True enough. Chris Hedges does not sugar coat the truth.
I understand that we Americans have been fed so many conflicting lies
by both our government officials and by our Mass Media, that we
wouldn't know the truth if it hit us between the eyes.
Still, didn't someone say, "these truths are self evident"? While our
fearsome Leader is leading us down that broad paved road to Hell, one
would think the majority of Americans would begin to open their eyes.
Just the growing numbers of people scrambling about trying to find
enough food, clean water, and room to stretch out at night, would
cause us to pause and wonder just who is steering this Ship of State.
There are plenty of reasons as to how we've come so close to the
edge, greed certainly enters into the mix, Religion and this whole
concept that God created us in His image and thus we are different
than all other life, mistaken beliefs like the one that tells us that
growth and consumption are signs of progress instead of the cancer
that we really are. We will continue to multiply despite the warnings
of the likes of Chris Hedges, until we tip the System and Humans will
slide down the slippery slope into oblivion.
Despite our claims that we have risen above all other life on this
planet, it is our self centered ignorance that will be our undoing.
On the ACB Chat list, one member posts many articles from the "Right
to Life" folks.
Certainly that is his right, but it strikes me that if we don't
resolve the deeper issues and learn to plan and to work together, all
these problems that seem to be so very important,will not matter at
all.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/11/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yes, but whatever union movement we had, has been co-opted. We have nothing
that resembles the peace movement of the 1960's. Our whole society has been
corrupted by the worship of material success and if you compare what we have
now to the 40's and 50's, everything has been privatized and the profit
motive is the rule. Certainly, there are people fighting back. But I'm
afraid that Chris Hedges' view of our reality is closer to the truth than
we'd like to admit.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2020 11:47 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: How did Americans become such Wimps? Silence
as Trump kills tens of Thousands, Destroys Social Security and Post Office,
Plots Election Fraud
Interesting. my spin is that there is a greater, and a growing, level of
protest.
And this protest is not reserved to just one issue. The signs, to me, is
that the American Empire is following the path of all Empires. As the
Empire spirals downward the Ruling Class is being confronted on all sides,
forcing it to wildly charge its former supporters of treasonous activities.
Donald Trump has conducted an ever more vicious attack on Journalists and
the Media in general. He has stepped up his attack on Joe Biden and the
"Leftist Democrat Party".
He has robbed the National Treasury, giving huge piles of taxpayer's money
to his billionaire supporters. He has fought against creating work programs
such as those created by the Roosevelt administration during the Great
Depression. He has failed the Working Class Americans by not providing any
positive leadership. He has doubled up in his efforts to trash public
education and the Post Office. He has caused Americans to not trust their
own government by trashing high government officials(many of whom he
originally appointed). Through all of this negativity he is turning a once
mighty Empire into Trash...just as he did with his fabulous Taj Mahal.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/11/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
How did Americans become such Wimps? Silence as Trump kills tens of
Thousands, Destroys Social Security and Post Office, Plots Election
Fraud JUAN COLE
08/10/2020
2KSHARES
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) - Nicole Winfield and Lisa Marie Pane at
the Associated Press write at the unbelief with which Europeans are
staring at the United States, as we head for 300,000 dead from the
coronavirus and our economy shrank 33% on an annualized basis last
quarter, and we just appear to be all right with that.
Not only are we perfectly willing to toss grandma in an early grave on
Trump's say-so, but we are supine as he openly engineers the
destruction of social security and medicare, and of the post office,
on behalf of himself and the billionaire class he represents. That is
after we sat by while he completely gutted all environmental
regulations that got in the way of corporations making money off
poisoning us. I don't think the neutering of the EPA has even been
reported on daytime cable news, though the prime time magazine shows on
MSNBC have at least brought it up.
Americans imagine themselves rugged individualists. A cartoonist did a
satire on us showing brawny guys, shirts off, with the logo "Rugged
individualism works best when we obey."
In fact, Americans are masochistic sheeple who let the rich and
powerful walk all over them and thank them for the privilege.
We have become wimps. The word wimp may come from "whimper." It was
used in a newspaper in 1920, and then not again until 1960. Since then
it may have been influenced by the character of "Wimpy" in the Popeye
cartoons, who did not have much gumption. He was only good at mooching
off people in search of a hamburger.
I always thought Americans were the plucky Popeye, who knew how to get
iron in their diets and show some spunk.
Turns out we have been reduced to begging for our meals.
The rich figured out in the 1980s that Americans are all form over
substance, and if you put up for president a Hollywood actor like
Ronald Reagan who used to play cowboys, they would swoon over him. In
1984 when Reagan ran against Walter Mondale, I saw a middle aged white
Detroit auto worker interviewed who said he woudn't vote for Mondale
because he was a "panty-waist." Reagan took away their right to strike
and took away government services by running up the deficit and
cutting taxes on the rich simultaneously, then claiming the government
couldn't provide the services the people had paid for because it is
broke.
Reagan raised the retirement age from 65 to 67. Why? Most young people
don't realize that their health will decline in their late 60s and
they often won't actually get any golden years.
What did Americans do in response? They just bent over and took it.
Actually, it is the French who are much more like Americans imagine
themselves to be. President Emmanuel Macron last December tried to
raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. I can't understand why. France
has persistently high unemployment as it is.
In response, all hell broke loose. Some 30 unions went on strike, and
they supported each other. Trains were interrupted. Trucking was
interrupted.
Life was interrupted. A million people came out into the streets. But
one poll had 61% of the French approving of the strikes. They went on
for months, and were very inconvenient.
