I am just so disappointed in Americans for allowing these assholes to get away with everything.

[Philosoraptor]

I have lost all respect for us a nation.

[billyoc]

1. You asked what the punishment should be for all the deaths, this is it.

Your country becomes a prison.

[ixion]

2. yeah, me too...

but then, I've been pretty disappointed at them since the eighties when they started trading away civil liberties in the name of the so-called 'War on Drugs'. Over the years that has decayed as I've watched us march towards fascism, to the point where I simply don't recognize this country to be anything similar to the one I grew up in. Very sad.

[grannie4peace]

7. if ....

we can back people like mayor calvo & give him all the knowledge of the other abuses to ordinary people, mock the fact that that "bust" was for a box of pot!!! we do have to all band together to stop them, that might be the hardest part. for over 40 years i've bitched about the drug laws & never got politically active until the past 10 years.

[tbyg52]

16. Yep. I was appalled when they came up with that idea

of keeping a person's stuff who had never been convicted of anything. And the border searches where they took cars apart, found nothing, and then left them apart for the owner to deal with.

[KharmaTrain]

3. We All Go To Our Rooms With No Dinner...And No Phone Either!

I haven't lost respect for the American people, just for the power structure...not that I was enamoured with it in the first place. Most people don't know all the shit that's gone on...they hear bits and pieces, but their everyday life doesn't give them the luxuary of digging and finding out all that we see here. They were sold a lot of promises and got screwed...but instead of blaming those who did the messing up, they blame the entire process.

Mike Malloy, back in the mid 90's, used to explain this as the "dumbing down"...a deliberate effort by the right wing to make politics so toxic that most people turned off...the less people paying attention the better the GOOP lies worked and the less the scrutiny.

Hopefully you haven't lost respect for the many on DU who are fighting and, if we have any ability, won't let this regime get away with its crimes. As the old saying goes, if you're offering a solution, you're part of the problem.

Cheers...

[HughBeaumont]

4. Sometimes, civility ISN'T a good thing.

When the wealthy and their juggernaut doesn't care about you, you have to MAKE them care.

This 28-year bout of complacency is vomitous.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

5. It is absolutely mind boggling...

...they're such obvious criminals yet we do nothing to stop them. We have witnessed the birth of a permanent fascist authoritarian regime in the U.S. and essentially just stood by with our mouths agape and done nothing.

[grannie4peace]

6. but

it is so nice to see examples that we can stop this nonsense & restore our "American dream". like the judge sentencing osama's driver & apologizing to him-a "military judge" previously thought to be stuck up bush's ass. the books of susskind, & others that will SHOW the people the truth. THEN, WHICH IS NOW, I GUESS -it's our turn to get all these facts out & to assure the people stepping forward that they have the support of the people behind them. and that we DEMAND justice be served!!!!THAT is some of what we can do.

[Postman]

8. The fact that there aren't people in the streets.....

is a good indication of jusy how propagandized we really are. Americans are a medicated , docile, uninformed, group of "consumers" rather than citizens who know nothing of the world.

Hell, most Americans probably couldn't find Wyoming on a map of their own country.

The right-wing has won. Face it. This country is destroyed, intellectually.

[screembloodymurder]

9. When I talk to friends about what's happened to America,

I feel like someone trying to expose a wound to those with a weak stomach. People look away in disgust, and refuse to listen. They prefer to have the problems wrapped in a sterile, white gauze. The MSM is giving people what they want to see and hear.

[natrat]

10. fat,slow and stupid-like shooting fish in a barrel

[KG]

11. i'm not surprised at all. we live in an infantile society, peopled by a children that believes in

what ever fairy and lies we are told. it has been that way for over 200 years.

[barbtries]

12. it's not true that "we" are to blame for this mess

read http://www.amazon.com/Against-Empire-Michael-Parenti/dp/0872862984/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218213459&sr=8-1

we aren't a country of, for and by the people. maybe we were once. maybe we can be again. but it's gonna take a lot.

[springhill]

13. Some people just don't care to know what is going on.........

I was just at my sisters and I was playing a portion of the Susskind interview and she had absolutely no interest in knowing what it was about. She was hearing it, but not listening. She is a very intelligent person, I might add, but I think she would rather stay ignorant that know the awful truth.

[wiggs]

14. This campaign season is a time when candidates, surrogates, pundits, journalists

should be reviewing the misdeeds of the last 8 years (unprecedented, immoral, corrupt, criminal misdeeds). We should be hearing something every day about mis-use of science, white phosporous, mis-management, missing funds, deficits, abuse of power, ignored pdfs, curveball, forged documents, Brown Act violations, Katrina, etc. Obama or his surrogates should flat out state that the era of a policy of deception, misinformation, and corruption of government offices for lobbyists and entrenched power is over.

I don't understand how the country can allow public discourse to be so off target.

I'm with you.

[Beam Me Up]

15. "Disappointed" is an understatement.

I'm thoroughly disgusted and disillusioned.