The Apathy problem

Forgive me for going on a political jag over the last couple of posts, but right now I feel the need to use this forum in a manner that goes beyond mere "log entries."

I've spoken about the members of this society who are going through life with blinders on. I have often wondered if somehow this world has skewed into a timeline that we don't want to be on. Where did it start? Was it with the assasination of JFK? Was it the elections of Nixon or Bush?
Things are happening in this American society right now, very bad things, in terms of our rights as Americans, as guaranteed in The Constitution and The Bill of Rights. We are seeing decades of civil-rights protections being eroded away in just the last 10 years, mostly under Republican, nee, BUSH, governance. His government is spying on Americans with no legal justification or permission. More Americans are being arrested on any number of charges, and not given any rights to presumption of innocence or basic privacy.
I also see more and more individuals in the daily course of my life committing acts that are stupid, unthinking, WRONG-thinking, and sometimes downright dangerous. Not to mention apathetic.

Today I came across an Op-Ed piece that addressed the idea of "The American Trance." I have often wondered at how deep the apathy and stupidity I'm seeing in this country goes. This story helps explore those depths.

It was written by Leslie Brundige as a diary entry for The Populist Party. Here it is...

In order to understand why this trance persists, we have to look at a couple of issues.

Do you want to be entertained, or informed? Do you prefer C-Span or "American Idol"? Did you VOTE for a contestant on "American Idol"?

Do you feel a disconnect between what you believe to be true, and what you're told is true? If so, you're in the netherland between mainstream media and the truth.

Not everyone feels this disconnect, the majority of Americans simply don't want to know. These are the ones who vote for "American Idol", and ferverently pray for their favorites. As though it matters. Many people I know simply do not want to feel the outrage. They don't want to live their lives that way; simpler to go to work, take care of what's important to them, and assume everything will work itself out. This is America, what could go wrong?

It isn't a matter of intelligence or education. It often is a matter of political party, but I'll discuss that later. Smart people don't necessarily feel a need to speak truth to power, research the source of the facts they're presented with, or even catch the discrepencies that cause some of us to experience cognitive dissonance. For whatever reasons, their life experiences have led them to a place where going along to get along is normal. Why experience turmoil if you don't have to?

Here's the danger: The top half of one percent, the corporate elite, are counting on this apathy. How else to explain the first order of business for the Bush administration after his theft of the White House? The estate tax, cutting the uber rich's taxes to virtually nothing. We, the people these parasites live off of, are being raped in ways that only they and their financial managers can imagine. Obscure rules wrapped in benign sounding laws have a profound affect on us.

Perhaps the people in the trance are the sensible ones. Why make yourself crazy about something you can't change? They're right, we can't change it unless we identify it. We live in a capitalistic society, greed is admired and envied. This is America. Maybe someday you'll be that rich, and get all those benefits.

The people who control us are the people who pay for our "representatives" to get elected. Why else would the burning issues be how much of our tax money we should give to Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Whatever? Our "representatives" are representing their corporate donors. If they were representing us, they would be discussing our quality of life issues, like affordable health care, the homelessness that sprang to life under the Reagan administration (and we've come to accept as normal), why both parents have to work to maintain a household, what's happening to children raised by strangers or raising themselves. If they represented us they wouldn't have allowed usury, while making it more difficult to file for bankruptcy and make a fresh start. Can debtor's prisons be far behind? Do you see the pattern here? No health insurance, or only "catastrophic" coverage. Get hurt on the job or anywhere, miss a few weeks of paychecks, use credit cards for living expenses, or to keep your car on the road, interest rates on your cards go up, you owe medical bills that realistically you couldn't pay off in five lifetimes. . .

But in the Capitol they're milling around, discussing bills and laws that by and large are only remotely connected to our lives. George Bush is not stupid, he's clever, manipulative and cruel. And he belongs to the donor class, which donates to both parties, albeit more to the Republicans. This is the class that uses all of the infrastructure that this country has to offer, it's freedom, what used to be clean air and water, the integrity that was the U.S.A. Bush is giving them our national parks to mine their resources, allowing them to pollute OUR air and water, while contributing nothing except campaign money.

It always comes down to this: we can no longer allow our government to be funded by and at the bidding of these self-centered, out-of-touch parasites. Their great-great grandfather may have invented Gillette razors, or paper clips, whatever their fortune is based on it most certainly was not taxed. We must have public financing of elections, or not bother to vote at all. We must re-instate the equal time provision, that mandated both sides (all sides?) be aired on television. Reagan decided that cable television obviated the need for equal time.

When we continually hear that Hillary Clinton will absolutely win if she runs, because she has more money in her campaign fund than anyone else, we shouldn't feel a little unease. We should be outraged. When money trumps the issues that matter, when money is no longer tacitly accepted but overtly required as the measure of a candidate's potential success, we're not even close to being a democracy anymore.

Let's keep it simple. To break the trance, repeat the mantra "Public Financing of Campaigns". Campaign Finance Reform, as a phrase puts people to sleep. Putting limits on what can be spent, time limits on the campaign itself, and neutralizing the invisible bloodsuckers isn't as complicated as they would have us believe.

They need us, we don't need them.


Written by Leslie Brundige, (Send Her Email) who is a researcher and contributing writer at www.populistamerica.com



Here is another excellent piece, a series of quotes by various historic figures of note, that seems very relevant today...

Now is the Time to Stand Up for America


by Mick Youther


http://www.opednews.com

There is a celebrated quotation about the fate of civilizations:

• “The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency;
From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.”

The origin of this quotation is not known. It has been attributed to various sources, and may even be a combination of two separate quotations from difference sources. In spite of its dubious origin, it has been quoted by Ronald Reagan (3/5/64), Senator Strom Thurmond (1/9/65), P.J. O'Rourke in his 1991 book, Parliament of Whores, and many others. Whatever its source, the quotation now serves as a warning of the pitfalls that may befall any civilization.

The Founding Fathers had foreseen and warned of these dangers long ago:

• “A lady asked Dr. [Benjamin] Franklin, ‘Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy’ — ‘A republic,’ replied the Doctor, ‘if you can keep it.’” --from Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention of 1787

• “Hold on my friends to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.” --Daniel Webster

• “But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever” -- John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, 1775

• “Yes we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path to destruction.” --Thomas Jefferson

Now, two hundred and thirty years later, the Founding Father’s worst fears are coming true; and how have the American people responded? A character, Alan Shore, on the ABC television show, Boston Legal (3/14/06) described it perfectly:

• “When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They didn't.

Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.

Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.

And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven't. In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial - or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.

…The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest. …At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.

…And what I'm most sick and tired of is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is labeled unAmerican.”

It is sad that I need to quote an imaginary character from a television show, but our representatives in the Republican-controlled Congress do not say such things. We have no Thomas Jefferson or James Madison to speak for us. Our representatives are busy considering Constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage and flag burning--never mind the war, never mind the spying, never mind the Constitution. Our representatives do not have time to worry about such trivial things. They are too busy doing what they are paid to do by the corporations which now control our government and an ever-increasing part of our lives. It is up to us to do something.

• “The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure.” --Albert Einstein (1875-1955)

• “We, the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts - not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution.” --Abraham Lincoln

We, as American citizens, should not be sitting around, waiting to see what the government is going to do to us next. We are the government, and it is time to remind our representatives in Congress of that fact. James Madison (Father of the Constitution) made that clear:

• “[A]ll power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people. That government is instituted and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty and the right of acquiring property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. That the people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform or change their government whenever it be found adverse or inadequate to the purpose of its institution.”

• “The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much ...to forget it.”

The big question now is have we waited too long. Is it already too late? Have our elections become so corrupt that it doesn’t even matter if we vote or not? I don’t think so--not yet; but our time to act is running out. Right now, patriotic Americans are fighting to save the American Dream, but they cannot do it without our help.

• “One of the illusions [of life] is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour.” --Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. . . Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.” --Howard Zinn

• “If you join the battle, not in your hundreds of thousands, but in your millions, you will be greeted joyously by the rest of the world. And you will see how beautiful it is to be gentle instead of brutal, safe instead of scared. Befriended instead of isolated. Loved instead of hated….Yours is by no means a great nation. But you could be a great people. History is giving you the chance. Seize the time.” --Arundhati Roy, 5/13/03



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Mick Youther is an American citizen, an independent voter, a veteran, a parent, a Christian, a scientist, a writer, and all-around nice guy who has been aroused from a comfortable apathy by the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush Administration.

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