How bad does it have to get before America wakes up - like the alcoholic

[billkurtmeyer]

It seems to me that the analogy of the alcoholic is fitting to our current national situation. The alcoholic has to hit rock bottom - fall in the gutter before they can begin to admit that they need help and in order to change, is that what has to happen to our country? We must first hit rock bottom before we can begin to change?

[undergroundpanther]

1. I hope not

I see the analogy of Amerias issues more like a battered spouse leaving an abusive partner.
They get hurt over and over,they try to believe the abuser's excuses,they try to change them,they try to please them,all the while thier freedom erodes and thier self esteem is going away,until they either die at the hands of the brute who says they love them or seek escape from the tyrant because they no longer can deny what they are and have accepted the abuser does not love them,but the abuser needs them to serve them,be thier punching bag and pretend the abuser is really a good person,and feed thier sickness with thier misery submission and fear.

The problem is for those of us outside this sick cultural dynamics.Those of us who call an abuser what they are and act like canaries in a cultural coal mine..We are stuck in a culture that is sick like the innocent kids hunkering together and rebelling from the dysfunctional household sickness found in abusive families .We react,we speak out,because we see what the "parents"(politicians media churches ect) deny about America's dynamics and don't play along with the game of make believe they are playing about thier own lack of character..pretending good is bad and bad is good.

WE talk back at the bully and get smacked down for it,we tell the enabler to wake up, get away from the abuser and to stop obeying and sucking up to abusers,we offer them freedom from abuse,and they will not take it because they refuse to see the truth that the neocons are fascist.They refuse to take fe=reedom because they have internalized the opressor and identify with it. So we get called hysterical or conspirasy theorists by deluded enablers,and labeled terrorists by bullies who want to dominate because we won't submit or pretend an abuser is not really choosing to deliberately abuse trust,goodwill and our Humanity ,and democracy itself because he thinks he can get away with it,if we'd just shutup.I am sadddened by this because our" family" (american) culture has become so tolerant of violence,emotional supression, so thick skinned,it is tolerant twords moral relativism to the point it calls it moral,embraces might makes right abuse and torture as 'good' .
America has trouble leaving behind abusive politicians and cultural mechanisms because we are brought up as children to obey authoritarians and not question them. It's a hard pattern to see through. But once you see it it is everywhere and you can't un see it again.