even if the BETTER corporate candidate we are offered is re-elected.

Occupy, because we are in serious, serious trouble in this country.

Last edited Wed Jun 27, 2012, 06:04 PM - Edit history (1)

not outraged is beyond me. I can only conclude that many are bred to accept this as normal through conditioning and propaganda from birth. Two things are going on IMO, (1) the boiling frog syndrome, and (2) The Stockholm Syndrome.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink the water. This country is fertile ground for this to occur.

Yes, we are in very serious trouble in this country. I also think TPTB know the Ponzi scheme that keeps us afloat can't go on forever. Hence we move further along as a police state and for those on the take the profits are great.

What a shame.

I wish fervently that this were the case, but each new outrage seems to be met by the American populace either with ignorance of the facts, utter indifference or contempt for any who feel threatened.

information overload, maybe there is just too much going on to comprehend, many just trying to survive.

I think what I've noticed is people don't seem to care about anything unless it affects them directly, and even then, they just don't seem to get it ... Many have just become tools of politicians and corporate domination of this country. And they act out the role of compliant stooges.

I'm really fearful of where the US is headed, and that's an understatement.

Last edited Wed Jun 27, 2012, 12:34 PM - Edit history (6)

People not only have to reach a point where they can't feed their children; they also have to reach a point where they realize someone else is actively taking food out of their children's mouths and profiting from their misery.

People will tolerate a lot of misery if they believe it's inevitable and nobody's fault, or if they believe that they have advocates working on their behalf. That's the lie the corporate media is constantly spreading. The truth is that we are under corporate assault by both parties.

We are told that "the economy had a downturn"....as though there was a tornado and nobody could have done anything about it....as though the suffering weren't caused by deliberate and systematic policy choices that funnel money from the poor and the middle class to the obscenely wealthy. A deliberate theft is described as though it were an unavoidable weather event.

People don't yet understand what is being done to them because they are constantly told that the political class is doing its best with unfortunate circumstances....and that if there is malfeasance, it's only the OTHER party that is purchased and working against them. When this sort of propaganda is thick and working even at DU....we have a serious problem.

are against us and they control the things we depend on. Not until a massive movement starts will things begin to change, hence the increasing surveillance to preserve the status quo. I had thought OWS was that movement, but the TPTB instituted a massive action plan against OWS.

Many people live with shackles and they don't know how to escape. The normal political system has not offered much hope for many, and for whatever reason (I have my suspicions) some drift toward the tea party as their salvation. What a strange warped world we live in anymore.

under a Democratic administration should be an alarm and a wake-up call to all of us of how deadly serious they are about protecting what they are doing.

We are in deep, deep trouble in this nation. It makes me ill to see how even a Democratic board like DU has become so thick with corporate propaganda to encourage passivity. Merely voting Democratic and hoping that things will be better during the next term is not a solution; it is surrender.

You are right. We desperately need an action plan, and now. Even in the best possible scenario in this election, we are headed toward four more years of strengthening the corporate police state. Imagine what they can accomplish in four more years without serious pushback.

was no coordinated federal plan against OWS. Just how much more information did they need. Even the casual observer could see OWS was being attacked by a Democratic administration which also remained silent as the attacks continued complete with provocateurs.

Each day the net is tightened as more and more Americans behave akin to a bunch of lemmings.

Sad to say with the tools of modern oppression and suppression the window is closing. Four more years of this continued approach and the country will only have a faint memory of real freedom and privacy. I don't get where the majority of Americans have their heads anymore, but I think it's a very dark place.

Did you see this thread?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=850016

"many just trying to survive"

When you work all day for ever decreasing benefits, wages, time allotted with family just trying to keep up it's difficult. I think many more are concerned but fearful.

nose above water. I also know some people so depressed with America they just don't care anymore. They think the US is beyond repair, let it fall apart and rebuild with the pieces. I don't agree with the latter, but I can see their point.

You said

"people don't seem to care about
anything unless it affects them
directly"

If that is so true, how do you explain sports?

shut off their cable TV and internet.

Arab spring was caused by food instability and nothing else. If the populace had jobs that paid enough to absorb the food price spikes they would have all stayed home.

We'll get the same thing if we wait long enough, but by then we'll also get hit by a variety of peak production events, and global climate change, while facing a fully militarized police force with an army of cult like indoctrinated followers.

I recommend emigration. Can they go after your student debts if you're in a foreign country? Seems like the only option left. All the useful people need to run as far as possible. Be like the Latino's of Alabama.

to qualify already so I guess it's still about the cable/internet.

They also didn't get food stamps.

Most working people in the US only spend about 5-10%.

We've got issues, but they're not bad enough yet to get people into the streets.

I'm a 10th generation American and too old to change, but I'm not sure that my grandkids should be more committed to a particular geographical area than freedom. Nova Scotia may be worth considering.

might not be a very pleasant place for your grandkids to spend their lives. People fled to America for various reasons, and sadly the time might be coming to flee from America. Countries change, of course, as we've all well seen.

I neither like nor trust the current path the US is on, and this is not an Obama bash. Collectively, I think a lot of strange decisions are being made guiding the future path of the US.

Emigration will speed that up and protect the emigrants from the sheer chaos and damage.

Also it would accelerate needed change, looking at Alabama we saw economic destruction in their agricultural sector. The response was to arrest more black people and have them work the fields. But there is still massive economic damage as a result which will eventually lead to a collapse.

I don't think we need TSA -or anyone- doing so many searches but there are a lot of things more deserving of my attention -and vitriol- than this.

Smear the concerns as "vitriol"-ic and trivial. Attempt to dismiss them as unimportant even though they are based on policy change after policy change that we have all witnessed and lived.

This is the sort of apologism and overt bid for passivity that the ubiquitous corporate propaganda is created to feed. It runs deep through our media and is nurtured even on Democratic discussion boards, provided they are large enough.

Corporate tentacles run deep.

so true

Kremlinize?

and as to those wholesale crimes against the civil liberties of citizens and shredding of the Constitution - that was instantly covered up, excused and CONTINUED by the Republican's Democratic successor, without engaging in one minute of public discussion about it. The singular exception to the rubberstamp continuation of Bush Era abuses was the promised shutdown of Gitmo - and there Congressional Democrats wouldn't go along and help fulfill that campaign pledge.

So, no, I don't think one can lay the death of the American constitutional republic at the feet of the Republican Party alone. Democrats have been anxious to contribute to it as much as they can, and have absolutely refused to reverse it.

They were all a bunch of sheep after bush. Who knows what kind of blackmail material they have after all the wiretapping. Everyone is so afraid of the corporate media calling them weak. etc...


Who cares what their problem is, WE are the Democratic Party.

We know what is going on, we have to take the lead here.


Obama is going after Romney on outsourcing (oh excuse me offshoring)...now Obama will also have to face the charges of sending our jobs overseas with new free trade agreements.


Now it is time to call out Republicans on their absurd spending on Big Government programs and violations of our Constitution.

Homeland Security and the TSA are huge slush funds, huge wasted of tax dollars to violate our bill of rights!

They are blaming the poor for the debt. I am tired of that shit. We need to call out the real big spenders here.

Not by mere request.

It's not a matter of weak will; it is a matter of being purchased. Our party has no interest in stopping. We will not see change until we stand up together and force change...and that is not going to happen until Democrats out across the country wake the hell up and acknowledge reality: that our party representatives are complicit and actively growing the police state, too.

Part of fixing this must involve facing reality: Democrats in Congress and in the White House are not being held back from what they really want to do. They are doing it already.

to crusade against hunting.

Last edited Wed Jun 27, 2012, 01:09 AM - Edit history (1)

Of course the stupid rules about taking off your shoes, pouring out your drinks and going through the grope-downs and porno-scanners don't do much to actually improve security. That's not the purpose. Just the cover story.

They're psychologically conditioning Americans to obey and submit. They keep making new stupid rules. They keep changing the rules and yelling at you when you aren't keeping up.

They're brainwashing the American people to accept tyranny.

Fuck them and I hope they die. They are traitors to American liberty.

+1000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Acclimate the sheeple to blindly following orders.

"Can I check inside your asssssshole?"

Some folks fear every citizen. If you own a gun - you are going to use it to kill others.

The only people to trust with them are government employees.

Everyone else, including my 77 year old dad, need a gun because they have a small penis (you can say that here, it is only sexist if it about women) or because they want to hurt others.

The FEAR I see from some folks scares me. We see all of our fellow Americans as a potential threat and want to minimize that threat by putting our faith in a bunch of rich white guys in office.

We are being taught that we are the enemy and the only savior is the few at the top - and people, even on the left, are buying that and promoting that.

You didn't see all of that in the gungeon. I post and read there on a regular basis and there has never been one discussion about small genitals. Every citizen fears every other citizen? and that is why the TSA is out of control. It is obvious you have a gun thing and it is no doubt the cause of everything wrong today. I am more afraid of the cops than I am of criminals.

The FEAR I see from some folks scares me. We see all of our fellow Americans as a potential threat and want to minimize that threat by putting our faith in a bunch of rich white guys in office.

As opposed to what? a bunch of brown guys in office. I have no idea where you get the notion that we are all afraid of each other. I just don't see it.

"... gungeon. I post and read there on a regular basis and there has never been one discussion about small genitals."

Either your memory is going or you are willfully bending the truth.

That they have bad memories or small genitals?

and I couldn't find any discussion about the size of one's phallus and gun ownership. There may be an occasional off the wall comment but nothing to the degree the OP implies. I think you may be right about my memory though, I do have some health issues.

Of course, not everyone on the left or who holds themselves out as being on the left is an enabler or a person who promotes this.

The fear that I too have seen in some otherwise rational people also scares me. I'll never understand how, in some people's minds, the issue of the private ownership of guns is perceived by them as being a left-versus-right issue. If anything, the peaceful private ownership of guns for self-defense is and should continue to be a liberal issue.

Transforming the US into a police state run by creeps was the mission.

This has been going, and growing, since Nixon declared a War on Drugs. It also encompasses the alcohol checkpoints inspired by MADD, pissing in a cup, and all sorts of other such like programs. We have basically been a frog that has been boiled for forty years, and now, finally, we're starting to wake up and realize it.

noticing a marked change in the US about then, an uncomfortable feeling, a policed feeling.

it's become a rolling boil.

Last edited Wed Jun 27, 2012, 03:37 PM - Edit history (1)

disappointed. In fact I wonder anymore where it's all ending. Cameras in everyones house just to be sure no terrorists are lurking under the couch or in the bathroom, or bedroom.

The new design for the EZ Pass, which is increasingly logistically and financially necessary for commuters, will put an inward-facing camera into every car.

I'm happy that someone will watch me ruin most songs and discover that to me a red light means time to file my nails. Hope my car insurance doesn't go up for these infractions.

was employed a few years ago as part of a crew installing ID cameras on all the bridges that cross the river from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. This person was told by the contractor that these cameras could not just check tags, but could identify the driver of the car by running his/her photo against those in DMV files. The cameras themselves are not really hidden; you can see them if you look for them. If this is true, it's quite creepy.

Last edited Wed Jun 27, 2012, 03:35 PM - Edit history (1)

scanning for ID on all pertinent information on an individual is now trivial. It is no longer in the conspiracy theories, it's here, front and center. So sad, much like WWII police states. Next will be armed drones tracking down the ID'ed individual and firing, and that's not an exaggeration, just give it some time.

I boycott flying and other transport that requires screening as far as possible, and let the airlines or other companies involved know.

When I must fly or the like, I ask for the pat-down rather than the screening machine. For one thing, it's safer; for another, it ties up manpower. If everyone had asked for a pat-down from the get-go, I believe we might have shut this nonsense down, at least for a while.

And of course, I write my congresscritters.

Any other ideas?

this has to be handled through a change in legislation which will ultimately come from a law suit. Be careful of any kind of resistance, peaceful or not. The TSA is notorious for no sense of humor and lack of tolerance. Their answer is to arrest you, cuff you and take you to one of their little rooms for questioning. Oh yea, then your name goes on the no-fly list.

new USA.

I've been patted down many times, and am apparently not yet on the no-fly list. And the point is, if we ALL resist, they can't put us all on the list, or whatever. If we don't, they pick the brave ones off one by one.

United we stand; divided we fall.

My dad used to tell a story, don't know if it's true; I think it was about Denmark, or one of the Scandinavian countries. That the Nazis imposed a law that all Jews had to wear identifying armbands. And that the next morning, the king and the entire citizenry were all wearing the armbands. As I recall, per my dad (not that his credibility's stellar), it was through this action and other resistance that, unlike most countries, Denmark managed to save most of its Jewish people.

I want to be one of those wearing the armbands, even if few others do.