At some point in our history it stopped being about achieving great things and the only driving force became about making money. An entire unhealthy culture erupted around wealth and the showing off of wealth. We are living in a society that may be the worst that has existed in the history of the world. Greed is good is destroying humanity.

This emphasis on making a profit (not just a profit but an enourmous one) is a disease that we suffer from and honestly I don't know what the cure will be. We have unleashed a sociopathic entity called the corporation on the world and it far more dangerous than the soviet oligarch or the kings and queens of the past. Its propoganda machine is one that would make Goebbels envious and its ability to influence government decisions is almost complete. Before even seeing the Baucus bill I had a bad feeling about what would end up coming out of committee. I have the same uneasiness about what the final legislation concerning reform on Wall Street will look like. We are probably too late on climate change and any action will probably be half ass and too little too late.

Christianity, a religion that where its founder was crucified for standing up to the corrupt government of his time, has morphed into a free market religion. It has been hijacked in every way that Islam has been hijacked by a radical fringe who take things out of context or make things up.

The notion of the public good has been abandoned. Spending on the public good is scorned by the very people it will help. Sometimes using the warped Christianity as a basis.

One political party is a total tool of the corporate powers that be and the other is a partial tool. Legislation is written more by corporate lobbyist than it is by legislative aides. We have very few great legislators these days.

I do not see how we can be rescued from ourselves. It isn't just the politians that are a problem. American culture is the problem and our leaders are simply a reflection of the people.

It isn't just an American phenomenon--you will find the money-grubbing pattern on every continent.

However, as cynical as we may be (and I'm majorly cynical, and about a lot more than just politics), we're still trying, so we must have some kind of hope left, in ourselves and others. You wouldn't have written this OP if all was truly lost.

Great post. :thumbsup:

Too good of an article to allow it to be diluted by typos!

;-)

Constantine merged Christianity and the State, and that merger persisted and grew until the start of the modern era. The rise of nation states and mercantilism and the emergence of capitalism is intertwined with the protestant reformation and especially calvinism. The seminal work on this is The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber. See also Marx (and the large body of marxist work relevant to religion and its role in society.) Weber, by the way was not a marxist. Between the two of them you will have a hard time with your argument that there is some recent warpage of christianity in play here. In my opinion by 312 it was already just another mechanism of state control, and the reformation that broke the RCC's monopoly on religious authority in the west from the 1400's to the 1700's only made matters worse.

He saw that it inspired more devotion than the state religion of rome and the multiple Gods. He grabbed it.

The figure of an all powerful savior is a very very powerful propoganda tool.

Society has been using because God wants it to justify decisions since the concept of God entered our thoughts.

I always find it quite ironic that the first action of Moses after giving a commandment that says Thou Shall not kill was to murder the people responsible for the Golden Calf.

the "you will be forgiven for ALL of your sins if you just join OUR church" meme.

Genius. Sheer genius.

Although he extablished Christianity as a state religion in Rome, he did not make it mandatory. All of the other religions /gods were allowed to keep their shops open. It was the Roman Senate, seeing a way to grab power and keep it who passed laws making Christianity the ONLY religion in Rome and making it madatory (under penalty of death) to be Christian.

Can you guess from whose families were chosen the first bishops of the church?

There, that sums up my critique nicely. :P

in the late 80s and early 90s, if only to justify their jets, Bentleys' and huge estates. But they found their kindred s'pirates in the neoCon wing of the GOP, who had ideas just as loony as their own.

It was an intersting experience. The pastor at that church did well not to show off his wealth. He did however have a run for congress in his background. He wasn't an awful guy, moral and good family man, the congregation was mostly upper middle class people. I think the congregations leanings politically were mostly based on their place in society, the management for the rich or small business owners. They selected the parts of the bible that justified their existence.

Who better espouses twisted ethics like avarice and power-hungriness than this group of buffoons? God's chosen are the elite power brokers of the world, the wealthiest, the most ruthless. These megalomaniacs hold in admiration some of the most heinous individuals in history. Love thy neighbor? More like screw thy neighbor over. The meek shall inherit the earth? Ha! The meek barely deserve to work as slave labor.

History is full of empires their rise, their collapse, the remnants moving on.

Hopefully we look more like England and less like Russia.

I suspect the plunge here is going to be as bad as many in the Latin Americas. We have a banana republic government now, as many of the Lat Am nations did several decades ago. But look at them now. They are the emerging new social(ist) movement.

Its paying dividends for the people.




I encourage you to check in on DU's Latin America forum for some great discussion over much good news on this.

:hi:



-

I forgot the article, but - and this was from ~6 months ago - all empires end, but even the British empire hasn't suffered despite its end.

America's won't either. For reasons-I've-not-often-said-but-when-I-did-I-said-them-in-a-half-cynical-tone-anyway... :)

and no motivation to change their ways.

OK, very bad pun, I know.

The powerbrokers need to realize that when you truly break a population, they have some scary alternatives at their disposal!

Don't ever forget that along with the establishment of the Republic came the slaughter of millions, the theft of vast areas, and the use of millions of slaves to clear our plundered lands.

America has always been about the profiteering from suffering brought about by the worship at the altar of manifest destiny.


http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html

Religous fundamentalist, smugglers and slave owners.

A nation founded on the idea of freedom also had written into its founding document provisions to keep an institution that made one man the property of another.

We have been hypocritical since our founding. Our founding was never really about freedom but that our elites had been limited in their desires by a far away monarch and parliment that didn't view the colonist as equals. If the brittish had simply given us seats in parliment, we'd probably still be part of the brittish empire.

Our elites simply stopped selling the Brittish line and decided to try things on our own.

However, I openly wonder if our elites of the 18th century were a little better than the elites we have now.

Merchantilism was the global capitalism of it's day, designed to bring maximum profit to owners and empire at the expense of the populace-especially the ones in the further reaches of the system like the american colonies. It was a well-oiled money sucking machine geared to funnel money to the topmost elites, backed up by the military.

They were every bit as venal and out of touch with the reality of the world they were shaping and exploiting. The only real difference is that the technology of the time didn't permit them to live insanely better, safer, or healthier lives than the people they subjugated.

Great post and commentary, OP. :applause: Lots of food for thought. The poster above is right, I hope we turn out more like the UK than Russia when all is said and done.

You've been wrongly taken to task for what is a good and honorable thread-starting post, but I have to differ on this one. The first British settlement was Jamestown, which was purely for profit, with no tinge of religion about it. The Pilgrims of Plymouth didn't show up for another 13 years, a year after slaves had already blown ashore and race-based slavery had been instituted in Virginia.

From its inception, this has been a country of opportunity, both in the good and bad sense: we are peopled by the people who got away from systems that had cast them in roles they didn't want. We're a country of second sons, ambitious peasants, the religiously persecuted, the imaginative, the selfish, the impatient, and all the good and bad mixtures of the above.

We have always been about money. We never had a revolution, merely a war of independence so the local haves could welch on their debts to the mother country and go about their business as they damn well pleased.

There's a greatness to America: personal responsibility, freedom (for some) to amass whatever one pleases and all that, but there's also the dark side of selfishness. It's always been there; it just didn't become a virtue until Reagan.

I would have to agree with your suspicion that our elites of the 18th century were a bit better than those we have now, even taking into account the peculiar institution, but that's not saying too much.

The problem is the human being itself, which is why I'm a liberal: perfection of mankind does not seem possible to me, and that's why communism failed and the Reagan Revolution has taken some serious blows. History shows us as the same noble, decent, greedy, evil savages that we've always been; my political hopes are that we continue to fine-tune ways of accounting for this and fostering what is good in our species while not ignoring what is bad.

We are really no worse than most other developed countries, but we are also no better; we simply have different manifestations of the human condition. What makes us SEEM better is that we prize individualism, and what makes us SEEM worse is that we prize individualism. As a contrarian, I both benefit and suffer from this, but the sad reality is that I have some means and abilities, so I can ply a course through the storm. Those who can't are increasingly dismissed as not worthy to exist, and that's the offshoot of our reactionary chokehold of the last 28 plus years.

Thanks for the thread, and try to enjoy the thoughtful posts without being poisoned by the assholes who need to crush and humiliate you into silence so their fragile egos don't get jostled and so they can get pats on the back from their chums at your expense.

when they are allowed to proceed with the only goal as acquiring MORE. (thats not a very good sentence, ss)

It's also provided better health, longer lives, more artwork and chances to express creativity.

of why our society is deteriorating so badly. Well done. K & R.

It is used to guarantee, that any money liberated from you, will enrich you. This philosophy, is more like the Jewish religion, that said that you get it here, or God doesnt love you. This was because they didnt believe in life hereafter. Thus, the Job stuff. This also allows you to ridicule all those that the church in earlier times would have helped. Cuz they are not RIGHT with God.

When everyone expects that politicians are crooks then only crooks become politicians.

Me hoping for a good politian doesn't make them.

That's why Obama constantly warned about people trying to label him a savior who is gonna fix everything, change has to come from below, expecting a savior to fix everything is stupid.

When all (or at least most of) the politicians are crooks then people become cynical and pessimistic.

This country and society will find its’ own way again, but the America that has been idealized probably never really existed to begin with. This country always had individuals who hated new-comers - heck, we even killed off the people who were here before! What will ultimately save this society is what has always defined it – new blood.
It is often thought that this country was founded on Christian principles. But that brand of Christianity was borne out of the European explorers killing "godless" natives if they didn't accept their new "saviour".
It is evident now as many - if not most - of the "jesus" crowd are aligned with the political right. Whatever one's belief about the guy who wandered about in ancient Palestine, one would have to agree that that Jesus would be appalled at the Republican platform - so too with the faux patriotism and futile interpretations of the intentions of the U.S. founders.
Neither the insistence that right-leaning politics are the true embodiment of the Constitution, nor the inane waving of the Constitution itself as the "Bible" of this country mesh with the concept of a government by and for the people - which in itself more of a ideal than a practical how-to for governing a country. It is easy to dismiss the originists as sexist and racist, but such epithets didn’t exist when the original document was written – those truths were self-evident.
We are indeed seeing the death of America - the America that never was, but one that many still cling to. This is the America that is ruled by white people of a European background - the descendants of those whom killed off as many of the godless infidels that they could find.
And this, as embodied by the republican party and their appropriate symbol – the white elephant – is what we see today, wailing and writhing in the great tar pit of obsolescence.
We are our own occupiers and no empire lasts forever. The profane greed that they display is a fatal flaw, certainly. But it is a futile, pathetic grasp of materialism to replace any sense of value forever lost in the war.
The longer these people stay relevant only delays the inevitable. It is about evolution after all – natural and human evolution. If they can’t even get that right – fighting against natural forces - we should not be surprised at where we find ourselves today.

evolution is what's happening right now and it's scaring the living shit out of the current cast of dinosaurs.

Act locally, evolve globally

A friend of mine is a reggae artist. He's currently laying down the tracks for a new album. He's a great and inspirational lyricist. One of his new songs contains this advice.

Peace and respect to my friends and enemies, love to strangers and family... this may not be the world I live in but it's the way I chose to live in it.

I believe he has hit on the key. We may not get to chose the way the world is currently but we always have the choice of how we behave towards others in our day-to-day dealings with them.

Peace and respect to all

And lol to "evolution is what's happening right now and it's scaring the living shit out of the current cast of dinosaurs."

Thinking "well, at least it *has* been worse at some points in our history." The trouble now is we haven't got an FDR. And the R's have convinced everybody it takes 60 votes in the Senate.

I finally have emerged from a 9-month gestation of "lurkerhood" to reply to your post. As obvious as it seems, your concise description of the overall problem demonstrates a clarity that has not been generally achieved.

To quote the tradition that has been sadly abused, "Love of money is the root of all evil."

I commend your efforts.

Welcome to posting on DU anyway! (9-month gestation of "lurkerhood") LOL!

I commend the OP as well. I was thinking along those lines as I was eating dinner tonite.

I think we're pretty much fucked! :banghead:

Things have gotten very bad, but hopefully it's a case of "things having to get worse before they get better."

past 2 or 3 decades?

:popcorn:

moving for a while, more or less in the same direction, before keeling over, but it's really already dead.

But I believe that we can change culture. Maybe those of us disgusted by what we have seen will be the ones to make the change.

Yep, I get a laugh out of all these weak-sister, emo "we're doomed" OPs. The United States has survived much worse.

I think that being a Robber Baron of one sort or another has to be the second.

The one that's illegal (in most places here) and the one that's considered legal, should be reversed.

We just need to stick together and keep the big picture in our minds.
The big picture being that this is going to take time and perseverance on our part. We can disagree on some things, but we have to stay united and be strong and patient.

:applause:

Look at all the long term economic indicators, 1973 was the peak year of wealth for the middle class. Ever since that first oil embargo, America has gone downhill.

The next downpoint was 1978 when the New Right came into power with Proposition 13 in California, that opened the door for Reagan and the full implementation of conservatism

Add in the 2000 election which was a coup d'etat illegally sanctioned by the Supreme Court and see how Asshole W Bush just let the nuts run wild.

Honestly, I do not think the United States is going to be around much longer, we're going to go the way of the Soviet Union and break into pieces.

Civil rights, racism, lynching, killing of union organizers, economic royalists & organized money, slavery, sweatshops , etc.

Let's not forget we are part a a historic struggle of the people against corrupt wealthy war profiteers and death merchants, et al.

Our struggle is part of our grandparents struggle and our grandchildrens.

We do what we can by carrying on as best we can, fighting when and where we can, IMHO.

This nation began with genocide vs Native American . . .
Later running "white settlers" in their territory and we call it our "heartland" now!
Slavery -- another 100 years of Segregation --
Taking over other nations -- Philippines, Hawaii -- War with Mexico for land --

The very beginning of the nation involved giving land and wealth to the elites --

I think most of us want what we've always wanted -- to live in peace with our families --
It is the few who desire control over others and great wealth.

Remember that royalty morphed into capitalism/corporations when we knocked down Kings.

Also, that this right wing propaganda reminds you of Nazi Germany isn't unusual -- the Nixon
White House spent long period of time studying Nazi propaganda/films.

Re this . . .
Christianity, a religion that where its founder was crucified for standing up to the corrupt government of his time, has morphed into a free market religion. It has been hijacked in every way that Islam has been hijacked by a radical fringe who take things out of context or make things up.

Our problems begin with patriarchy -- violent patriarchy.
They could not declare themselves "superior" to others -- they needed a "god" to do that
for them - so they invented a male god to do that.
The Bible was written to cement patriarchy.

After the New Deal and when the social revolutions began in the 1960's -- anti-war, pro-nature,
natural protective means of health, ending notions of anyone being "inferior" -- organic foods, breastfeeding, natural child birth -- celebrating normal human sexuality - challenges to organized
patriarchal religions -- and most of all generally challenging authority . . .

PATRIARCHY had to reestablish itself --
Since organized patriarchal religion is the underpinning for patriarchy, they first had to
reestablish that. That's why they've created this Fundi religious movement.
The GOP gave start up funds to the Christian Coalition. Other right wing monied folk helped
Dobson and Bauer create their right wing religious organizations. This didn't happen by any
natural means. It was created by the elites. As religion has always been used by them to
destroy other nations and to hold power to themselves.

Nor can they have a Jesus floating around who more resembles a "Commie" --
Much of former Christian teachings had to be reversed -- much as large parts of the Bible
are contradictory for the same reason.

US/CIA also created the Islamic Fundi movement in ME ---
We spent millions on printing and producing the vile text books used to teach violent notions
of Islam. At the end here I'll give you a like to the info on Afghanistan and the textbooks.
Again, none of this happened by accident -- it's been used to disrupt peaceful religions.



Generally I agree with your overall attempt here --

On the other hand, what I worry about is the entire planet --

Patriarchy is suicidal!


------------------------------------------------

FIRST PART OF THIS DEALS WITH HOW US/CIA CREATED TALIBAN AND AL QAEDA . . .
TO BAIT RUSSIANS INTO AFGHANISTAN . . .!!!


SECOND PART DEALS WITH THE TEXTBOOKS --



The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser

Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs <"From the Shadows">, that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Q: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Q: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

http://www.takeoverworld.info/brzezinski_interview_shor...


---------------------------------------------------

SECOND PART --


The US spent $100's of millions shooting down Soviet helicopters yet didn't spend a penny helping Afghanis rebuild their infrastructure and institutions.

They also spent millions producing jihad preaching, fundamentalist textbooks and shipping them off to Afghanistan. These were the same text books the Western media discussed in shocked tones and told their audiences were used by fundamentalist teachers to brainwash their charges and to inculcate in young Afghanis a jihad mindset, hatred of foreigners and non-Muslims etc.


Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal?

Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal that's waiting to happen?"

Because it has been almost unreported in the Western media that the US government shipped, and continues to ship, millions of Islamist textbooks into Afghanistan.

Only one English-speaking newspaper we could find has investigated this issue: the Washington Post. The story appeared March 23rd.

Washington Post investigators report that during the past twenty years the US has spent millions of dollars producing fanatical schoolbooks, which were then distributed in Afghanistan.

"The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books..." -- Washington Post, 23 March 2002 (1)

According to the Post the U.S. is now "...wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism."

So the books made up the core curriculum in Afghan schools. And what were the unintended consequences? The Post reports that according to unnamed officials the schoolbooks "steeped a generation in violence."

How could this result have been unintended? Did they expect that giving fundamentalist schoolbooks to schoolchildren would make them moderate Muslims?

Nobody with normal intelligence could expect to distribute millions of violent Islamist schoolbooks without influencing school children towards violent Islamism. Therefore one would assume that the unnamed US officials who, we are told, are distressed at these "unintended consequences" must previously have been unaware of the Islamist content of the schoolbooks.

But surely someone was aware. The US government can't write, edit, print and ship millions of violent, Muslim fundamentalist primers into Afghanistan without high officials in the US government approving those primers.

http://www.tenc.net/articles/jared/jihad.htm

Q: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Q: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

.......

Created the problem for the Soviets? Now getting even deeper in a similar long war that involves nuclear Pakistan and is using borrowed $ to do it....all the while REELING from economic weakness?

US still stuck in the ramifications of it's own past decisions? Cold wars and wars for oil...instead of a sane energy policy?

Seems a bit familiar? Like Germany after 1933...trashed economy after long war....looking for resources in other countries?

Invade.....conquer....?????????? Not going to end well.....

You would think he was talking about a video game -- or a chess game . . .
wasn't that the name of his book?

Anyway, evidently he first gave the details on this to O'Rilley about three ... 4 years ago?

And notice that the way to talk about our "defeat" in VN -- the Bright Shining Lie -- is not

to mention it -- except indirectly in our vengeance to try to see the Russians humiliated as

obviously they still feel they were humiliated!!!

I also recall that Carter pulled us out of the Olympics - while he knew what had really happened.

Agree with your conclusion --

Meanwhile, I don't think this was merely about bringing down USSR -- I think they'd love to

get their hands on Russia and I can't begin to imagine what's really going on there!!!

If you avoid the flattering bios of Emperor Constantine (almost all penned by his own Karl Rove, Bishop Eusebius...), you will learn that Constantine was a true politician and then some.

Christianity had evolved from the earlier Gnosticism, was cute, and popular. And the many factions of it bitched, bitched and bitched. A lot of this bitching ended up at Connie's court.

And it came with RULES. "Where there are rules, there must be a ruler."

Thus, Nicea and off we go to Orthodox. Nice, neat, tidy, correct?

Little is mentioned of those opposing bishops who took off, that the new-n-improved Christianity didn't look, act or sound like the earlier versions. This didn't matter: Constantine was anal, and adored power, power and did we mention power?

Thus, the "perversion" of Christianity was already a done deal and at the hand of a power-mad murderer. Why?

It's a play on Marx: "Religion is the opiate of the masses. Whoever owns the opium owns the masses."

You do make a valid point, but my point is that the usurpation of the principles of Gnosticism to promote hate....is a game dating back to the court of "Slick Connie" himself. You're just seeing the latest installment.

...with outright Communism on the far Left and outright Fascism on the Right. That way, when people really see what goes on and what the extremes represent, they'll start working towards the middle.

1. Public financing for all political parties with 10 million registered members or more.

2. Equal access to the media, who are mandated to present all the viewpoints of all such qualified parties for an hour total each day at 22.00 for the month long Political Presentation Series. Post polls each morning of the previous night's question and answer period. Let moderators be selected by lot from the other political parties, who won't be inclined to throw any softballs to their opponents.

I firmly believe that we would end up with a thankfully secular Socialistic government which would have control over the Electrical grid, the fossil fuel refining and distribution systems, as well as nationalized air, rail and public transportation entities with competition allowed and based on enhanced service and perks. With a national health care entity also based on competition based on extra-ordinary service standards.

And, like the last days of Rome, you are indeed looking at the end of the Republic.

I just can't be optimistic right now, no matter how hard I try -- the deck seems stacked, and the lunatics have taken over the asylum, if I may mix metaphors.

. . .case in point:

In every American-style Mall, the entry level is dominated by a flashy competitive cosmetics-perfumes department. Think about this phenomenon. . .these thousands of frivolous BOTTLES are kept warm in the winter, cooled for the summer, and continuously pampered by the sexy-ized sales staff.

Meanwhile, for which I have concrete proof in RI, increasing numbers of homeless PEOPLE just outside these malls are struggling with winter and/or summer heat exposure, without even a pot to piss in, let alone any sexy-ized attention. Our state officials keep chasing them around. . .see link.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/PROVITENTS_IN_COURT_09-18-09_JNFOOR5_v16.38abbec.html

Who the hell buys all those bottles, even with a commercial-Christmas spike in sales??? IMHO, there's NEVER a volume consumption to justify that exaggerated cosmetic prominence in stores.

Yet corporate America continues to PIMP these luxury products, creating a FAKE DEMAND as part of our culture's FAKE AMERICAN DREAM that says you too can be rich and famous if you would only buy yourself or sweetie a $735 Chanel Ultimate Collection.

Meanwhile, REAL people are going without basic needs, increasing in numbers with the current recession.

Every time I walk past these homeless to enter a decadent mall, I ALREADY KNOW BOTH our republic and culture have lost their way into CORPORATE INSATIABLE GREED.

BUT. . .

it doesn't have to be this way. . .my other case in point:

The French culture, that originated perfume like Chanel, has one of the better welfare states in the world:

http://www.pitt.edu/~heinisch/ca_fran.html

. . . and consequently, though French luxuries abound, their CULTURE ALSO addresses the PEOPLE'S BASIC NEEDS. . . IMHO the French have their priorities in decent order. . .even as they struggle of late with a immigrant agitation, the fundamentals of life are FIRST in France, not FAKE PRODUCTS FOR PROFITS.

What exactly do the French people do that we Americans don't to create their BETTER CULTURE? Herein lies the solution. . .finding the loose thread to unravel this decaying American fabric.

Yep, cosmetic-perfume bottles live better than people in the great U S of A. What a cynical mental image this makes! I can't shake it off. . .

here I come. . .allons y en France!




Students block their highschool with dustbins in Marseille, southern France, as part of the nationwide protest. 29 January 2009 Photograph: Michel Gangne/AFP/Getty Images

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/29/france-general-strike-global-recession

:shrug: :shrug: :shrug: :shrug: :shrug:

Welcome to the REAL 21st century. It's astounding what the world's greatest nation has become - run by King Glenn and the thousand or so wannabes.

I still believe the people will prevail at some point, but right now that's a long way off, and with each day that we don't start holding the ruling elite responsible for their actions, democracy gets 2 days farther away.

I'm wondering if your grandfather (if he lived in the country) might have felt the same way. I suspect any thinking (and feeling) person throughout the history of our country who has had the time to step outside the maze for even a few minutes may have seen the Republic lost for the same reasons. Greed has been with us from the beginning... not only the beginning of this country, but the beginning of humankind's involvement in matters of social living.

As our country's technological progress has evolved over the years, and corporate media has saturated every fiber of the social fabric in nearly every country on earth, the "want" and "desire" for material "things" has intensified greatly, allowing for the viral-like spread of the disease of addiction we like to call "greed".

When we get to this point, it seems it is not just the Republic which is lost... it is the planet at large.

I agree with you. For me, at this point, all that's really left is my faith in God. Not religion. God.

that nothing much seems to matter. Our representatives are bought and paid for and INCAPABLE of acting for the common good. We are fleeced by private enterprise which runs amok with little or no control or regulation. Our news media delivers anything but and is able to ignore stories about Congressional blackmail, corruption, bribery, etc. which in former times would have turned the Capitol upside down. Our wages suck and will continue to suck as all monies are directed upward. Our banks fail and will continue to fail. More will lose their homes and go bankrupt.

There just seems little to aspire to anymore. I don't think I have EVER been more depressed about the state of our country. Even the sixties, with the Viet Nam War splitting the country down the middle and the Civil Rights upheaval seem in retrospect to have been a more optimistic era because people believed in change, they created change and change was possible.

I think that if the corruption of the political system becomes as entrenched as it appears to be in our country, one just loses hope. Will people wake up when suddenly, NO ONE wants to come here anymore? Why would they if all they have to look forward to is a corporatcracy which jeopardizes their health and their wealth simultaneously? Our wages are nothing to write home about and our opportunities diminish daily.

As we near retirement age, the concept of going elsewhere to live becomes more and more a possibility.

It's not easy with the ambient environment we're stuck in, but at least do your hardest to try.

As a child I was taunted and bullied on a basis so frequent, with the school system being apathetic, I had to walk or be driven to school.

I've survived two child molesters (the memories of which linger)...

And a sexual assault at age 15.

I could write a 500 page book, as a non-fiction piece or warp it into a Lifetime made-for-tv flick... too busy with college right now, but mine is a story that would shake the system.

Indeed, I've read a couple recent lawsuits where the victims won shitloads of money. For far, far lesser things (albeit some of which that had happened to me too).

Methinks you are right.

and sadly true. K&R

We are a country of me, not we.

We have lost all sense of community with our worship of individualism. When I say 'community,' I mean the real-time communities we live in, not the virtual communities we isolate ourselves in via electronic devices. More & more, people are engaged in their virtual communities while out & about in their real-time communities & you can see the effect this has. Whether they mean to or not, they are often rude because they are disengaged & unaware of their surroundings.

It's fairly easy to be part of a community that you select, where people generally agree with you, & where you can hit the off switch when you've had an aggravating encounter. These things are much more difficult in a diverse, real-time community.

Don't worry.

The liberalisation of human societies is an inevitable historical process.

It's just that nothing moves in a straight line forever, especially where human crowd mentality is concerned.

The flashes of conservative effort that we have witnessed in recent years are just a natural retracement in the relentless bull market of liberal progress. Take a look back a few centuries to get a perspective of where we have come from and where we are headed.

In fact, having an ultra conservative religious fundamentalist in the White House was ironically highly productive in the cause of progressive evolution of human society.

This is why Barack is so happy to sit smiling in the rocking chair on his porch, feeding the suckers another yard of rope.

Our fathers bled
At Valley Forge
The snow was red with blood
Their faith was worn
At Valley Forge
Their faith was brotherhood.

Wasn't that a time, wasn't that a time?
A time to try the souls of men
Wasn't that a terrible time?

Brave men who fought
At Gettysburg
Now lie in soldier's graves
But there they stemmed
The rebel tide
And there
Their faith was saved.

Wasn't that a time, wasn't that a time?
A time to try the souls of men
Wasn't that a terrible time?

The wars are long
The peace is frail
The madmen come again -
There is no freedom
In a land
Where fear and hate prevail.

Isn't this a time, isn't this a time?
A time to try the souls of men,
Isn't this a terrible time?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPNnpmAD4nM

and this final phase was started in the 70s.

See, the parasite class has always opposed the ideals this nation was founded on and has always fought against it. The SCOTUS decisions of the 1830s and 1840s, the land grants for the railroads, the rise of the robber barons, corporate "personhood" and the theft of our monetary system, the failed coup of the 1930s, the rise of the corporatocracy through the 1960s and 1970s, then came Raygunism and the New World Order, the successful coup of 2000, and the collapse of 2007.

Each time, an individual rose up to stop or at least slow them down, Obama should have been our latest, but he has failed.

George Carlin summed up our situation; "Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice . . . you don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying . . . lobbying, to get what they want . . . Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want . . . they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that . . . that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin' years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers . . . Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin' retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it . . . they’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fuckin' place. It’s a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in The Big Club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people . . . white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means . . . continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you . . . they don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all . . . at all . . . at all, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it..."

When we focus on the immediate problems, they become distractions. Sexism, racism, religious extremism, the economy, the mass-murders in the Middle East, etc., are all symptomatic of the one basic problem that you've hit upon, the parasite class. It is, and always has been, about us vs. them. They declared and have waged this one-sided war and we choose to pretend that it doesn't exist, even when they flat out tell us that it is.

My husband and I talked about that last night. I said only about 10-20% of the young people working today are hard core and serious about it. Everywhere we go every store, business, etc the employees are talking on cell, playing on computers, talking and chatting to friends and fellow work mates instead of working.

When I first started working in the late 70's most places had strict rules and you couldn't even talk while working unless it was about work. You had a strict dress code and no one dared stray from it. You wouldn't think of telling off or speaking back to a boss unless you were ready to be fired or quit. When they first gave us computers playing on it never even entered my mind nor did i see anyone else doing so until early 90's and by then I was mid 30's and she was early 20's.

The young of today are more interested in contacting friends than in doing the job. By cell, text, facebook, email, twitter...etc.

What I notice even though I also do all those things now retired is that you talk a lot but what do you really say? So much is nonsense talk.

Which brings me back to my original thought, what will happen in 30 yrs when the young who have been mostly brought up spoiled and lacking real work skills are running the country?