Does anyone else find themseves thinking about that "boiling frog" story with some

[Atticus]

regularity lately? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog)

For those old enough, stop and examine what we accept today without protest and consider how we would have reacted 20 or 30 years ago to similar actions and speech.

We have more nationally known "media personalities" than we can count who are given several hours each day to call our duly-elected Democratic president and our Democratic Congressional leadership names like "unAmerican", "unpatriotic", "criminal" and "Nazis". They interview and promote the books of people who openly call for the assassination of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and others.

We have the totally pathetic Teabaggers who scream sound-bites and incendiary buzzwords scripted for them by astroturf organizations who make obscene profits by peddling hatred. But, just enough of these wild-eyed screamers and spitters are openly carrying semi-automatic weapons that we dare not dismiss them as harmless.

The SCOTUS has greenlighted the out-in-the-open purchase of the next election by corporations whose quarterly profits exceed the GNP of most nations.

In most states, it is still legal to forcibly bar a dying person's loving life partner from visiting them during their final hours.

We are still spending billions of dollars and sacrificing American lives to continue wars which the sane world agrees were unjustified and are unwinnable.

Beyond the current oil well disaster spewing tankers-full of crude into our Gulf of Mexico lie an estimated 3500 previously drilled wells which the owners have been allowed to abandon after TEMPORARILY plugging them.

BP, the criminal corporation which we KNOW told countless lies in their permit application and safety compliance reports, is now allowed to exercise police powers along our southern coast, excluding nosy citizens or nationally known journalist from beaches or wildlife rescue facilities as they see fit.

A memo recently circulated to congressional democrats appears to verify that Republican front groups and conduits like the US Chamber of Commerce plan to spend over $200 million on this fall's elections. That's more than such groups on BOTH sides spent last time.

So, my questons are: why are we accepting this shitstorm like "good Germans"?

Just how damned hot does the water have to get before we jump out of the pot?

Is there nothing that could piss us off enough to get us off our asses and into the streets? How about in some congressman's face?

Are we going to "nice" ourselves to death?

[Mimosa]

1. What can we do? They won't listen. n/t

[Old and In the Way]

2. why are we accepting this shitstorm like "good Germans"?

Because 50% of the public still haven't figured it out yet and are proud to support their fascist Party. Which means things will never get better as I doubt few on our side will ever support their Party's agenda. So either they join us and we can effect real change...or we'll slowly devolve into a 2nd/3rd world nation.

[lib2DaBone]

3. Hedge Funds and Money Managers are sitting on Billions in spare cash...

Read an interesting article today.. it said that Money managers are sitting on Billions and Billions in cash.. money that they can't invest and put to work.

Normally.. these hedge funds would buy up profitable companies.. strip out the assets... ship the jobs to China and sell the rest... giving the profits of 10-20% a month to their wealthy clients.

Now... that money is just sitting there. There are no companies left to strip.. the low hanging fruit has been picked.

This article also said that corporate jets and business aircraft are being repossessed in record numbers... which means that the business tycoons are not making money. They can no longer afford the fuel and maintenance to keep these private business tools.

The Point? The Banksters and their paid shills in both Houses of CONgress... have soiled their own nest. The system is so screwed up.. even the semi-wealthy are going to get pissed sooner or later.

Of course Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan will always profit at the expense of the working poor.. but in general.. I think the public is going to have to finally realize that they are being screwed by both the RepubliCorps and the DemoCorps.

[Ozymanithrax]

4. Please define the meaning of jumping out of the pot?

What is it we should do?

[Atticus]

6. If you're looking for specific instructions, I am not qualified to give you such advice. Ho

that type of advice. But, if we are truly outraged, let's pick SOMETHING that we believe needs to be corrected and take some type of action to bring that correction about.

Are you willing to be arrested?

Are you willing to be "impolite" and loud and ask embarassing questions that NEED asking?

Are you willing and able to donate money to progressive candidates?

Could you sleep on someone's floor in a different state in order to go door to door for one of the "good guys" in the last week or two before November 2nd?

Would you collect signatures on a petition urging repeal of DADT? The passage of EFCA?

Would you be capable of standing up at a local Chamber of Commerce banquet and asking if it's true they are a conduit for Corporate America's funding of candidates who oppose health care for all, the right of unions to organize and forcing Big Oil to pay for their environmental disasters?

The point is, if we really are outraged, let's find some meaningful way of expressing it in support of the Davids and against the Goliaths.

Or, become a part of the stew.

[jberryhill]

5. Okay, I'll bite

With the exception of the BP spill everything else you stated was true 40 years ago.

McCain-Feingold, a portion of which was overturned by Citizens United, did not itself exist until 2002. In fact, the nomination process itself was much less democratic.

Gay rights of any kind were nonexistent.

We were fighting a pointless war in Vietnam which took more than ten times the lives of Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

I'm sorry, but we have made tremendous progress over the last several decades, and I believe we will continue to do so.

If anything, we've become more sensitive to the work needed to be done, not less so.

You know, in 1976 we had a president and vice president that NOBODY voted for. We survived.

Google "Boston desegregation riots".

[Atticus]

7. And , I'll bite back---in a friendly, non-snarky way.

"Back in the day", there simply was no equivalent to Limbaugh, Beck and the scores of wannabes that daily crowd the AM dial.

McCain-Feingold amended the Federal Campaign Contributon Act of 1971, which created the FEC and limited contributions from certain types of organizations. More importantly, corporations spent their money on lobbying elected officials, not on buying them off the shelf.

Yes, gay rights were non-existent, but how much more time is needed to officially protect relationships which we now KNOW are entitled to recognition?

And, yes Vietnam was much more costly in US lives, but it WAS at the forefront of public discourse. There were HUGE marches and demonstrations and all sorts of civil disobedience. People did not just shrug and say "Whatever". And, it was a more "honest" war in that there were damn few, if any, mercenaries employed to fight it.

Today, when you ask people to march on DC or at a public appearance of some wingnut, you are ridiculed. "That's so Sixties!" is a common response.

I just think we have become way too complacent. We no longer have active liberal churches or large labor unions to coordinate our protests and train street-wise leaders. I hope the events which finally arouse us do not destroy us.

Now that I have officially confirmed my fossilhood, I will close by thanking you for a thoughtful response.

[jberryhill]

9. "march on DC"

How many people attended the annual anti-choice "Right to Life" march this year? They draw a bigger crowd than the teabagger farce, and also get about zero media coverage. I don't care how big their crowd is, and neither do you, because getting a big crowd somewhere doesn't make them right.

On the specific topic of war protests, if you want to see large ones, then Charlie Rangel consistently had the right idea - bring back the draft. American families are not having their sons or daughters involuntarily sent off to war, and that is a BIG difference. The draft was a huge motivator in those protests, and is a major missing factor. There is also a huge difference between having 58,000 deaths in Vietnam, and approaching 5,000 in Afhanistan and Iraq over a longer period of time. The personal stakes to the average American are simply much lower. Today, we wouldn't tolerate a Vietnam scale war. We wouldn't tolerate the casualty count from D-Day alone for that matter.

How many people would you get to this march today:



I doubt you'd get many, and that's progress.

What I hear in the media crazy people are death spasms. Yes, they are over-the-top and nuttier than squirrel shit, but a lot of what they spout are the unquestioned assumptions of 40 and 50 years ago. The fact that they have to scream it at the top of their lungs, and still don't get majority support, is itself a sign of progress.

As far as limiting campaign contributions, that remains intact. Citizens United was a more narrow question than is popularly believed. Fahrenheit 911, for example, was released during a presidential election. Getting into the question of "who is producing a media product and why" is not a simple question. The decision, while wrong, is not the wide open floodgate to direct contributions it is frequently made out to be.

[jberryhill]

10. Another problem with getting older....

Those "I want my country back" types are saying much of the same thing.

The fact is, in 1976 I could run 220 yards in somewhere around 28 seconds.

Hell yeah, I want THAT country back. But I'm not going to get it.

The memories of middle aged folks like myself is inseparably entwined with the fact that we were also better looking and in better shape, than we are now. Your memories of "what things were like" are airbrushed more than you think.

What was it like to be a woman with a law degree in the 1960's or even the 1970's and into the 80's? Heck, I think my school, the University of Delaware didn't admit its first African American student until 1971 - 1971.

We put up with a lot of crap back then that just wouldn't be tolerated in mainstream society today. Sure, Ralph Nader was some "anti-American crank", but find me a new car without airbags now.

IMHO the "we have to get out and wave a bunch of signs in a crowd" impulse is coming from the same place as the unfocused teabagger impulse, and has more to do with getting older and more nostalgic (with the bad parts conveniently airbrushed out of those memories), than it does with objective comparisons of social reality.

[Hawkowl]

8. Frogs actually jump out of the pot fairly quickly

It's humans who stay put until they are cooked.