Let's hope the polls are wrong.

by Mark Bennett (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 47 comments) on Thursday, Nov 29, 2007 at 1:45:22 PM

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at one of the central questions he poses here: "What does this tell us about the American people and their commitment to be sufficiently informed for democracy to function?"

Well of course, it tell us, as Roberts concludes, that the American people are not "up to the challenge" -- ie, the challenge of politically defending their own interests against an oppressive plutocracy. And why is this so?

TV certainly has much to do with it. But more broadly, the American people are incapable of resisting plutocracy because both parties, the corporate media, the US educational system, & all institutional centers of power are subordinate to corporate capitalism. The public’s very limited “political consciousness” is largely molded & restricted by these influences. The net result is a populace unable to clearly perceive its own interests, or to think independently — thrown into the ring with a set of institutional structures which are all dominated by corporate power. It’s not hard to see how such a “competition” will end.

The American public is a child of corporate capitalism. It has been taught only what corporate capitalists wished it to be taught. The only political options it's aware of are those that corporate capitalism chose to give it. The fact that such a population is unprepared to defend itself against plutocracy is the least surprising thing in the world. How could it have turned out otherwise?

Discussing "which candidate shall I support" is a mental exercise that takes place entirely within a framework (Dem vs Republican) that's been constructed to serve corporate capitalism. It's not surprising that such exercises provide no means of opposing the forces which designed & built the framework in the first place.

by Richard Mynick (2 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1552 comments [255 recommended, 5 rejected]) on Thursday, Nov 29, 2007 at 3:10:05 PM

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I'm sorry, I'm not quite so willing to write off the United States. For one,

I think it'll be around for a while longer, for another, I think there's

still quite a bit of life left in it.

What HAS happened, though, is that we've sunk into entitlement HELL.

That crap needs to stop. It's a mentality thing. I operate from the

basic premise that no one owes me anything in life, nor are there any

real bona-fide guarantees. You can get a guarantee on an appliance,

or a service agreement, money-back, that kind of thing, but you're

not guaranteed tomorrow morning's coffee and croissant by any means.

Don't take anything for granted. But, we have taken things for granted,

we have made assumptions, that's a good chunk of the corporate

lethargy, there. Instead of innovation, we assume and we plan and

we invest. We hope, essentially. But, what if all that stuff was pure

B.S.? What if last year's assumptions were rendered invalid, null, and

void by this morning's news? That's about what's happening here.

Recent events in the news are pretty good evidence that a lot of

time-tested beliefs are now up in the air, subject to change without

notice, other restrictions and conditions may apply, kind of like

what they say at the end of those glitzy commercials.

What if you drop dead on your way to work tomorrow, from an

undiagnosed condition? Strokes are fast, can be, that way, bluntly

spoken again, there ARE no guarantees. You could get hit by a

truck and reduced to a bloody smear tomorrow on the freeway.

That asteroid that NASA hasn't been telling us about might actually

hit the earth, ending life as we know it.  All the mortgage speculators

might skip town on the red-eye, leaving hundreds of thousands of

people out of a home, and out of a job. What then? What then?

Well, like the chinese curse goes, we live in 'interesting times'.

Things are changing rapidly, unpredictably, for the most part

positively, but there's no guarantee of that even, other than

that things WILL change.

So, how much sleep to lose? Preferably none, because if

you don't get your rest, then you can't think or do anything

else very well the following day, and any changes that DO

happen will be pretty hard on you compared to the other

folks that went ahead and grabbed 8 hours(and coffee

and croissant thereafter).

I think this is the century that we'll finally see a lot of things

that've only been dreamed about actually manifest themselves,

my jet-pack included. It's gonna be fun, I think, but there's

no guarantee of that, either.  No matter how it turns out,

I intend to try...

by truthtruffle (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 110 comments) on Thursday, Nov 29, 2007 at 5:21:54 PM

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What makes the big slide into the dumpster of history much faster, smoother and all-too-likely is the fact that Americans are so brainwashed by mass media that they can no longer tell reality from shinola. They stare glassy-eyed at so-called "news" programs and are unable to filter or process the gross generalizations, deletions and distortions that now pass as "journalism." Our nation is in a trance of its own making and there is no one left to wake them up---our "watchdog" 4th Estate is now the lapdog of corporate media. I suspect that there will be a rude awakening at some point but by then the game will be over. Talk to Germans who experienced the steady rise of Hitler in the 30's or read up on that if you want a preview of what is likely to come. Until we take back the media we cannot educate people and until people have been awakened, they will continue to sleep---in front of their shiny hi-definition TV screens.

by Abraham007 (6 articles, 36 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 54 comments) on Friday, Nov 30, 2007 at 5:49:01 AM

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