An interesting thread today: discussion with Mark Crispin Miller, author of "The Bush Dyslexicon" and a new one coming out on the 2004 election.
What is the cost of American complacency, aided and abetted by the media blackout on the "sour grapes" story of another stolen election. By January and Senator Boxer's brave stand in the U.S. Senate, even on DU the discussion was over and it was time to "move on" to "NEXT TIME."
M.C. Miller was motivated to write this new book after the 2004 election and will do much to raise the issue in the public consciousness. In the DU conversation today he said:
"We've therefore long since lost our civic virtue, and the necessary habit of saying NO when things become oppressive."
Are we OK with that? Is that in keeping with our supposed faith in Constitution and Founders and Framers? Or is that the comfortable complacency of the Stockholm Syndrome-- willing captives entranced by their captors?
Given the damage done by the current administration day by day and month by month over the past year, is the blind faith in "Next Time" justified, or merely reassuring?
:patriot: :kick:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5253576"We tend to think of many of our fellow-citizens as apathetic because, let's face it, we too live inside "the media bubble," which represents us to ourselves (and to the whole wide world) as far less discontented than we really are.
"Now, it is surely true that people should be more than discontented. They should be actively protesting and resisting. (Although there too the media tunes out what protest and resistance HAS welled up.) On the other hand, the system has radically depoliticized us, training us to watch and, if we can afford it, shop, and little else. We've therefore long since lost our civic virtue, and the necessary habit of saying NO when things become oppressive.
"Just remember that the situation is a lot more fluid, and potentially explosive, than it appears to be on CNN and in the New York Times. The elites have fallen out with one another——a clash that now provides us with a most important opportunity to say things that have been verboten for too long. The iron is hot. It's therefore crucial that we not despair, or paralyze ourselves with undue worries vis-a-vis the seeming or alleged indifference of "the masses."