What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?

[Harconen]

I think that AJ was mentioned something like this in one of his rants recently.

Are Americans a Broken People?

Bruce E. Levine
Cryptogon/Alternet
Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:28 EST

 In general, Americans represent a collective battered spouse who hopes that the batterer will change. Spitting teeth and squinting through two black eyes, they usually go back for more of the same.

This isn't politics. It's pathology.

- The Devil and Mr. Obama

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States?

Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?

What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?

Can anything be done to turn this around?

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them?

Yes. It is called the "abuse syndrome." How do abusive pimps, spouses, bosses, corporations, and governments stay in control? They shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims' faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker. So the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.

Does knowing the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in these abuse syndromes?

No. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing; it can feel shameful - and there is nothing more painful than shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.

Has such a demoralization happened in the U.S.?

In the United States, 47 million people are without health insurance, and many millions more are underinsured or a job layoff away from losing their coverage. But despite the current sellout by their elected officials to the insurance industry, there is no outpouring of millions of U.S. citizens on the streets of Washington, D.C., protesting this betrayal.

Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry, yet only a handful of U.S. citizens have protested these circumstances.

Remember the 2000 U.S. presidential election? That's the one in which Al Gore received 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. That's also the one that the Florida Supreme Court's order for a recount of the disputed Florida vote was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a politicized 5-4 decision, of which dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens remarked: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." Yet, even this provoked few demonstrators.

When people become broken, they cannot act on truths of injustice. Furthermore, when people have become broken, more truths about how they have been victimized can lead to shame about how they have allowed it. And shame, like fear, is one more way we become even more psychologically broken.

U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons that people cannot leave their abusive spouses: They feel helpless to effect change. The more we don't act, the weaker we get. And ultimately to deal with the painful humiliation over inaction in the face of an oppressor, we move to shut-down mode and use escape strategies such as depression, substance abuse, and other diversions, which further keep us from acting. This is the vicious cycle of all abuse syndromes.

Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?

Maybe.

Shortly before the 2000 U.S. presidential election, millions of Americans saw a clip of George W. Bush joking to a wealthy group of people, "What a crowd tonight: the haves and the haves-more. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base." Yet, even with these kind of inflammatory remarks, the tens of millions of U.S. citizens who had come to despise Bush and his arrogance remained passive in the face of the 2000 non-democratic presidential elections.

Perhaps the "political genius" of the Bush-Cheney regime was in their full realization that Americans were so broken that the regime could get away with damn near anything. And the more people did nothing about the boot slamming on their faces, the weaker people became.

What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?

The U.S. government-corporate partnership has used its share of guns and terror to break Native Americans, labor union organizers, and other dissidents and activists. But today, most U.S. citizens are broken by financial fears. There is potential legal debt if we speak out against a powerful authority, and all kinds of other debt if we do not comply on the job. Young people are broken by college-loan debts and fear of having no health insurance.

The U.S. population is increasingly broken by the social isolation created by corporate-governmental policies. A 2006 American Sociological Review study ("Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades") reported that, in 2004, 25 percent of Americans did not have a single confidant. (In 1985, 10 percent of Americans reported not having a single confidant.) Sociologist Robert Putnam, in his 2000 book, Bowling Alone, describes how social connectedness is disappearing in virtually every aspect of U.S. life. For example, there has been a significant decrease in face-to-face contact with neighbors and friends due to suburbanization, commuting, electronic entertainment, time and money pressures and other variables created by governmental-corporate policies. And union activities and other formal or informal ways that people give each other the support necessary to resist oppression have also decreased.

We are also broken by a corporate-government partnership that has rendered most of us out of control when it comes to the basic necessities of life, including our food supply. And we, like many other people in the world, are broken by socializing institutions that alienate us from our basic humanity. A few examples:

Schools and Universities: Do most schools teach young people to be action-oriented - or to be passive? Do most schools teach young people that they can affect their surroundings - or not to bother? Do schools provide examples of democratic institutions - or examples of authoritarian ones?

A long list of school critics from Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, John Holt, Paul Goodman, Jonathan Kozol, Alfie Kohn, Ivan Illich, and John Taylor Gatto have pointed out that a school is nothing less than a miniature society: what young people experience in schools is the chief means of creating our future society. Schools are routinely places where kids - through fear - learn to comply to authorities for whom they often have no respect, and to regurgitate material they often find meaningless. These are great ways of breaking someone.

Today, U.S. colleges and universities have increasingly become places where young people are merely acquiring degree credentials - badges of compliance for corporate employers - in exchange for learning to accept bureaucratic domination and enslaving debt.

Mental Health Institutions: Aldous Huxley predicted today's pharmaceutical societyl "t seems to me perfectly in the cards," he said, "that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude."

Today, increasing numbers of people in the U.S. who do not comply with authority are being diagnosed with mental illnesses and medicated with psychiatric drugs that make them less pained about their boredom, resentments, and other negative emotions, thus rendering them more compliant and manageable.

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is an increasingly popular diagnosis for children and teenagers. The official symptoms of ODD include, "often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules," and "often argues with adults." An even more common reaction to oppressive authorities than the overt defiance of ODD is some type of passive defiance - for example, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Studies show that virtually all children diagnosed with ADHD will pay attention to activities that they actually enjoy or that they have chosen. In other words, when ADHD-labeled kids are having a good time and in control, the "disease" goes away.

When human beings feel too terrified and broken to actively protest, they may stage a "passive-aggressive revolution" by simply getting depressed, staying drunk, and not doing anything - this is one reason why the Soviet empire crumbled. However, the diseasing/medicalizing of rebellion and drug "treatments" have weakened the power of even this passive-aggressive revolution.

Television: In his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), Jerry Mander (after reviewing totalitarian critics such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Jacques Ellul, and Ivan Illich) compiled a list of the "Eight Ideal Conditions for the Flowering of Autocracy."

Mander claimed that television helps create all eight conditions for breaking a population. Television, he explained, (1) occupies people so that they don't know themselves - and what a human being is; (2) separates people from one another; (3) creates sensory deprivation; (4) occupies the mind and fills the brain with prearranged experience and thought; (5) encourages drug use to dampen dissatisfaction (while TV itself produces a drug-like effect, this was compounded in 1997 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration relaxing the rules of prescription-drug advertising); (6) centralizes knowledge and information; (7) eliminates or "museumize" other cultures to eliminate comparisons; and ( 8 ) redefines happiness and the meaning of life.

Commericalism of Damn Near Everything: While spirituality, music, and cinema can be revolutionary forces, the gross commercialization of all of these has deadened their capacity to energize rebellion. So now, damn near everything - not just organized religion - has become "opiates of the masses."

The primary societal role of U.S. citizens is no longer that of "citizen" but that of "consumer." While citizens know that buying and selling within community strengthens that community and that this strengthens democracy, consumers care only about the best deal. While citizens understand that dependency on an impersonal creditor is a kind of slavery, consumers get excited with credit cards that offer a temporarily low APR.

Consumerism breaks people by devaluing human connectedness, socializing self-absorption, obliterating self-reliance, alienating people from normal human emotional reactions, and by selling the idea that purchased products - not themselves and their community - are their salvation.

Can anything be done to turn this around?

When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about their oppressive humiliations don't set them free. What sets them free is morale.

What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of courageous behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more pain, and more shut down.

The last people I would turn to for help in remobilizing a demoralized population are mental health professionals - at least those who have not rebelled against their professional socialization. Much of the craft of relighting the pilot light requires talents that mental health professionals simply are not selected for nor are they trained in. Specifically, the talents required are a fearlessness around image, spontaneity, and definitely anti-authoritarianism. But these are not the traits that medical schools or graduate schools select for or encourage.

Mental health professionals' focus on symptoms and feelings often create patients who take themselves and their moods far too seriously. In contrast, people talented in the craft of maintaining morale resist this kind of self-absorption. For example, in the question-and-answer session that followed a Noam Chomsky talk (reported in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002), a somewhat demoralized man in the audience asked Chomsky if he too ever went through a phase of hopelessness. Chomsky responded, "Yeah, every evening . . ."

If you want to feel hopeless, there are a lot of things you could feel hopeless about. If you want to sort of work out objectively what's the chance that the human species will survive for another century, probably not very high. But I mean, what's the point? . . . First of all, those predictions don't mean anything - they're more just a reflection of your mood or your personality than anything else. And if you act on that assumption, then you're guaranteeing that'll happen. If you act on the assumption that things can change, well, maybe they will. Okay, the only rational choice, given those alternatives, is to forget pessimism."

A major component of the craft of maintaining morale is not taking the advertised reality too seriously. In the early 1960s, when the overwhelming majority in the U.S. supported military intervention in Vietnam, Chomsky was one of a minority of U.S. citizens actively opposing it. Looking back at this era, Chomsky reflected, "When I got involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement, it seemed to me impossible that we would ever have any effect. . . So looking back, I think my evaluation of the 'hope' was much too pessimistic: it was based on a complete misunderstanding. I was sort of believing what I read."

An elitist assumption is that people don't change because they are either ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist "helpers" think they have done something useful by informing overweight people that they are obese and that they must reduce their caloric intake and increase exercise. An elitist who has never been broken by his or her circumstances does not know that people who have become demoralized do not need analyses and pontifications. Rather the immobilized need a shot of morale.

Source: Alternet http://www.alternet.org/story/144529/are_americans_a_broken_people_why_we%27ve_stopped_fighting_back_against_the_forces_of_oppression/?page=entire

[Spero Et Captivus Nitor]

Hey Brother,

Thanks for your intriguing post.

I respect and appreciate your concerns.

Please Remember:

Life, at anytime, is what we say it is- it's a matter of perception.

Some see the glass full.

Others see turds in the punch bowl.

While others definitely could care less about a subject as deep, and important, as America.

Which is why you care- because you are wondering.

My experience:  Most Americans wait until the last moment to set things right- even when we are 'broken', and messed-up everything.  In fact, this provides the impetus to take action.

Because:  Most people do not change until the pain of not changing is greater than the pain itself.

Remember:  Americans are people.

So:  Fear Not.  Humans have a funny way of getting things done; as they always will; and our priorities are often off-base; as our own personal record speaks so clearly.

But:  Do we not usually set things right?  Especially when the greatest teacher, Pain, motivates us?

That is:  To condemn prior to investigation, or to jump to a non-true conclusion, proves a closed and biased mind- with an agenda usually.  At the least, that inquiring mind is fearful.

Because:  He or she chooses to live in the comfort of calculable warm crap.  Stepping outside of it takes courage- especially since it will get cold immediately.  This is what control-freaks, and haters of life, fear most.  They are crabs in a bucket.  The last thing they want is for you to escape.

Therefore:  Ask yourself different questions.  The questions you have the answers to immediately.  These answers will change everything- your life; everyone connected to you; and the world- one moment at a time.

Again:  Practice your courage by taking consistently small steps away from piles of steaming crap.  Don't put yourself in any bucket- you are not a crab.  Turn your energy towards that which is good, your true self.  And, you will find the peace and power that alludes you.  Then, you will address those things you feel most in need of your attention.  This is what makes a better world.

Anyone can complain, and most people do.

Few are the ones who care enough to make a difference.

May You Live in Love,

Your Friend

[Harconen]

Hi my brother infowarrior,

what a great answer on my post.

My goal with it was to shake and wake up people. I have great fate in Americans. In their love for freedom. In their courage. I can feel how hard must be to live in "one of the beast heads".

You say "Most Americans wait until the last moment to set things right". It is now that last moment, actually it was yesterday. Not just for US, but for the whole world. Beast is spreading its darkness all over the globe, every and any of us must do everything we can to stop it.

I know some very brave and smart people here on this forum. One of them is a woman warrior, who wrote to me next thing:

"As I posted elsewhere my grief is collective (or should be).  By our actions or inactions, we have allowed this horror to happen.  I was part of Gulf 1 active Duty Marine.  Had I known or seen these abuses, I would have put a stop to the abuses or died trying."

That kind of people I respect and love, for what they are. Patriots. Human beings with big hart and love in it for other human beings, fire in their blood, fire of love which will overcome darkness around us. My fate is in all of us. United we will win. We are not slaves, like elite want us to be. We are born free and we will stay free until we finish this war that NWO is imposed on us.

Stay free my brother, and keep on good fight.


                                                     Love & Light

                                                                              Nenad

[Harconen]

By political definition the US is now fascist, not a constitutional republic

by  Jack E.
December 15, 2009 06:34 AM EST
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977947915

...The purpose of commercial [media] is to induce mass sales. For mass sales there must be a mass norm ... By suppressing the individual, the unique, the industry ... assures itself a standard product for mass consumption

We fight wars of agression against democratic governments.
The toll in human life is stagering and the result is corporate dictatorship over the masses.

A lie of omission is a lie; it intentionally leaves out crucial information to create a false representation of reality. Obama lied in omission in his Orwellian Peace Prize acceptance speech by claiming, “America has never fought a war against a democracy.” Technically, a war is reciprocated armed conflict. However, the etymology of the word, “war” is “confusion,” which is part of the CIA role in wars against democracy in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, and Vietnam beginning with US support of French colonialism against Vietnamese independence and extending beyond US approval of election cancelation that began the Vietnam War. War with Iraq and Afghanistan, rhetoric for war with Iran.

The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another's throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell:
Eugene Debs 6 June 1918: The speech was given to about 1,200 people and was later used against Debs to make the case that he had violated the espionage Act. The judge sentenced Debs to ten years in prison:

American fascism: by political definition the US is now fascist, not a constitutional republic

The definition of “fascism” has some academic variance, but is essentially collusion among corporatocracy, authoritarian government, and controlled media and education. This “leadership” is only possible with a nationalistic public accepting policies of war, empire, and limited civil and political rights.

The purpose of commercial media is to induce mass sales. For mass sales there must be a mass norm ... By suppressing the individual, the unique, the industry ... assures itself a standard product for mass consumption

Your national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

 Matthew M.  Dec 15, 2009, 4:07pm EST 

Americans need to stop paying attention to all these distractions the media throws out and start paying attention to where the country is heading. I agree fascism is pretty much what we have.


        
   
Poliwonk USA Dec 15, 2009, 4:13pm EST

While I am only one, I am still one. When combined with other "ones" we are a few. When our few is combined with the other few, we are the many. Each of us has the ability to effect change. We will not be a fascist country as long as we exercise our rights to vote and choose wisely whom we lend the power of government too.

[Volitzar]

Don't worry the states will save us.  50 state governments to 1 Globalist compromised Federal one.

They can't hire enough mercenaries, think about it if they kill the dollar how will the mercs be paid ??

[Harconen]

Don't worry the states will save us.  50 state governments to 1 Globalist compromised Federal one.

They can't hire enough mercenaries, think about it if they kill the dollar how will the mercs be paid ??

Hi Vol,

How are you my brother? I am very grateful to you for the link to this forum a few months ago. I met wonderful people here.

I know that states will save us all. You people are in the "hart of the beast", only you there can do it. AJ is doing great thing. All you people there are excellent fighters. So, I am certain that we will live in the free world soon. We will celebrate that moment together, as we fight together.

Love & Light to you my brother, Love and Light.

[Harconen]

15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams

By David DeGraw, Amped Status. Posted November 21, 2009.
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/144109/15_signs_american_society_is_coming_apart_at_the_seams?obref=obnetwork

Are we nearing a tipping point as rapacious elites push a heavily armed populace too far?

Editor's note: The following is an edited excerpt from the Amped Status report, "The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society."

The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Let’s look at the top 15 statistics that prove we are under attack.

1) The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The U.S. already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the middle class and poor much harder than the top 1 percent, the gap between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent of the U.S. population has grown to a record high.

2) As the stock market went over the 10,000 mark and just surged to a 13-month high, the three big banks that took taxpayer money and benefited the most from the government bailout have just set a new global economic record by issuing $30 billion in annual bonuses this year, “up 60 percent from last year.” Bloomberg reported: “Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, had a record profit in the first nine months of this year and set aside $16.7 billion for compensation expenses.” Goldman Sachs is on pace for the best year in the firm’s history, and it is also benefiting by only paying 1 percent in taxes.

3) The profits of the economic elite are “now underwritten by taxpayers with $23.7 trillion worth of national wealth."

As the looting is occurring at the top, the U.S. middle class is just beginning to collapse.

4) Workers between the ages of 55 to 60, who have worked for 20 to 29 years, have lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans went up by $30 billion, bringing their total combined wealth to $1.57 trillion.

5) Home foreclosure filings "hit a record high in the third quarter (of 2009)… They were the worst three months of all time… 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter" in this three-month period; “3.4 million homes are expected to enter foreclosure by year’s end, with some experts estimating that next year will be even worse.”

President Obama has enacted a $75 billion taxpayer funded program that has been a spectacular failure in stemming the foreclosure crisis and has proven to be another massive waste of billions of taxpayer dollars.

6) 25 million people are unemployed or underemployed.

This means we have 25 million people who urgently need to increase their income, and they’re quickly running out of options. The unemployment rate is expected to rise further and remain high for several years. “The president’s chief economic adviser warned that the nation’s unemployment rate could stay ‘unacceptably high’ for years to come."

The New York Times reports: "Americans now confront a job market that is bleaker than ever in the current recession, and employment prospects are still getting worse. Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one, the worst ratio since the government began tracking….” As this ratio continues to grow, it will lead to a further reduction in wages -- average worker wages have seen a sharp decline over the past year.

Economist Nouriel Roubini, a man who accurately predicted our current crisis, just reported on unemployment stating: “Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening…. So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back.”

7) As the few elite banks thrive, there have been 123 U.S. bank failures thus far this year. Recently, three banks that the government declared “healthy” and gave taxpayer money, have folded. The Wall Street Journal reports: “U.S. regulators have seized or threatened at least 27 banks that got capital infusions from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, including some lenders government officials knew were troubled when they awarded the money. The troubles put taxpayers at risk of losing as much as $5.1 billion invested in the banks since TARP was launched in October 2008.”

As bankruptcies surge across the board, 10 U.S. states are on the verge of bankruptcy, with several ready to declare a financial state of emergency. California, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin are all “barreling toward economic disaster, raising the likelihood of higher taxes, more government layoffs and deep cuts in services."

9) This is occurring at a time when the “federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that just ended was $1.4 trillion, nearly a trillion dollars greater than the year before."  In total, "U.S. public debt topped $12 trillion for the first time in history… The public debt topped $10 trillion in September 2008. The debt is quickly approaching the statutory limit of $12.104 trillion, meaning Congress would have to raise the ceiling to prevent a shutdown of government operations."

Economist Dean Baker explains the risk of running such a large deficit: "The debt limit must be increased at regular intervals in order to allow the government to function normally because the government is currently operating at a deficit. If the debt limit is not passed, then at some point the government will not be able to pay workers and contractors. It won’t be able to send out Social Security checks or make payments for Medicaid and unemployment insurance to state governments. And, it will not be able to make interest payments on government bonds, effectively defaulting on the national debt."

Needless to say, all of this will make life drastically more difficult for American citizens. As the middle class continues on the path of economic decline, the number of citizens living in poverty has already hit an all-time high.

10) Although the government’s official figure tries to low-ball the number, 47.4 million U.S. citizens live in poverty, and the U.S. poverty rate is the highest in the industrialized world.

Predictably, homelessness is rising at an increased rate as well. "The U.S. government does not tally the numbers but interested organizations say that more than 3 million people were homeless at some point over the past year…. The fastest growing segment of the homeless population is families with children.”

Children have been hit especially hard by the economic crisis:

11) * 50 percent of U.S. children, one out of every two children, will need to use food stamps to eat.

One out of every two children in the United States of America will need to use a food stamp… to EAT!

If you didn’t think starvation was a serious threat in the U.S., just read this new Washington Post report: “The nation’s economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people — including almost one child in four — struggled last year to get enough to eat… Several independent advocates and policy experts on hunger said that they had been bracing for the latest report to show deepening shortages, but that they were nevertheless astonished by how much the problem has worsened. 'This is unthinkable. It’s like we are living in a Third World country,' said Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America."

The United States Department of Agriculture released these findings in a study that was completed in December 2008, which means these numbers don’t take into account the millions more unemployed throughout 2009. The numbers of people living in poverty and struggling to eat has seen a significant increase since then.

This a national tragedy. But it gets much worse.

12) In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, the number of U.S. citizens without health care grew to a record 46.3 million. “The new figures, however, understate the severity of the economic downturn because a large portion of the nation’s job losses and unemployment rate increases occurred after the Census survey data was collected in March as part of the annual Current Population Survey."

13) Lack of health insurance has caused 45,000 preventable U.S. citizen deaths in the past year. The American Journal of Medicine recently released a study that stated, “Nearly two out of three bankruptcies stem from medical bills, and even people with health insurance face financial disaster if they experience a serious illness.”

A Johns Hopkins Children’s Center study reported that 17,000 children have died due to lack of health care. You can also add in a recent report that revealed that 2,266 U.S. veterans have died in 2008 due to lack of insurance.

The 50 million now uninsured and the 45,000 preventable deaths per year statistics are expected to drastically rise over the next few years. As the Senate continues to strip meaningful amendments from a health care bill that wouldn’t even take effect until 2013, it has become clear that, despite the media hype, the health care bill is going to fall far short of meaningful reform and continue to rig the game in favor of large insurance company profits at the expense of the U.S. population. With the highest cost healthcare in the world, current trends will continue and much needed change is not on the horizon.

Never before has the United States had so many citizens with so little means, little to no income and heavy debt. Debt and costs of living have now shackled U.S. citizens just as they have shackled people throughout the world. The economic hit men have now hit the United States as well and millions of American citizens are now effectively sentenced to a slow death.

Economic Imperial blowback has hit the mainland.

And the clock is ticking louder by the day…

And here’s two more facts for you:

14) The gun and ammunition manufacturing industry in the United States has over 200 companies producing billions of dollars in annual revenues. This huge manufacturing base cannot fulfill demand quickly enough. The demand for guns and ammunition has hit a record high and the gun industry cannot produce enough bullets to keep up with orders.

Americans are arming themselves to the teeth!

15) In the past year, 100 new armed militia groups have been formed, as militia members have doubled in numbers. Federal authorities are gravely concerned about the “uptick in militia activities." One federal authority recently said, “All it’s lacking is a spark. I think it’s only a matter of time before you see threats and violence."

So let’s break down these numbers.

You have a population of 50 million people who are in desperate need of money, they most likely have no health insurance and can’t afford to get health care or help of any kind. Part of this population probably also has loved ones who can’t get life sustaining medical treatments, or loved ones who have already died due to lack of costly medical treatment. The clock is ticking loud for these people and they are running out of options fast, and time delayed is time closer to death.

While the richest 1 percent have never had it so good, a significant percentage of the U.S. population now has firsthand experience in this. Millions upon millions of Americans are poor, broke, struggling, starving, desperate… and armed.

We are sitting on a powder keg!

We are now witnessing the critical unraveling of U.S. society.

[Harconen]

Poll Reveals Depth and Trauma of Joblessness

Michael Luo and Megan Thee-Brenan
The New York Times
Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:00 EST
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/us/15poll.html?_r=1

Unemployment causing major life changes, mental health issues for millions

More than half of the nation's unemployed workers have borrowed money from friends or relatives since losing their jobs. An equal number have cut back on doctor visits or medical treatments because they are out of work.

Almost half have suffered from depression or anxiety. About 4 in 10 parents have noticed behavioral changes in their children that they attribute to their difficulties in finding work.

Joblessness has wreaked financial and emotional havoc on the lives of many of those out of work, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll of unemployed adults, causing major life changes, mental health issues and trouble maintaining even basic necessities.

The results of the poll, which surveyed 708 unemployed adults from Dec. 5 to Dec. 10 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points, help to lay bare the depth of the trauma experienced by millions across the country who are out of work as the jobless rate hovers at 10 percent and, in particular, as the ranks of the long-term unemployed soar.

Roughly half of the respondents described the recession as a hardship that had caused fundamental changes in their lives. Generally, those who have been out of work longer reported experiencing more acute financial and emotional effects.

"I lost my job in March, and from there on, everything went downhill," said Vicky Newton, 38, of Mount Pleasant, Mich., a single mother who had been a customer-service representative in an insurance agency.

"After struggling and struggling and not being able to pay my house payments or my other bills, I finally sucked up my pride," she said in an interview after the poll was conducted. "I got food stamps just to help feed my daughter."

Foreclosure woes

Over the summer, she abandoned her home in Flint, Mich., after she started receiving foreclosure notices. She now lives 90 minutes away, in a rental house owned by her father.

With unemployment driving foreclosures nationwide, a quarter of those polled said they had either lost their home or been threatened with foreclosure or eviction for not paying their mortgage or rent. About a quarter, like Ms. Newton, have received food stamps. More than half said they had cut back on both luxuries and necessities in their spending. Seven in 10 rated their family's financial situation as fairly bad or very bad.

But the impact on their lives was not limited to the difficulty in paying bills. Almost half said unemployment had led to more conflicts or arguments with family members and friends; 55 percent have suffered from insomnia .

"Everything gets touched," said Colleen Klemm, 51, of North Lake, Wis., who lost her job as a manager at a landscaping company last November. "All your relationships are touched by it. You're never your normal happy-go-lucky person. Your countenance, your self-esteem goes. You think, 'I'm not employable.' "

A quarter of those who experienced anxiety or depression said they had gone to see a mental health professional. Women were significantly more likely than men to acknowledge emotional issues.

Tammy Linville, 29, of Louisville, Ky., said she lost her job as a clerical worker for the Census Bureau a year and a half ago. She began seeing a therapist for depression every week through Medicaid but recently has not been able to go because her car broke down and she cannot afford to fix it.

Her partner works at the Ford plant in the area, but his schedule has been sporadic. They have two small children and at this point, she said, they are "saving quarters for diapers."

Shame, embarrassment

"Every time I think about money, I shut down because there is none," Ms. Linville said. "I get major panic attacks . I just don't know what we're going to do."

Nearly half of the adults surveyed admitted to feeling embarrassed or ashamed most of the time or sometimes as a result of being out of work. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the traditional image of men as breadwinners, men were significantly more likely than women to report feeling ashamed most of the time.

There was a pervasive sense from the poll that the American dream had been upended for many. Nearly half of those polled said they felt in danger of falling out of their social class, with those out of work six months or more feeling especially vulnerable. Working-class respondents felt at risk in the greatest numbers.

Nearly half of respondents said they did not have health insurance , with the vast majority citing job loss as a reason, a notable finding given the tug of war in Congress over a health care overhaul. The poll offered a glimpse of the potential ripple effect of having no coverage. More than half characterized the cost of basic medical care as a hardship.

Many in the ranks of the unemployed appear to be rethinking their career and life choices. Just over 40 percent said they had moved or considered moving to another part of the state or country where there were more jobs. More than two-thirds of respondents had considered changing their career or field, and 44 percent of those surveyed had pursued job retraining or other educational opportunities.

Joe Whitlow, 31, of Nashville, worked as a mechanic until a repair shop he was running with a friend finally petered out in August. He had contemplated going back to school before, but the potential loss in income always deterred him. Now he is enrolled at a local community college, planning to study accounting.

"When everything went bad, not that I didn't have a choice, but it made the choice easier," Mr. Whitlow said.

Formal, informal safety net

The poll also shed light on the formal and informal safety nets that the jobless have relied upon. More than half said they were receiving or had received unemployment benefits. But 61 percent of those receiving benefits said the amount was not enough to cover basic necessities.

Meanwhile, a fifth said they had received food from a nonprofit organization or religious institution. Among those with a working spouse, half said their spouse had taken on additional hours or another job to help make ends meet.

Even those who have stayed employed have not escaped the recession's bite. According to a New York Times/CBS News nationwide poll conducted at the same time as the poll of unemployed adults, about 3 in 10 people said that in the past year, as a result of bad economic conditions, their pay had been cut.

In terms of casting blame for the high unemployment rate, 26 percent of unemployed adults cited former President George W. Bush ; 12 percent pointed the finger at banks; 8 percent highlighted jobs going overseas and the same number blamed politicians. Only 3 percent blamed President Obama .

Those out of work were split, however, on the president's handling of job creation, with 47 percent expressing approval and 44 percent disapproval.

Unemployed Americans are divided over what the future holds for the job market: 39 percent anticipate improvement, 36 percent expect it will stay the same, and 22 percent say it will get worse.

[luckee1]

Harconen, what a fantastic post!

That first article posted, really does illustrate the apathy we see today.

To expand on that, we see our sister being abused and we do nothing, then we are personally abused, we whine and want a hero to save us.  When all we have to do is get up and leave.  Or fight back.

The system has been set up so we cannot be or are forbidden to be self reliant.

Thank you for posting this.  Thank you. 

[One Revelator]

Here’s part of the problem:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/millionaire-who-fought-off-a-knife-wielding-burglar-is-jailed-while-the-intruder-is-let-off.html

And we wonder why somebody can commit murder or rape in the middle of a crowd in broad daylight while everybody just walks by and ignores it.

[Harconen]

To expand on that, we see our sister being abused and we do nothing, then we are personally abused, we whine and want a hero to save us.  When all we have to do is get up and leave.  Or fight back.

The system has been set up so we cannot be or are forbidden to be self reliant.

Herd control. They mentally reducing us to the level of animals. Cattle with human face, that we are in their eyes.

[Harconen]

The Vampirization of America

Michael Tolkin
The Los Angeles Times
Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:00 EST
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-tolkin20-2009dec20,0,4813009.story

An era of fear and uncertainty has helped fuel a sex-and-death wave in pop culture.

In times of political rot and confusion and pain, one needs something like cosmic silliness, not to make sense of things, but for those who don't expect a life after death, we need an "experience," in this life, of the dream of heaven. Tossed into fear, like children, we need a childish vision to restore faith in life. The worse things get, the more we need greater art. Since Pina Bausch wasn't in town, there was Mozart's Magic Flute at the L.A. Opera not long after 9/11. We needed Mozart because the country was Wagner, pinned to false mythologies of necessary doom.

The genius of that 2001 production was that it felt like it had been put on by a high school with the best singers in the world. It was adolescent joy, with one image that stayed with me. Rodney Gilfry as Papageno the bird catcher, wearing a fool's cap and bells in a costume with more colors than Joseph's coat, was singing on stage while a rowboat on wires sailed overhead, carrying three boys dressed like Harry Potter, with his glasses. Young magicians, Magic Flute, makes sense.

Who would they put in the boat a decade later? A Harry Potter reference now would seem like product placement, not a little wink.

If we look to the Young Adult shelf now for another character type to use as a little reference point, we find death. In the last decade, the four types being found on the shelves of Young Adult Fiction have replaced all previous human character types. We no longer have anima/animus, ego/id/superego, saint/sinner.

We have Wizards, Werewolves, Zombies and Vampires.

Wizards know that the world is made of light and dark, and struggle to keep faith with the light. They're a weakened force now, frustrated by the way spells dissipate in time, and too dependent on magic wands and hybrid cars. Ten years ago, children wanted to be Harry Potter, but now they want to be vampires, the type most drawn to power, anything not to be exposed out as a zombie, while the werewolves, like real wolves, are hated and hunted.

Obama was elected by the wizard brigade, a children's crusade. Obama read Harry Potter to his Sasha and Malia. It is inconceivable that he's reading them the vampire books. The wizards are in bad shape now because, being young wizards, they had too much faith in undefined Hope and not enough clarity about policy and compromise, which is to say, they'd forgotten that the dark side runs through all of us. But who can blame the wizards for wanting to regress, seeing as they do that they're surrounded now by Zombies, the tea baggers, a growling mob of brain-dead idiots led by the Vampires.

There's not much to say about the Zombies among us. The Zombies are the muddled herd of the maggoty brain-dead, reduced by their confusion to singular obsessions. What upsets them about Obama's origins is that he has actual proof of human birth. They are the Living Dead in George Romero's shopping mall, no money, no credit, still shopping. They're the embarrassing reflection of our lives, which is why Zombies have changed from nightmare flesh-eaters to comic punch lines, although it's not really a joke that we've set the Zombies on the cover of Jane Austen novels; this is a kind of evil, but again, ours is a culture that resents life, so it makes sense that we'd send emissaries back in time to ruin our heritage with mockery.

Vampires, like wizards, know that the world is made of light and dark, and want to seduce the living into the night. The Vampires are telling us two great seductive lies. There's the True Blood lie: "I don't need human blood, I have a substitute now." There's the Twilight lie: "I'm a vegetarian now. Those other Vampires are bad, and the Werewolves are bad, but I'm good, you can trust me, you can love me."

The Vampires are the aristocracy of the undead, who can, at least, talk. The Vampires are the fear mongers, the talk show hosts, the politicians who can't find a way to give health insurance to children, much less adults; the bankers, Ponzi schemers, drug company lobbyists, the theologians of prosperity. We can't understand them without first considering why they're in a symbolic war against the Lycanthropes.

Toby Barlow's Sharp Teeth has the answer; it's an epic poem about rival packs of werewolves in L.A. I shouldn't be surprised it's not that well-known, because at this moment, in our culture of necrosis, Vampires are sexier than lycanthropes, and as dangerous as werewolves are, they're still just dogs, and there's always something to love about dogs. Dogs always have a heart, and more often than not, a good to reason to bite.

The Werewolves are closer to the Wizards than the Zombies, but are maligned by the Vampires. Werewolves are not the undead, they are the humans split between control and abandon, between society and rage. Every politician or sports figure caught for scandal is a werewolf. In the beginning years of this mythology, Bela Lugosi's Dracula deserved the spike in his heart, he was a mournful villain, but still a villain, while Lon Chaney Jr.'s Wolfman was caught tragically by his blood disease, and knew he needed to die for the protection of those he loved. He was a hybrid, no different in that sense than Spider-Man or the Hulk or a Prius.

The Werewolves are being targeted by the Vampires because that part of them which is still human, and still alive, is the great threat to the Vampires; one may say that the alliance of the Wizards and Werewolves is all that can save us from the Vampires and their army of Zombies.

The love of vampires is the love of death, not a heavenly immortality but a contagious negation of productive life, the equation of sex and death. The symbolic world is splitting between vampire and dog, between those who love death and want to spread it, and those who just want to claim their territory and their pack so they can eat and sleep and hump something once in awhile.

A country led for eight years by torturers has not yet -- and cannot -- produce a work of popular art to make sense of the reasons for these shifts in imagination. We are in a race against the death of posterity, since Zombies have no memory, and Vampires want to kill the most important memory, which is to remember that one is still alive and can choose. The roots of Vampirism are always in the murky past, but American Vampirism isn't a Romanian import. You can find it in Huckleberry Finn, our literature's greatest insult to the American fantasy of its own nobility, the novel that mocks the great-great-great-grandparents of the tea-bagging zombies, their racism, cruelty, religion and stupidity. Today Twain would call that culture Palinism.

Palinism is Vampirism, as she leads her army of Zombies, who refuse to concede that carbon dioxide levels are man-made because they want the world to heat up, because they are cold and dead and want to burn or drown everyone else, because death is jealous of life.

Palinistic Vampirism controls the Zombies, and uses them as proxies to call for the massacre that the Vampires are too clever to ask for themselves. But they do want blood. There is no vegetarian vampire, and vampires are always and only liars. Werewolves, like any dog who steals from the table, may be liars, but unlike the Vampires, they don't want power. The Vampires can't be reasoned with.

If there's any hope, and there always is, their denial of global warming gives them away, shows that underneath the death cult they're scared, and that fear in its way is proof of their humanity. Science scares them, because they're afraid of being lost in the leap of imagination to reconcile faith and science. Their fear stupefies them, and they fear the loss of God and the fall into chaos if science is right; they're too nervous to consider that science is fact and religion is poetry and that there can still be a God, but that he leaves science to us and reserves for himself the right to make up stories and delight himself with metaphor, leaves science to hard work and verification and art to inspiration and effort that needs no proof beyond the way Mozart gives pleasure.

Michael Tolkin is a novelist and screenwriter; among his credits are The Rapture, The Player and Nine.

[luckee1]

I have never seen crap so well written!  This guy went waaaaaay too far into analogy there.  That was a sure trip into bizarre land.  Thank you Harconen, I really needed to laugh.

[Harconen]

Welcome, laughter is so rare those days, i also appreciate it.

[Volitzar]

The pisser is that as things devolve no one can come to grips with the reality of the NWO.

As much as I hate the NWO I hate people who live in denial even worse.  Many people need to be slapped back into reality.

Especially these pro-military types who think the sour economy isn't going to affect them or doubt anything told to them about the NWO.

[Volitzar]

Constitution Party has been hit hard by this financial crisis.


Dear Constitutionalist,

I recently mailed some of you a very important letter. Please read on and don’t miss the extended deadline on our special Christmas offer.

In our lifetimes, few of us have seen the level of economic upheaval we are experiencing now.

The policies of the current and recent administrations are looking increasingly like deliberate attempts to bankrupt and destroy our country. We are now the world's biggest debtor nation. It's shocking and frightening.

There is little reason to believe that our generations-old see-saw between Democrat and Republican control will ever bring us peace, liberty and economic stability.

And now, finally, many Americans are reaching a tipping point where they will no longer support either major party.

But unfortunately, at this most critical time when more Americans are looking for a political alternative, your Constitution Party has been hit hard by this financial crisis.

The fact is, without your immediate and generous support, the party will have no choice but to greatly limit our efforts, let go of staff, and slash the salaries of the small group of dedicated workers who have already sacrificed so much to keep the Constitution Party moving forward.

To keep our staff on board and our operations running, we must raise $40,000 by year's end. Many of you have sent in donations in response to my recent letter, so we are on our way towards that goal. I hope I can count on those of you who have not yet contributed to CLICK HERE and do so now.

http://constitutionparty.com/contribute.php

Your contribution now is vital to the continued existence of our party and our cause. And, due to the great generosity of one of our members, I'd like to offer you a small Christmas "thank you" for your kindness.

If you can afford a gift of $75, or more, and your donation is postmarked or made on-line by December 20th, we'll send you an autographed copy of the highly acclaimed and critically important book, "America for Sale" by Dr. Jerome Corsi. This book was just released in October and is already on the New York Times Best Seller List.

In "America for Sale" Dr. Corsi not only explains the schemes of the globalists to put America on the chopping block, he also outlines constructive solutions to resisting the takeover and surviving economic chaos. And I want you to have a copy of it so you can help implement these solutions.

We have so much to do, and we can only do it with your help.

Thank you, and I wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Yours for Liberty,

James N. Clymer
National Chairman

P.S.    We are facing the loss of valuable staff if we are unable to meet our fundraising goals before the end of the year.

[luckee1]

To add to that Michael Badnarik had a heart attack.  Seems like this should rally people, you know?

[Harconen]

The pisser is that as things devolve no one can come to grips with the reality of the NWO.

As much as I hate the NWO I hate people who live in denial even worse.  Many people need to be slapped back into reality.

Especially these pro-military types who think the sour economy isn't going to affect them or doubt anything told to them about the NWO.

Same thing here, about that.

All we can do, and it's a big thing, talk, make people to think, to doubt about reality presented by MSM. When people see the truth they react, resist, rebel against NWO.

[Volitzar]

Here here...   

[Xill]

This is my answer (part of):
http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/brain/

Coupled with this brainwashing and dehumanization:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXBDkevx5lM

Subliminal messages:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng6hQfGzQig

And gosh so much more...

[Okinawa]

Just started on another thread

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

Agenda 21 for Dummies videoclip outlining what to do to save and sustain the elites... I mean the planet.


The videoclip ends with some ahole: "Everything is alright. Let's take a backseat to the collective"