I confusing that with Hamlet? --'s early in the AM and I haven't got my reference material handy--) So things are bad-- they were bad in 1776-- they gotta get *R*E*A*L*L*Y* bad, and stay that way, for a long time, before more than the tiniest minority of whackos will do anything. The Revolution came after years of abuse. The Vietnam War Resistance took years to develop. The Civil Rights movement took decades.
IN the Great Depression, with millions of people out of work, and a Dust Bowl, and the economy at a complete standstill, people living in shantytowns, lots of hungry folks, the situation never got worse than some rioting and some marches and demonstrations. And that took years to happen. The Ruling Class saw it, and got scared of what might happen next. *W*H*A*T* *M*I*G*H*T* *H*A*P*P*E*N*. SO they made some changes, and things got some better.
Things aren't that bad in America in 2010. It'll take millions of folks in the streets, nation-wide, attacking the Institutions, for a *L*O*N*G* time, before there's a real threat, or fundamental change.
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And yet - it took comparatively little to bring over a half-billion of well-off Europeans, better-off-than-they-were Chinese, and badly-off S. Americans into the streets to protest Bush's Iraq War. Perhaps you can refresh your memory regarding the SCALE of global protests.
So, compared to others, yes, USers are broken. No matter how they are kicked around, they lie down and take it. That it's been going on, on and off, for decades doesn't change that fact.
I think it has to do with being so heavily propagandized. The US is the best. The US has the highest standard of living. The US is all about freedom and free markets. Capitalism is the only natural system there is. Profits for a few will eventually benefit everyone, somehow, at some point. And most importantly TRUST WHAT WE ARE SAYING, FOR IT IS TRUE.
It comes down to the destructive effects of a system that needs to manipulate faith. And it needs to manipulate faith because the reality tells otherwise.
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As for the difference between the Vietnam War protests, the Civil Rights movement, the Women's Rights movement, the environmental movement and pretty much any time since then: there was a generation that really took up Kennedy's message of hope, and King's message of change. But we're old now, and tired. And perhaps the economic boom of the 50's (despite 90% tax on the highest income brackets) made it possible. People didn't spend all their time worried about making ends meet. And there hasn't anyone since then to inspire then next generations, or an economy to make hope possible.
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Rue, well said. I think the issue here is that America has this illusion that we're actually all these rebels, we've given the revolutionary war into some kind of legendary status. Americans believe their own myths about their rebellious nature, which makes them feel better about doing nothing.
The myths even encourage Americans to accept the government the way it is. All the love for the Founding Fathers and the Constitution I see as such. The Bill of Rights is what people should really praise, and that we stole from the Brits.
We're not broken, but I think we don't realize we're not as tough as we think we are, in fact we're even a bit complacent, not rebellious. A dangerous liability for anyone trying to bring about any real change.
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"Things aren't that bad in America in 2010. It'll take millions of folks in the streets, nation-wide, attacking the Institutions, for a *L*O*N*G* time, before there's a real threat, or fundamental change."
You are forgetting history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_heard_round_the_world
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I'd replace "broken" with "easy to manipulate through fear and intimidation". But yes, I think we're "damaged", for many of the reasons expressed here. But I wouldn't say "broken", I think we've got a lot left in us yet.
Perhaps the "political genius" of the Bush-Cheney regime was in their full realization that Americans were so broken that the regime could get away with damn near anything. And the more people did nothing about the boot slamming on their faces, the weaker people became....
And I AM sad that the belief our voices could change things or assist change seems to have been lost since my generation. It's often said that America lost its innocense when Kennedy died. Maybe so, but whether that's a good or bad thing is up for debate. One thing that DID happen was we started fighting back, however useless it may have been. Doesn't seem like THINKING PEOPLE fight back anymore, just those who swallow bullshit whole cloth as a target for their anger and frustration about other things.
I also think we were "bottomed out" just as much in other times as now, and add to all of what's being discussed that in general, most peopl concentrate on their own lives and struggles, less on the distant government and the ability of same to affect those lives. May seem "complacent", "broken" or "disaffected", but it's as much survival and focus on what's immediately pertinent to their lives. IMHO.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
PN is hard right? Granted, the religiousness and the anti-homosexuality, but politically I thought he was kind of an equal opportunity attacker. He appears to hate Ah-nold, Larry Craig, and any corrupt Republicans caught in affairs or sexting teens as much as he hates anyone on the left.
Actually, Byte, that doesn't quite hold water. PN is a classic John Bircher, one of those hardcore radical mighty-whitey-righties who think Reagan was a pussified liberal, and Bush (both) and McCain are even worse.
And I can't recall him EVER having an unkind word to say about corrupt right-wing politicos like John Ensign and Mark Sanford. I guess as long as you're a member of a secret society like "The Family" (how Mafia does THAT sound?), you can do no wrong in PN's book.
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Wulf... I guess he's hard right in that he's libertarian and a bit of a nationalist, though he's not classic hard right.
I'll wager you that 90% of the "libertarians" around here were full-on Bush supporters less than five years ago. It's a bit telling Wulfie claims to have "not been paying attention" until Obama was elected. If you could sit through eight years of Bush and NOT have a sense of outrage, you're no libertarian. As Frem has pointed out, peel up the corner of that Gadsden Flag decal on Wulf's car, and you'll see where he either scraped off his "W" sticker, or covered it up. :)
I doubt Geezer even bothered to cover his. He still wears that shit proudly.
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To be hard right in America, I thought you had to support everything the Republican party does and all their platforms/messages. DT told me you had a few of those in the past, but that they mostly went away after Obama was elected.
Believe it or not, there are those who are HARDER right than the GOP, just as there are those who are harder LEFT than the Democrats.
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Guess you would all know better than I would if Geezer is hard right, but I don't think not responding to PN or Wulf is necessarily agreement with them.
I'd say that a PATTERN of responding ONLY to those who argue against someone like Wulf, and NEVER arguing against any of Wulfie's lunacy, tends to show a pretty clear agreement with him.
Heck, I can't even recall ol' Geezer getting upset when Wulfie said we should let a .308 bullet decide if Obama is really President or not. I guess he didn't mind that particular doom-n-gloom scenario...
'Course, for all his whining on about everybody else, I also notice that Geezer never seems to offer anything in the way of solutions, either - unless you consider walking around like an idiotic deaf parrot and crowing "Free markets! Free markets!" a SOLUTION.
Mike
Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde
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Pizmo, appreciated, and you might have noticed me having nothing to say whatever on the other matter for quite some time now.
As for reaction and backlash, protest and the like, that comes of a couple things, not the least of which is how our own so-called protectors will attack any protest that seems any kind of threat, escalating matters to some insane degrees, I mean look at the history, Patton and MacArthur made their bones by beating down pissed off veterans in the bonus march, COINTELPRO and what happene to MOVE, the list goes on and on...
Part of it is that peaceful protest accomplishes nothing, look at the largish one following the feds setting up and shooting that imam up here, NOT ONE WORD, NOT ONE PHOTO, in any paper, even the local ones, like it never existed - Siggy's right about needing media control to even be relevant, but the other end of it is that if you are peaceful, you lack the one thing that makes a protest effective - the threat of violence.
That's been the primary REASON to show up with pitchforks and torches ever since "protests" were actually peasant revolts - you were showing up to MAKE DEMANDS, not beg favors, and displaying in no uncertain way what was gonna happen if those demands were not met.
Still, in this day and age, gathering in one place for easy kettling and sabotage, with clear intent to be nice little well behaved peons buys you nothin but the chance to be ignored, arrested, harrassed and made fools of, there's other, more effective ways to dump sand in the gears of the machine, a million tiny means of unprovable sabotage, "accidental" incompetence, leaking stuff to the internet, and as such the fifth/sixth column is a far more viable tactic then handing the powers that be a free shot at kicking your ass, it might make would-be martyrs feel good, but it accomplishes about dick.
Do you really think I stop at just helping folks find their own humanity, when they're next question is usually something along the lines of "so what can *I* do ?"
I'll note that when explicitly asked that, I will give a realistic answer with suggestions on immediate effect.
-F
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