http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9157727Cyrano (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-18-10 11:45 AM
Original message
It’s always darkest just before it goes pitch black
The political storm clouds hovering over America today are frightening. Especially when you realize that far, far too many Americans, (perhaps more than half), don’t pay attention to politics. Their votes are based on a name they may have seen on a yard sign, a bumper sticker, or a TV ad. In other words, our fates are linked to a lack of awareness among many millions of uninformed people.
Today's crop of Republican crazies are fired up and ready to “take back America.†And too many in the Democratic base are busy sulking. But, IMO, a possible majority of Americans are totally clueless as to what’s happening in their own country.
How do you shake millions of people out of a coma and tell them their house may soon be on fire? I don’t have a clue. But I do know that their lack of paying attention could cost them and us dearly. As I said in the headline, "It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black."
If you disagree with what I’ve posted here, fire away. But if you agree, do you have any idea how to awaken disinterested people to a possibly impending whirlwind?
Pretty much sums up 2008.
blue sky at night (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-18-10 11:53 AM
Response to Original message
1. how do you say....
ya, i am with you a thousand percent; we are in deep ****ing trouble, and the democrats are so busy crying the blues because obama isn't perfect enough that by this time next year he will probably be impeached.
HEY DEMOCRATS! WAKE THE **** UP!!
No he won`t,he will just be safely neutered.
Angry Dragon (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-18-10 11:59 AM
Response to Original message
2. They will not wake up until
they have no house, no job or one that does not pay the bills, they lose their health insurance because they are found to have an expensive disease, their retirement is gone because wall street stole it, SS is gone because it did not benefit the wealthy, their children can not compete against the rest of the world because they were taught to take a test and not really learn, they wake up one day and find they have no freedoms because they gave them all away.
Come back Angry Dragon...you talk economics there but when I asked you here how demand side theory can work you said "I don`t know".
edhopper (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-18-10 12:00 PM
Response to Original message
3. Americans seem to vote
based on "things aren't good with this guy, so I'll vote for the other guy."
Not even thinking that "the other guy" is the same guy that screwed things up.
No thought about policy or where the will lead this country.
We are truly ****ed. We just barely survived GWB because Clinton left us in good shape. Another round of the GOP will kill us. And most Americans won't understand why.
Yep,why an idiot like O is President right now.
abq e streeter (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-18-10 12:01 PM
Response to Original message
5. I agree with you, and have posted more than once as how how much I'm at a loss
as to how to get a hypnotized and basically apathetic population to wake up. But I also fear that with the access to the airwaves etc of the "big lie" incessant propaganda of hate radio and complicit MSM, that a dangerously high percentage of those that do wake up will have their awareness twisted to the exact opposite of who's been screwing them over and they'll look for and find the usual fascist scapegoats. That part is already happening (i.e. your reference to republican crazies). My 92 year old WW2 vet father, who was politically aware as a kid in the 1930's, while always being a liberal, has been moderately so. He always has cautioned me about "extreme language" or thinking, and yet in just the last few years, he has started referring to the American right as fascists, and while he doesn't fear a Hitler type of fascism here, he now believes a Mussolini type is already happening.
So while I agree that there is great danger in the mind boggling number of citizens who have no idea what's happening, I find it equally or more dangerous to see how easily manipulated so many people (the crazies you refer to) are , who do have some vague understanding that something has gone horribly wrong.
I don't know why I replied even; I have no ideas for, nor solution to, the question you posed. But just registering my sense of impending doom and helplessness as to how to stop it, besides doing what is probably the coward's way out (but a path I may very well take if the tea party gang takes over) which is leaving the country I love.
I have no idea what was just said...is sentence structure and paragraphing a curse to DUmmies?
lunatica (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-18-10 12:03 PM
Response to Original message
6. Politics bores the crap out of most people
In my experience their eyes glaze over and they rush to dismiss the subject. I think most people know they're mostly uninformed but they don't want to inform themselves. They want to be told by the media or they'll just vote their party, if they vote at all.
People don't get interested until the last month before an election, and most don't care about mid term elections at all. And their interest doesn't include parsing the bombardment of political soundbites and messages. They don't discern that they're being lied to. Political campaign managers know this, which is why most ads are based on lies.
So every once in a while people realized they've been lied to, which makes them even less interested. Plus they don't worry about what doesn't affect them personally. Wars? What wars? Oh those! Are we still fighting those wars? Yawn...
That is what is creating the problem you have...suck on it.
9. Yep, the right wing crazies love Soundbite Sarah for that reason. She is the octomom of politics.
Yeah,if only she would get rid of that damn teleprompter...oh wait a minute
