The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: dutch508 on April 24, 2008, 12:07:51 PM
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my first answer would be yes, although not for the same reasons as the DUmmies I suspect.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3199943
KitSileya (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 01:00 AM
Original message
Does the world expect too much of ordinary Americans?
Advertisements [?]Edited on Thu Apr-24-08 01:01 AM by KitSileya
Is the rest of the world being unfair when they blame everyday Americans for the ills that have been wrought by the Maladministration and by Congress? Do we blame the Zimbabwians for letting Mugabe into power the same way we blame Americans for Bush? Or are we putting Americans into a special category, and expect more from them than we do from North Koreans, Pakistanis, Iranians, etc?
With 2 out of 3 presidential candidates (that I know of) saying they're willing to go to war against Iran, even nuclear war, this question is more relevant than ever. Should we blame ordinary Americans for not being willing to sacrifice everything to overturn the media propaganda empire, the malignant Republicans, the spineless Democrats, and stop the destruction of the world? Looking at Tibetans, at the Burmese, does the world fault Americans for not being willing to risk death (or heck, economic destitution) to protest what has happened, and is happening in their country?
edited for spelling
madeline_con (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 01:02 AM
Response to Original message
1. "With 2 out of 3 presidential candidates
(that I know of) saying they're willing to go to war against Iran, even nuclear war..."
It's obvious who to vote for.
would that be the muslim one?
lumberjack_jeff (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 01:03 AM
Response to Original message
2. No. If we're exporting democracy, we need to prove that we know something about it. n/t
ooops, not the answer the hive wants...
thecatburgler (http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/images/avatars/pinktriangle.gif)(1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 01:57 AM
Response to Reply #2
8. So says a supporter of one of the 2 nuclear war boosters. nt
Now, I know what the pink triangle stands for. The NAZIs used it to identify homosexuals in their Camps. So, for someone to display that, as a form of indentity, and then act with hatered for someone differnt just boggles my mind;
lumberjack_jeff (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 02:19 AM
Response to Reply #8
11. Aren't you afraid that hanging out with us "racists"...
... might be contagious?
Probably no reason to worry, it is probably no more contagious than good manners, and that's clearly not an epidemic.
jack off is a shrill supporter. one asumes cat molestor is a bama supporter.
thecatburgler (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 02:21 AM
Response to Reply #11
12. Racism is "good manners"?
Not where I come from.
lumberjack_jeff (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 02:33 AM
Response to Reply #12
13. No. Here, let me explain.
You called me a racist. Then you called me a male republican asshole. Then you called me a misogynist. Then you followed me to this thread to poke me some more.
I just pointed out that you're not demonstrating the good manners that most of the better posters on DU demonstrate. On account of your assholishness, you see.
I can see now that I was trying to be too subtle. I quipped that my "racism" might rub off on you, but that was probably a small risk because my good manners doesn't.
Now run along to bed. You can show the post to your english teacher when you get to school, she'll explain.
In the meantime, do the civilized world a favor and avoid talking to anyone who might be considering voting D in November, m'kay?
:tongue:
thecatburgler (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 03:06 AM
Response to Reply #17
18. Oh, I know you don't like black people or women.
You are just pretending to like women because you "support" Hillary.
But I know you still don't like women.
G'night, George.
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thecatburgler (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 03:20 AM
Response to Reply #17
20. And all other women and black people. Good night, Mr. Hannity. nt.
obviously a bit of history twix these two, let's watch:
thecatburgler (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 10:27 AM
Response to Reply #21
26. Talk to me about stalking
When I'm PMing you repeatedly, finding out your personal information, and attempting to contact you IRL.
Typical MRA behavior. Exaggerating your experience to act like it compares with what women go through.
sounds like stalking to me.
thecatburgler (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 02:16 AM
Response to Original message
10. Americans have had every conceivable advantage.
Now, I realize that there's been a concerted effort to dumb down our educational system and news media to create the perfect storm of ignorance and complacency, but still. People who are well fed and have access to a multitude of information have little excuse for failing to put two and two together.
And you know what? I think they have figured it out. The only way the Repukes are going to win this year is to steal it.
the dunbing down of the liberal education system? I would have to agree.
Peace Patriot (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 05:22 AM
Response to Reply #10
23. I completely agree, and they've had some stuff figured out for quite a while.
I keep telling people this, and I can document it if I have to: 56% of the American people opposed the Iraq War from the beginning, just before the invasion (Feb. '03, NYT poll; other polls 54-55%). 56%! That's a significant majority. But if you'll remember back to late '02-early '03, it was nowhere evident in the corporate news monopolies that a SIGNIFICANT MAJORITY of the American people--enough for a landslide in a presidential election--opposed the war. The polls were back-paged, and the headlines and the airwaves were solid with war propaganda. A lot of Americans must have been wondering--like I was, before I discovered these polls--what the hell kind of goose-stepping lunatics OTHER Americans had become. And now it has grown to a whopping, epochal 70% who oppose this war and want it ended--possibly the biggest anti-war majority in history. And it's not just the war. Polls I looked at over the 2003-2005 period show that the American people oppose virtually every Bush policy, foreign and domestic--way up in 60% to 70% range on many issues.
The American people are much better informed that they are given credit for. The questions then become, 1) Who the hell voted for Bush, other than the 30% percent of rightwing wackos and knuckle-draggers we've always had with us, and the five people who own the country and the news media, and 2) How did their votes get doubled? Creating the PERCEPTION that there is no significant dissent--let alone MAJORITY dissent--is a technique of disinformation and brainwashing. It was very effective at isolating progressives, and making them feel powerless and demoralized--those against unjust war, those against torture, those who thought no-bid contracts for Cheney's buds were illegal--your typical American citizen and member of the justice-loving, peace loving, open government-loving American MAJORITY. One difference between Americans and folks in other countries--although you'd think we would have learned by now--is our faith in democracy, and especially in the electoral process, that the country's course can be changed. It just didn't occur to many people that the political establishment would go to the extraordinary trouble of installing a whole new vote counting system, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls.
The majority was NOT fooled by the Iraq War B.S. It had "learned the lessons of Vietnam." But it WAS fooled by "trade secret" vote counting, which was kept way, way below the radar of most people (primarily by means of Democratic Party leadership collusion; people had faith in this party to alert them to electoral danger, and they failed us and betrayed us). I think people felt that FLA '00 was unique, and simply didn't believe that the entire political establishment would seek ANOTHER way to steal elections, and keep these ****wad war criminals in office.
I remember back in mid-2004. I am a very well-informed American, but I had only just gotten the first hints that electronic voting systems were a problem, about six months before the election. Indeed, I felt kind of smug cuz we had a good Secretary of State, at that point--Kevin Shelley--and I felt I didn't have to worry about my own state, California. If there was a problem, it would be in one of the battleground states--Pennsylvania or Ohio, or maybe Texas, or maybe Florida again. That was the status of my knowledge about our voting system. I didn't know a touchscreen from an optiscan, nor did I have any inkling what a vile and dangerous piece of legislation the 'Help America Vote Act' had been. I think now that that bill WAS the fascist coup. Mid-2004, I had only vague, uninformed misgivings.
And this probably means that 99% of the American people had no warning at all, and no clue how this horrible little man who had started an unjust war with a pack of lies, and who was permitting torture in Iraq, could have been re-elected. But that soon changed. A lightbulb went off in some of our heads, and we soon hunted down the story on the voting machines, and followed the investigations in Ohio.
Demoralized and disempowered by an entirely false narrative of American support for the war, played out by the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, the majority of Americans were vulnerable to the lies and deception of the same media as to the re-election of Bush/Cheney. And they actively lied and deceived people about that election. For instance, they DOCTORED their own exit polls, which showed a Kerry win, to force them to match the results of the "trade secret" programming--that Bush won--and they never said a single word about the "trade secret" code and the total, and very NEW, non-transparency of the voting system.
The non-transparent vote counting system is still in place, and very likely played a role in giving us a "Blue Dog" Congress (pro-war Democrats). A lot of things have changed and improved, but Bushite corporations STILL have great power over election results. Insider flipping votes in this system is easy, quick and undetectable--except by inferential means, such as exit polls (real ones--not doctored ones). Awareness about the voting system has vastly improved. Reforming it has proven more difficult, though. It got entrenched very quickly--with the $3.9 billion electronic voting boondoggle from the Anthrax Congress, which resulted in extensive corruption throughout our election system at the local level. The Bushite grip on the Dept. of Justice has loosened, and a lot of work has been done to try to prevent the outrages against black voters that occurred in Ohio. There is reason for hope, all deriving from the awakened citizenry, of which the grass roots Obama supporters are just one example. There are noble Americans out there fighting like hell against corrupt election officials and the rotten private corporations that took over our election system. The people ARE figuring things out, even the things that have been well hidden from them, such as the rigged voting machines.
And it may well be possible to outvote the machines. The corporations involved do not want to lose their grip on our election results, so it's a question how much of a flip they would risk. In '04, they flipped 4 million votes--but nobody knew about them then. Now they know. Now people are watching. And it won't take much for a full scale, pitchfork rebellion against the voting machines to develop.
I think that's why Edwards, Kucinich and possibly Biden were aced out early in the campaign--pre-emptive strikes against the possibility that the people can outvote the machines. Edwards, oddly enough--though he voted for the war--was a much bigger danger to the Corporate Rulers than Obama is. I don't think Obama intends serious reform. His supporters do, but I think they are in for a disappointment. He strikes me as one of these corporate P.R. people babbling about "win-win," and how "green" they're going to be. However, I don't think we can expect a real reformer to get anywhere near the White House, not yet. We have to work with what the reality is right now. And the activated citizenry that supports Obama, and will be responsible for his win, if they can achieve it, is a very good sign. They will lead the reform effort, at all levels of our society, even if he drags his feet, and even if he gets Diebolded.
:rotf:
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thecatburgler (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 02:16 AM
Response to Original message
...The only way the Repukes are going to win this year is to steal it.
I have a question: what does it say about democrats that Repukes were able to steal THREE, count 'em, THREE elections?
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thecatburgler (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 02:16 AM
Response to Original message
...The only way the Repukes are going to win this year is to steal it.
I have a question: what does it say about democrats that Repukes were able to steal THREE, count 'em, THREE elections?
That a box of rocks is smarter than the Democrat Party.
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KitSileya (1000+ posts) Thu Apr-24-08 01:00 AM
Original message
Does the world expect too much of ordinary Americans?
No I think we expect too little.