Can America mount "successful defiance" against our masters? Would it want to?

[Greyhound]

I was reading this http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x277535">excellent thread about the fact that those in power are not concerned with the will of the people, posted by patrice.

So, I started wondering just how many Americans are aware just how pervasive this kind of manipulation and subterfuge is, and if they were, would they change it? Would they even want to? After all, what most of us consider "our way of life', is entirely due to this system of dominance and corruption and cannot be sustained without it.

Is it a problem of education, that they just don't know? Or is it more like like eating meat, wherein they know (somewhat) what is entailed and would just rather not think about it? Another possibility, one that I fervently hope is not the case, is they they know and just really don't care.

It has been posted here and elsewhere that, in poll after poll, a significant majority of citizens support such "radical" ideas as it is the right of all people to have access to health care, to be free to live their lives as they wish, with whom they wish, to justice, to education, to live in an environment that is not injurious to their well being, etc. Yet, year after year, election after election, they select people to represent them that will not only fail to deliver these purported goals, but will move them further away from them.

I guess the bottom line here is this, do we want to control our own country or are we content to leave it to those that have always have?

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Hamilton called for a Aristocracy , Luckily he lived in a land built out of..

... Radical solutions ,Jefferson Warned of Private industry infiltrating Public Authority.Greed is part of the human makeup and shouldn't be denied ,but policed. We proved as a nation we were willing to be herded in 2000 ,and we've been duped ever since. shttp://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/09/03_hard.html

[mrcheerful]

2. Polls are great at presenting BS as truth according to questions asked and how those questions

are worded. The reason people vote the way they do are simple, it suites their ego's, pride and prejudices. Sure people want health care, as long as it doesn't use their tax dollars to get it. Sure they want to live their lives as they wish, yet they want to decide for others how those people should live. It's just like the majority want safety nets for the poor, yet turn around and decide who deserves those safety nets and who doesn't. Those elected are a reflection of the people who voted for them.

[orpupilofnature57]

3. Unfortunately your right ,we got the porno we deserved,, Shrub ,more..

... a figurehead of the Ignorance and Opulence that have merged in our country.

[mrcheerful]

6. Being an adult with childhood disabilities and living with someone who just found out she has

degenerative disc disease thats taken her out of the work force, I can tell you how cold and prejudice people are about disabled people. You'd be surprised at how many people out there judge the disabled on what they see the person doing and not understanding that what they see is not what they are really seeing. In my case I built and rode motorcycles since I was 14 years old. Thats what people saw, what they didn't see is the effects doing that had on me, waking up in the middle of the night with leg cramps or uncontrollable shaking of legs and hands, nothing like laying in bed jerking for an hour or two. Or how about having your legs buckling without warning and falling on your face because you pushed yourself to far that day? Mind you that theres no warning or way of knowing that you are pushing your limits, they change from day to day, work one day 8 hours then the next day working an hour at the same task leaves one exhausted. My SO has just started experiencing that plus her doctors have her on so many meds she no longer can drive safely. Yet we have people telling us that we can work, we are just to lazy, mind you we both have limits on how long we can sit or stand also. Sorry ranting, but these same people that talk about helping the disabled also want to decide who is disabled and who isn't, sound familiar? These same people want to tell you what religion to follow, who deserves the charity of welfare and if you are raising your children correctly. They elect congress critters and prezinuts that reflect their views. I'm now hearing how people are expected to sell their homes and move out of state when they can no longer find good paying jobs, they all know that only the state they live in is having job loss. Taken right out of Reagans speech in 1981 about how people hoped trains to find jobs in other states, what Reagan left out was the fact that the hobo's era never produced long term employment, most just went from city to city working here or there.

[Greyhound]

10. So many parallels it's almost scary.

I have an ex-lover that was the victim of a violent assault and she was left with, among many other things, degeneration of two cervical disks. It effectively ended her life as she knew it, placed in a state version of witness protection, she was completely isolated from everybody she knew and was at the mercy of a state that knows no mercy. The drugs, the impossible demands to get to appointments, with no means to get there, the unrelenting stress, leading to more drugs and more appointments, etc.

I've been riding bikes since I was 14 (although never built/repaired them, my gearhead days were brief and long ago). Only a few scars and never admitted to a hospital to show for it (pretty rare as you know).

Had a very successful career shipped over-seas with no notice nor assistance available, except to go back to school yet again, to plow tens of thousands more $$ into the system, only to come out an undesirable, unemployable, indebted, middle-aged man with too much education, too much experience, and because I was so successful at the old career, made far too much money, for the few positions available.

All of which leads me to wonder, if our cases are common enough to encounter each other on this board, and I've heard of several others here with similar tales, we must be a part of a growing trend, and if so, what can we do to connect with and help others that are finding themselves in the early stages of this scenario, and to what end? How do we get together, what with all of the demands the situation generates and lack of resources? Is it even desirable? I fear that, if we do nothing, remain separate and isolated in our dilemmas, we will end up in a bad way, subject to the financial whims of an uncaring society, with no FDR to address the issue.

[mrcheerful]

11. The problem I am running into is basically what worked for me and the resources I was able to use

were changed in the last 30 years and now I find myself dealing with a situation that never used to happen. My SO was turned down for SSDI, not enough work hours, then she was turned down for SSI because some doctor she never saw said she could get gainful employment. Now mind you work first told her that they wouldn't recommend her for employment after reading the same reports. Now we are a little over 1 year into a 21/2 year waiting period for the case to be appealed. I couldn't believe that a government agency could turn down a person after the first government agency said she couldn't work with her injuries. I fear more and more folks are going to have a harder time getting basic life needs. It's like people are being punished for becoming disabled.

[Greyhound]

13. You/They are being punished, the only way I was able to get help for

my GF, was to get a pit bull attorney, probably the biggest asshole in LA, but she was our pit bull and eventually she got the job done, if only because if she didn't, she didn't make any money.

You've got to find one that will do what it takes, unhampered by "ethical considerations", otherwise I fear you are doomed. It has been standard policy, according to this attorney, since the 80's to automatically deny every claim, and force a court battle because, as you probably know, many in this situation hust don't have the endurance to keep up the fight.

Just another example of the shitty, short-sighted, horribly wasteful way our government works now. I don't know where you are, but if you know any attorneys, other than whoever is currently handling your case, ask around and you will start to hear the same names come up, usually with a lot of negatives attached, that is, in my experience, the lawyer you want. This whole thing just makes me sick.:puke:

[Greyhound]

5. So I'm thinking you're leaning to the ignorance theory?

I used polls, as they are generally accepted as indicative here, although I agree with you that few if any really are.

The conundrum seems to lie in that there is great dissatisfaction everywhere, with nearly everyone, yet also an unwillingness to make significant change, but there is so much I don't understand.

[mrcheerful]

7. Actually I lean towards the I got mine screw you, you don't deserve anything because your not willin...

to work as hard as I did attitude people have. As long as everything is going the way they like, its always the person's fault and not the situation a person finds themselves in. Lost your job? Can't get another job? Work 3 part time jobs, save the money you make and start your own business. Arrogant SOB's.

[pretzel4gore]

4. while listening to hate radio talk, i realized

how VITAL the big lie is to so many people: their worldview literally hinges upon seeing themselves as good, despite everything, and others as ____? whatever(!) Therefore, the yesmasters feel emboldened by feeding spun truth, aka the big lie, to the people - carefully monitoring the effects via focus groups and polling (an entire sedition industry has sprung up serving the paranoid psycho class aka the upper class twittery...) eagerly watching for a tom fukks nicole story, or britteny's bald as bush is etc, to fillup media and push real news aside....power does corrupt, and the men running the newsmedia have absolute power (imagine the ability to represent a 3rd world nation like iraq, with a military budget tinier then swedens, as nazi germany circa 1933!)

[NotGivingUp]

8. i would love to change this current system that we have.

it's a system of exploitation...people using other people. people saying hey i used to have to do this and that and then i went to school or whatever and things are better and anybody who wants to should do the same thing. it's just words that condone a system of standing on top of somebody else to raise your head above the crowd. it's pitiful.

[Greyhound]

9. Me too, so how many do you suppose there are that share our desire?

I feel that there are many more than we are lead to believe, but how to reach them, is the problem (challenge in corporatese).

[blues90]

12. Very good topic and question .

I can certainly relate to all the others who replied here .

I wished many times there was a groupd of us who have one way or another fallen out of societies game .

I had a good paying job and finally was a manager at a large ford dealership and although I was not making a fortune $51,000 a year was the best I've ever done . I was tossed out due to new management wanting their own crew after 12 years .

I worked hard all my life of 57 years and now I am reduced to garbage .

It's not me that gave up I was forced out at the worng time since the auto industry has fallen so far down the hole.

People think politicans promises are the path to a better future when in reality this has never really been the case , they all lie to get to their goals and who ever knows what these are , be assured they are not ideas that encompass all .

Today so much has changed that if are my age you are last on the long lists of younger more tech savy people .

Those who have all they need I feel know other suffer but choose to ignore it , when they become affected then they realize how difficult it is for many others .

Polls , well I don;t put much faith in polls since you never know who is polled or how the questions were presented . What you see out in your little part of the globe is your only perspective of reality . What you see and read in news is the other part you either believe or not .

I don't know if I fit in any spot left in this new american century , it is not a familiar place for me anylonger .

Once you realize there is a criminal government and a destroyed and rapidly vanishing work force where it is clear money means everything in this now very distant and disconnected society you have to wonder what the future holds for you .

All the great stolen wealth and the other side , all the lost broken good meaning souls torn from our roots . The great divide of humanity .

[Greyhound]

14. Things have dramatically changed in the last 30+ years, and all for the worse, IMO.

It's like the country lost its collective mind in the late 70's and has been having a psychotic episode ever since. Can/Will we ever regain our senses? As each new step is taken on this march to complete totalitarianism and the accompanying destruction of The American Ideal, I have less and less hope.

[blues90]

15. I have pretty much run out of hope

I have very few days when I feel there is hope left for my situation .

I have been diagnosed with sever depression and have anxiety and panic attacks everytime I leave the apartment .

My shrink who I had while I had a job and insurance finally got me on SDI and I have gone to vocational rehab and saw a counseler in hopes of finding a job and fighting my way through this horror .

Even she said jobs are difficult to find which did not help , she was concerned and helpful but to be in this situation makes me feel even more out of reality as I knew it . Things happen so fast now days and nothing is certain now .

To be dealing with anxiety really makes things impossible to get up for .

I do fear we are on our way out as a nation of hope for those who fall out for whatever reason .

It was difficult enough for me to even go to the interview with the counseler let alone to a job interview always dizzy and shaking like a leaf .

At times I feel like just ending it all since the dark has now become my friend where I can hide from the world . It is quite terrifying to say the least .