In Your Opinion, Are Things...

[WiffenPoof]

...worse off in our country than you previously thought.

More to the point.
It has only been in the last three years that I have begun to realize just how bad things are in our country. Now, this realization seems to grow daily.

Have you had a similar catharsis? Has it only been recently that things seem to be going off the rails? Or is it just me?

Yes, I know that this has been going on for a very long time...but now it seems to be speeding up.

-PLA

[SDuderstadt]

1. Catharsis?

I don't think it means what you think it does.

[WiffenPoof]

2. Oooops...

Sorry...I thought it meant, "a sudden realization."

-P

[Electric Monk]

3. Epiphany?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(feeling)

[SDuderstadt]

5. Yep n/t

[demmiblue]

9. Meh, no worries. Most of us here understand what you meant to say. n/t

[SDuderstadt]

13. Didn't mean to come off harsh...

everyone makes mistakes.

[pscot]

6. Mabe we could agree on Epiphany

And it does seem to be accelerating. If and when the economy goes back into negative territory again things will get very ugly. And then there's the joker in the deck, climate change. I see hard times ahead and no real solutions.

[rurallib]

4. There is a lot of stuff happening behind closed doors

When real reporters or bloggers finally shine a little light on such things we find that unwanted, unexpected changes are on the way.
For example ALEC. These guys have been working out of the light for decades. Now that they have an opening, their horrid legislation is being shoved through in state capitals across the land.
For example, the Koch Brothers who have been able to work behind the scenes for decades to buy politicians.
For example, the crash of 2008. Many signs of coming disaster covered over until crash.
For example - nuclear power - disaster waiting to happen.

On and on -----

[RKP5637]

7. I don't think it's recent. I've thought we had some pretty bad things going

on for years, although by now I had hoped things would be a lot better.

I think what really bothers me are the underlying problems that are really still the same. Financial, wars, hatefulness, too much religion, a great deal of unrest under the surface, way too much us versus them politics, too many band-aids, a financial system that is allowing the gap between haves and have nots to grow out of control, the continued dumbing down of Americans, people proud of their ignorance, poverty, homelessness, etc. I could add a lot to this list, but everyone gets the drift.

For me, it's probably not speeding up as much as it is the accumulation of non-ending problems and solutions that are pretty much impossible because the country is so divided and some of the politicians are nuts.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. In concert with others on this thread, I think we're seeing the fruition

of years of fascist planning (and I don't use the term lightly as an exaggerated pejorative). Everything is coming out into the open now as they move ahead with their putsch. Either they figure the time is right for success, or they are making a desperate takeover move in advance of something coming down the pike that most of us aren't seeing yet. I think they realize we're headed into a perfect storm of peak oil and mounting catastrophes due to global warming, which is proceeding much faster than anyone thought, even two years ago. I am sure that the super-rich fully understand GW and its implications, but find it useful to keep the planet on its death-trip trajectory.

[RKP5637]

11. And IMO the super-rich fully plan to squeeze every last penny they can out of this

country. They will do well even if the country falters severely. They will just move on leaving what remains to some type of horrid dystopia in the name of god. I do think some in gov. know exactly where we are headed and I hope the good guys can save us, but I do fear the bad and downside of the equation is far too great. ... because of GW and oil depletion.

[jwirr]

17. I agree. The ideas that have been floating around ever since Milton

Friedman, the University of Chicago and multinational corporations are finally failing and no just the people in our nation are beginning to understand this but also other countries. Then you add peak oil with the possible depletion of oil and the global warming effects. I think they are desperate and they know that they only have so much time left before that storm gets here.

[Poll_Blind]

10. Yes, but it was a long time ago. I don't think things are speeding up, per se, I think...

...we only become more aware of the rolling bomb-packed trash ball of humanity at times like this.

It's very likely that from the moment you were born, the world was in just as much peril- if not more- than it is at this moment.

To wit: On September 26th, 1983 the world almost came to an end in a fiery nuclear holocaust. There was absolutely no forewarning that we could have fretted about. One man, single-handedly, prevented the destruction of the world as we know it and his name, by the way, was Stanislav Petrov.

This is almost every single day, if not every single day, on Earth.

PB

[saras]

12. No, not worse, going down the same road

I've experienced the quality of my life, especially those portions that are controlled by corporations, getting consistently worse since the seventies started, with a couple of exceptions. The rate of decay speeded up rapidly when Reagan got into office, and again when Bush Jr. got into office.

I'm referring to

environmental destruction
destruction of culture and its replacement with social Darwinism
destruction of civil society (i.e. politeness based in mutual respect, not fear of offense)
the resurgence of fifties-style sexism
the abandonment of international law by the US (admittedly our record wasn't that great to start with...)
the glorification of willful stupid - the one thing that we genuinely SHOULD discriminate against.
torture

things that got better...
seventies feminism - thank the feminists
eighties experimental music - thank the weirdos and the Japanese tech boom
computers, while only the competent uses them - thank those people who designed the fundamental ideas in the early sixties
treatment of LGBT people - thank radicals, liberals, anarchists, and above all, LBGT people and their direct allies
the noncommercial internet - thank ordinary people
food - thank the hippies, mostly

[seabeyond]

14. 2002, 2003 i started seeing it. 2004 i started reducing spending and wary of market

so no, it is not something new. i am surprised people are surprised what bad shape we are in. it tooka long time to get to today with a lot of phoney numbers and pretending all was fine.

[Kind of Blue]

20. +1000 n/t

[hamsterjill]

15. I've felt things were hopeless since George Bush took office.

I was hopeful that things would turn around when Obama took office, and although there have been a few moments when I became hopeful again, overall, I think we're screwed.

Candidly, that scares the hell out of me!

[Avalux]

16. I went through the same thing after the stolen election of 2000,

and again with 9/11, the wars, etc.....

Yes, things are bad and I've felt that way a very long time. About the speeding up; seems like it and I'm not sure what it means.

[lonestarnot]

18. We've been in the shitter, gett'n shittier for some time now.

No one is stepping up against corporate rule, richie rich, warmongering, slave labor, private industrial prison complex, corruption etc. Apparently too many things to step up to, then throw in catastrophic weather, natural disaster and it's time for me to go night night. :boring: :hi:

[Kind of Blue]

19. Sept. 11, 2001 was it.

The day when my family knew that Bushco had changed the fabric of reality and it was only the beginning of unprecedented disaster. Most of our friends thought that we were taking the feeling way too far, but we planned as survivalists and suffered for a few years, put some major things on hold to control as much as we possibly could, and weathered the last three just fine. So I feel quite the opposite now, I know we are inching back like a patient in rehab after a horrible accident.

[Penguin31]

21. Started the day Reagan took office

And we've been in a slow decline ever since, speeding up once Shrub was "elected" by the Supreme Court.

[Jackpine Radical]

22. The twin symbols of that time are

the release of the hostages by Iran (think October Surprise)

and Reagan's removal of the solar panels from the White House roof (think obeisance to oil).

[bvar22]

23. I started to get worried in the Mid-90s...

...when NAFTA, "Free Trade", and De-Regulation, formerly a hallmark of Republicans, was adopted by the "Centrist" Democratic Party leadership, and the damage done under Reagan was not undone, but accelerated.
I still held some "hope" at that time that the Democratic Party would self-correct, but the failure of the Opposition Party to oppose during the early Bush years proved that Nader was more right than wrong.

Election 2004 (WIN the WAR, MORE "Free Trade" for everybody, and more BBV), and No Democratic protest in Ohio was where I gave up "hope" for any substantive "change" in our system. At that time, my Wife & I came to the realization that no one represented us (Working Class) in Washington, and we had better start making plans to take care of ourselves. We started talking seriously about selling everything, cashing out (what little we had) of Wall Street, burning the credit cards, and buying a place in The Woods that had plenty of clean water and a long growing season.

Experiencing New Orleans immediately after Katrina was the catalyst.*
After I returned to Minneapolis, I told my wife that it was "time".
In 2006, we moved to The Woods and started growing our own food.
So far, so good.

*Amid the square miles of ruined housing in New Orleans, I had a talk with a Real Estate Broker from a large national firm who was walking down the the middle of the street.
I pointed to a house across the street that had been knocked off its foundations, and asked her how much it was worth.
She pointed to a picture of the house in her binder that was taken before Katrina,
and told me that it was worth $220,000.
I laughed, and again pointed to the ruined house across the street, and said ,"You're kidding."
She again pointed to the photo in her binder and said, "Its worth $220,000.
I laughed again, and asked, "According to whom?"
She replied, "According to the Banks."
THAT was my "epiphany".
I realized that The Banks were holding several TONS of worthless paper,
and that there would be a painful adjustment.

I am still convinced to this day that the destruction of housing on the Gulf Coast during Katrina in late 2005 was what triggered the Housing Collapse across the country.