How are we going to get out of this?

[fshrink]

In this stubborn spirit of mine of having a political discussion here rather than in the noise and confusion which reigns over at GD or even LBN.

In fact, the recent trend of spiritual (e.g. Creation is/is not a theory), mundane (e.g. what should we wear on inauguration day) or chatty (e.g. How to raise children) threads seen on the GD forum, might very well faithfully represent the current state of mind of the democratic population in this country. If this is the case, one may easily imagine the uncertainties and confusion of the democrat leaders, which might then contribute to explain their silence.

On a political level, and barring some extraordinary event in the recount department, we now know that the 3 branches of the government are in the hands of the extreme-right and that a very large portion of the media, probably 90% of the radios, which, by the way, have been badly neglected over the last 10 to 20 years, is now owned by extreme-right consortia (plural of consortium?).

The administration and its strategists also have a permanent joker up their sleeves with the "terrorism" fallacy, because I think more and more that it is a fallacy. We now have a "wag the dog" a the power of a hundred. At any time, it is possible to focus the nation on some event, engineered or magnified, or both, somewhere in the very large portion of the planet which has been, and still is, actively de-stabilized. 9/11 was immediately understood (and not by the idiot) as a tremendous, historical, opportunity to take political hold of power and was methodically and consistently utilized to that very end.

On a social level, the people are put and/or maintained in a state of fear. Not only of "terrorism" but mainly for their livelihood, their job and their health. Fear of "terrorism" is the detonator, the primer, which creates a state of arousal which facilitates the emergence of other fearful reaction. Fear makes obedience much easier.

On the whole, the current situation is a political dead-end for progressives. No democrat leader will dare stand up and articulate the above, or even part of it, and lose his/her job in the process. Political leaders will do as usual: hold on to what they have, re-frame, join the crowd and wait for the other camp to make a mistake.

And this for the foreseeable future.

The only logical end I see to this is a series of popular protests. The street talking. Just about a week ago already, workers in OH got seriously pissed and engaged in physical pressure during a strike. If such events keep on happening, and they are likely to because the current conditions tends to create them, this would quickly shake up the spectacular hypnosis. I don't trust much students to spearhead anything, although their unrest usually reaches the media faster. In summary, my take is on popular unrest.

What's yours?

[immoderate]

1. My obsession lately...

has been about how how badly Osama has whipped us, and how much of an accomplice George Bush has been to him. I expressed to a friend this evening that Osama has won. I felt it on a recent business trip, when my shoes were x-rayed enough to glow in the dark. And the ultimate gift was the Iraq War.

I got the same feeling at the Woodstock Festival in '69 when looking out at the sea of rocking, smoking, hairy hippies, a friend said, "This is the start of something great."

I replied, "No, this is the end." And unfortunately, I think I was right. The era of peace and love got swallowed up by commercialism, and ultimately, AIDS.

Shrink, I think you're right that nothing will happen until something tips over, and as you say, the other side makes a mistake. I shudder to think what Allport and Maslow would make of all this.

--IMM

[fshrink]

2. Nice insight you had back then!

In Europe we had ours in 68 with all the uprisings. Back then, we quickly saw that this was the last jerk before the end.
As to Allport, he is the only social-psychologist that I respect: perhaps because he was black, his drive was oppositional rather than merely only, "neutrally", "scientific". And now, we are subjects in a real-life, global experiment... with no ethical boundaries whatsoever.

[immoderate]

3. I mention Allport and Maslow

because their work involved the "self actualized" behaviors that I think you are referring to. Maybe waiting until the time is more propitious is necessary. But I think we must do something instead of reacting to whatever happens. We should be prepared.

On ethical boundaries: sad that our society has fallen for substituting religion for ethics. As long as one claims to be religious they can neatly ignore right behavior.

--IMM