Forum Post: Is There Anybody Out There?
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 27, 2011, 12:34 p.m. EST by opensociety4us
(914)
from Norwalk, CT
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
As I observe the zombie like reactions of Americans to our catastrophic economic highway to collapse, the continued plundering and pillaging of the national treasury by criminal Wall Street bankers, non-enforcement of existing laws against those who committed the largest crime in history, and reaction to young people across the country getting beaten, bludgeoned, shot with tear gas and pepper sprayed by police, I can’t help but wonder whether there is anyone home. Why are most Americans so passively accepting of these calamitous conditions? How did we become so comfortably numb? I’ve concluded Americans have chosen willful ignorance over thoughtful critical thinking due to their own intellectual laziness and overpowering mind manipulation by the elite through their propaganda emitting media machines. Some people are awaking from their trance, but the vast majority is still slumbering or fuming at erroneous perpetrators.
Both the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement are a reflection of the mood change in the country, which is a result of government overreach, political corruption, dysfunctional economic policies, and a financial system designed to enrich the few while defrauding the many. The common theme is anger, frustration and disillusionment with a system so badly broken it appears unfixable through the existing supposedly democratic methods. The system has been captured by an oligarchy of moneyed interests from the financial industry, mega-corporations, and military industrial complex, protected by their captured puppets in Washington DC and sustained by the propaganda peddling corporate media. The differences in political parties are meaningless as they each advocate big government solutions to all social, economic, foreign relations, and monetary issues.
There is confusion and misunderstanding regarding the culprits in this drama. It was plain to me last week when I read about a small group of concerned citizens in the next town over who decided to support the Occupy movement by holding a nightly peaceful march to protest the criminal syndicate that is Wall Street and a political system designed to protect them. My local paper asked for people’s reaction to this Constitutional exercising of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Here is a sampling of the comments:
“What are those Occupy people thinking?! The whole concept is foreign to me. There are always going to be the haves and the have nots. Get over it. Blame yourself for not paying more attention in school or not working hard enough. Just wish people would take responsibility.”
“If they worked half as hard actually working as they do being a pain in everyone else’s ass, they’d be rich! Being born does not guarantee success or wealth. Only hard work does. Maybe we should let them all occupy a jail cell or two.”
“If the goal is to irritate hardworking suburban commuters on their way home, that sounds like the perfect time and location.”
“Let’s hope they don’t pitch tents and trash Lansdale. They need to look for a job, not occupy the streets.”
“I work, and even if I wasn’t working I wouldn’t (march); I would be out looking for a JOB!”
I was dumbfounded at the rage directed towards mostly young people who haven’t even begun their working careers and have played no part in the destruction of our economic system underway for the last 30 years. The people making these statements are middle aged, middle class suburbanites. They seem to be just as livid as the OWS protestors, but their ire is being directed towards the only people who have taken a stand against Wall Street greed and Washington D.C. malfeasance. I’m left scratching my head trying to understand their animosity towards people drawing attention to the enormous debt based ponzi scheme that is our country, versus their silent acquiescence to the transfer of trillions in taxpayer dollars to the criminal bankers that have destroyed the worldwide financial system. I can only come to the conclusion the average American has become so apathetic, willfully ignorant of facts and reality, distracted by the techno-gadgets that run their lives, uninterested in anything beyond next week’s episode of Dancing with the Stars or Jersey Shore, and willing to let the corporate media moguls form their opinions for them through relentless propaganda, the only thing that will get their attention is an absolute collapse of our economic scheme. Uninformed, unconcerned, intellectually vacant Americans will get exactly that in the not too distant future.
- Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform
One of the many things the movement has demonstrated is that there are a lot of us out here.
We are less than 90 days into a war against an entrenched, centuries old power structure. And don't kid yourself, this is a war: it is a war for power. Those that have it are not going to willingly relinquish it.
If you don't think this is a war, look at the coming Defense Authorization Bill, scheduled for a Monday vote in the senate.
It's easier for these people to hate on the Occupy protestors then to actually do something constructive, like start protesting against the out of control corruption and greed in D.C. and on Wall Street.
It jus too convenient for them to lash out on the protestors. Demonizing them and mocking them. However, the time will come ( I think sooner than later) where they will understand what the protestors were protesting against. They will learn, they will learn.
Yes, the KTC is out here and we would like you to read our message.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/something-to-think-about-part-3-toshiba-hates-mino/
The Revolution starts here!
The Boomers don't get it - until they lose their jobs. The ones who can are fleeing the country (going to Uruguay, New Zealand, and other exotic locales), while those who can't are defending the dying system with all the venom they can muster (ie the Tea Party). The country in which we have come of age is not the same as the one they knew. All bets are off now - a good education, the right internship, and the right connections do NOT assure a middle class lifestyle (esp with crushing student debts, stagnating wages, increasing insurance costs, etc).
The people are yoked by the banking establishment. The only way we are going to get the house back in order is to take banking back from the criminal syndicates and demand an end to the debt-slavery system.
Jubilee 2012!!
There are some boomers that get it. In fact, some saw this state of affairs coming a long way back. Careful with that broad brush.
Please don't make generalizations about boomers. Plenty of us have been trying to change things. So glad to have OWS. Just so you know, my children are 39, 31, and 25....none of them are doing jack. It's the old codgers being called crazy bitches for marching in our family. I really think it's divisive to generalize about a group of people. BTW at age 25, my youngest has been voting since she was 18....results?
The Boomers are all retired. They don't have jobs to lose anymore.The Boomers were young adults in the sixties. It's 2011. I'm close to retirement and the Sixties is before my time, I was just a little kid. That's my parent's generation. My parents are not fleeing overseas or defending a dying system, they're dead.
Ever hear of 'terminal uniqueness'?
It's a condition human beings often suffer, it's the 'it won't happen to me' syndrome.
That guy lost his job, but it won't happen to me.
That guy can't find a job, but it won't happen to me.
So the banks got bailed out, it doesn't affect me.
It's me-ism at it's finest, terminally unique.
Until the 'terminally unique' see events affecting them, they will belittle the efforts of others to prevent that very affect. They will belittle those who have already been affected.
Thank you for an excellent appraisal of the "mind controlled - media zombies" that we have all become. Can you imagine the the Occupy Movement had the support the College Football has on a Saturday afternoon?
We have been mezmorized since birth by TV and media. Consumer, Entertainment Zombies.
The solution to the issues you raise can be overcome. The could be an involved, informed, intelligent and imaginative electorate if only our priorites and use of technology would be used for such purposes.
We could develop television and online resources to debate the issues and inform one another - an ultimately vote online with Direct Democracy of the Internet.
The Age of the Few Oligiarch Representatives is as dead as the Age of Kings. It has been corrupted beyond repair.
People would vote, if their vote meant something more than legitimizing the next puppet candidate out up by the wealthly puppet masters of the Central Banking, Military Industrial Corporate Matrix.
One Man / Woman - One Vote - proportionally averaged into the vote of the rest of the Electorate.
Until we have this, we will only be putting band aid on a hemoraging system of a thousand cuts of bleeding wounds.
"One Man / Woman - One Vote - proportionally averaged into the vote of the rest of the Electorate."
With Globalization, I'm beginning to think the above is becoming more and more relevant. It's becoming less and less about physical space.
I often wonder the same thing. Here's what I mean:
This is obviously true, but it is not universal. This Bloomberg Article demonstrates that both politicians and some Wall Street insiders do advocate banking reform, and that includes slimming down those institutions too big to fail.
yet that reform failed, and now some view this as evidence that:
It's just silly.
EDIT
I would be remiss if I failed to point out that the statement:
is itself a kind of poison pill, inserted into the foundation of belief that underpins this movement. If maintained, in the end it will serve only libertarian interests.
What do I mean?
I mean that Government must be sufficiently resourced to wield power and control over the largest private institutions in the U.S. If it does not, then the only recourse left is that of the people, to provoke chaos, and capitalize on the investment of instability these private empires will predictably and most heavily invest in.
i guess people are just confused that political parties don't opperate like sport franchises. we'd like to believe that the Republican grid iron is making plays and stealing yardage, but the reality is that they are all playing golf.
Steps to recovery.:
Last step: Realizing God is fictional
You beat me to it. I was going to post this link: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-comfortably-numb
zerohedge.com is a treasure
Agreed. Especially in these times. I wish these forums had half the substance, and even a fraction of the knowledge its members bring to the table on a daily basis.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EewGMBOB4Gg
Relax it's bad but life will go on. It always does.
Relax? Since the dawn of time the human civilization has been on "relax" mode. When are we as a people going to grow up?
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Human-Society-Project/202270743180999
And do what? You think you are going to eliminate human flaws like greed, deceit, materialism? You might as well add the elimination of the bark of the dog.
Those are the very flaws that Sikhism and Buddhism try to eliminate in the human psyche. It can be done, but it takes intent and hard work. Most Americans have been raised in a culture that makes money off these flaws, so we haven't been programmed to eliminate them. It all goes back to intent and what we value.
Do you believe that you could eliminate those things from your heart? Or at the very least fight the urge when it arrives?
Eliminate? No and neither can you. Man is a unique creature. One aspect of Man that separates him from all other creatures is his awareness of the aging process and his inevitable demise. He knows that someday he will struggle to be able to provide for himself and spend the years following in decline until his death. That awareness will always cause him to store and prepare for those days.
I can eliminate the actions taken on those urges. I do everyday, you can also. When they arise I shrug it off and make the correct choice. Ever since I made this decision they come less and less.
Strike a balance? Yes. Eliminate? No. You will store even if only for tomorrow. Promoting charity, sharing, goodwill, etc are all great things. Those who save and store for the eventuality aren't automatically greedy in my mind though. Its a basic instinct.
Well sir. you cannot not tell me what I can and cant do. Im sorry if you believe I cant. That is your loss. I don't do any of the 7 deadly sins. I think about them but those thoughts come less often everyday.
It's your fairy tale. Tell it the way you want to.
I really do not believe you. However, I do not judge.
There are no poor people in America, only temporarily inconvenienced millionaires. That's why when the right says it would be a bad idea to raise taxes, when the left is only talking about raising the top rates,..somewhere north of $250,000 a year, they think they want to raise their taxes.
To encourage job creation all we need to do is 2 things...
Eliminate the 7.5% matching federal income tax for all employees.
Replace the revenue with a new alternative minimum tax on all income over $500,000 a year. The amount of that tax would be what ever it would take to replace the revenue stream that would drop off.
Only about 18% of everyone who makes over a million dollars a year have any employees, and many of them just have nannies and gardeners.
To eliminate the matching federal tax for good would enable companies in America to hire the people they need now.
Obama wants to raise taxes on a married couple that makes over 250,000 on a single person anything over 200,000.The problem is it seems to be the answer to all our problems raise the taxes.Raise the taxes they say.
If we went back to the tax structure we had when Reagan first took office, the rich would be paying twice as much.