Asleep all over America
"If it's 10:AM in Casablanca what time is it in New York? ...They're sleeping in New York... They're asleep all over America."
Humphrey Bogart, in Casablanca
by Helen & Harry Highwater, UnknownNews
"Are you awake yet, America? I'm wide awake, and worried. Are you worried with me, wondering what's next? Are you terrified?If you're not scared silly, that frightens me even more.
Some people are seriously suggesting that the Constitution should be ignored, because it puts people's rights above Presidential power. Can Americans truly be this stupid?
Do you know what it means when a government promises liberty and justice for all, and seriously tries to follow through on that goal? It means everything.
Do you know what government looks like, when people's rights are deemed un-important? That's the USSR. Communist China. North Korea. Are you ready to see that, to live that, right here in America?
The United States of America is not magically immune to totalitarianism, and we're flirting with it. It can happen here, and we're approaching the brink."
Cue Entry of the Gladiators!
Two consecutive stolen presidential elections; back-to-back wars, both of them unprovoked and brazenly illegal, with more on the horizon; the deaths of well over two thousand of your sons and daughters in Central Asia and the Middle East, and the maiming and disfiguring of thousands more; the ongoing slaughter of tens of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis; countless corporate/political scandals directly tied to the Bush mob; passage of the Patriot Act, and various other attacks on your civil, privacy, and due process rights; the entirely preventable deaths of an unknown number of people in New Orleans; military occupation of southern Louisiana; sanctioning of secret military tribunals; revelations of the widespread use of, and official sanction of, various forms of torture; getting slapped in the face with the Abu Ghraib photos; indefinite, warrantless detentions without access to legal counsel; illegal domestic surveillance; open witch-hunting of ‘liberal’ members of academia (though it is perfectly acceptable for a former Phoenix Program assassin and torturer to educate your children); gross invasions of your privacy – at airports, at sporting events, when entering many public buildings, even when sitting at home on your computer; massive cuts in social spending, even while hundreds of billions of dollars are spent waging war and militarizing domestic law enforcement; massive tax cuts that primarily benefit corporate America; the steady erosion of the nation’s education and healthcare systems; trashing of the environment and environmental protections; the accumulation of an almost unfathomable level of debt; and the act of grand theft masquerading as Medicare ‘reform.'
And oh yeah, 9/11.
posted by nolocontendere at 7:49 PM
5 Comments:
People are fed propaganda on a daily basis. I think some of them are waking up, but not enough. Until they turn off the TV and stop believing what they hear on the news they will be controlled.
Amen to that, Lesley. But not just turn off the TV, drag it outside and shoot it, then beat it with a hammer, drag it to a cliff behind the car, set it on fire and give it a shove.
You are probably right, but I do have a few shows that I watch so even I am not willing to do that, as much as I may hate to admit it.
it's not as simple as turning off the tv. tv isn't the problem. it's people's willingness to believe everything they read, watch and see without stopping to question whether what they are witnessing feels like truth to them.
my question is, once the majority are "awake" what are we going to do to enact the changes we desire to see? that is something i simply do not see happening enough. mostly i read articles (some of them quite insulting actually) screaming for americans to "wake up wake up" without any real plan. and without a plan, there can be no definitive action.
Well, first things first, Nina. And television is a drug that makes us apathetic and lazy.
Maybe after waking up we can all point to the bufoons and have a good laugh at their expense.
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