How Many Generations Will it Take?

[Laxman]

I visit this site every day. You can tell from my post count that I don't often share what I'm thinking. Tonight, however, I'm feeling like I need to say a couple of things. With the political discussion on DU having taken on the tenor of a couple of drunken friends in a bar arguing over the relative merits of artificial turf vs. natural grass (and willing to have a fist fight over the subject) I would like to pose a question to my fellow DU'ers. How long will it take until we forget what a free nation was like? Will it it be one generation? Two? Will my two kids now in middle school remember? Will I still remember when I get old(er)?

Americans have an amazing ability to adapt and get along. It seems right now that each year, every month, every week brings another change in things that we always took for granted that fundamentally alter our country. The United States an amoral super power invading a country that posed no threat to us? Never in a million years. Kidnapping and torturing people without due process? Nah, not us. Warrantless spying on American citizens? We've got rights you know! What's next?

I can remember walking in to public buildings like courthouses and administration buildings without being searched. Hell, I can remember being able to get on an airplane without metal detectors, let alone the gulag-like experience my last flight resembled. We can't trust the electoral process. We certainly can't trust the media. The ex-governor of an american state sits in prison over a political dispute. A CIA agent was outed by her own government without consequence (at least to the leaker) and we have a president who jokes about it. This is not the country I grew up in. What will it be like for my children?

I spent a decade as an elected official because I believed that I could make a difference. I have tried to set an example for my family about making the world a better place. Was it all for nothing? How will I be able to pay for heating oil, gasoline and my mortgatge? How will I send my kids to college? I make a decent living and these questions are always on my mind these days. I do remember better days. I don't know if my kids will. How many generations will it take until nobody is left to tell about what a great country this used to be?

[walldude]

1. They chip away a bit at a time and then one day

you turn around and bam, you aren't living in America any more. Reminds me of the Floyd song time: "and then one day you find, ten years have got behind you, no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun..."

[better tomorrow]

15. your post reminds me of.....Just Another Brick in the Wall

[Skittles]

2. I hear you Laxman

I no longer recognize America and seeing the bots on DU drag this place into the gutter is not encouraging

[Breeze54]

3. Just keep working at it, like we all are doing.

You have no other choice.

[calimary]

11. Some concrete suggestions here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3014654

Remedies. Strategies. Specific steps we can take, and spread the word - til we take our country BACK.

[Breeze54]

12. Thanks but already read it.

I've been out there. You want more from me?

If so, then I need more people on board and less ney saying from naysayers.

I need more of my anti-war threads bumped up and K&R's by those who are concerned.

[calimary]

13. Certainly happy to help with that whenever I see 'em.

You certainly have contributed a full measure already! I salute you! :patriot:

I guess maybe I'd want not necessarily "more" from you but rather "continued" from you.

I also like to spread things, network, and nag not to annoy.

[Breeze54]

16. Sorry....

I was just tired out mentally from battling freepers in GD-P.

I didn't mean to sound so ... well... mean.

I'm just so tired of trying to get people on board.

:hug: You know I care. I guess I'm tired.

You've done your fair share yourself! :hug:

We will continue together until we aren't needed. ;)

[calimary]

18. Aw... wouldn't that be a great day - when our efforts weren't necessary anymore?

Because everybody would have caught on, and we would have attained that goal of reclamation, and could finally pass the torch? It's a worthy dream, I think.

Come we lock shoulders together and stride toward the table, as DUer Opihimoimoi might say...

:pals:

[Juche]

4. nah

"The United States an amoral super power invading a country that posed no threat to us? Never in a million years."

Vietnam, Grenada, Korea, etc



"Kidnapping and torturing people without due process? Nah, not us."

To be fair, this program started under Clinton. And torture wasn't even illegal in the US until 1936 when Brown. v. Mississippi happened. And torture was fairly common by the police until the 1970s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Mississippi


"Warrantless spying on American citizens? We've got rights you know! What's next?"

Project Echelon. Far worse

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Echelon



I sincerely think America's best days are ahead of us because we are actually paying attention and pissed. We have been doing rendition since the Clinton years, but now we are pissed about it. Echelon has violated the rights of americans for years, but now we are pissed about it. We have been duping the public into unneeded wars for years, but now we are getting pissed at it. So I take all the anger as a good sign, sort of like a victim of domestic violence who starts to realize 'hey, life shouldn't be like this' for the first time.

[MadMaddie]

5. I am glad you posted this...because this is what it's about isn't

it?

Can we reclaim America for all Americans? Or will we continue down the path of Rome, USSR and other mega powers?

If we don't understand that this election will determine the future of America and it's citizens then we will suffer the consequences.

You have McCain who has admitted he doesn't know anything about economics and he has all but guaranteed that we will be mired in war for an unknown period of time.

We have the chance to change history and save America. We are it....

[Duke Newcombe]

6. "We are the change we have waited for..."

Damned right.

Duke

[bpeale]

44. that's a STUPID quote

we have been here all along so that quote makes no sense. we have been screaming for years. we have been screwed for years. and what good has it done? our elected officials need us to get elected & they no sooner get sworn in and they turn around & flip us the bird & do as they damned well please.

[bdamomma]

32. We are it, and there are numbers of people across the world

who are observing us and this upcoming election.

[frogcycle]

7. so very, very well said

My answer? probably not many at all. People have short, short memories. If they don't live it, they don't believe it. People born after about 1975 or so cannot fathom what Jim Crow was REALLY like. Scenes of people being knocked back with firehoses, of lynchings, of a restaurant with a sign on the door "no negroes or apes allowed inside" are complete abstractions to them. They only vaguely comprehend what it was like day in and day out. And yet people who lived that life are still alive. I watched a special on ESPN last night about the basketball version of baseball's "Negro League."

People telling these stories, of what they went through, of how they were treated, are familiar names to sports fans. Oscar Robertson. John Cheney. But they will die off, and those people born after 1975 or so will relegate these memories to the distant past, along with slavery.

People understand NOW. Their conditions NOW. They don't really believe the past ever happened. They turn the page.

[angrycarpenter]

8. Kids today

expect to be watched by the powers that be. They will be the ones who will line up to get a chip implanted that will allow them to pass through security without being checked. Or to buy things by just walking in the store and walking out.

[better tomorrow]

14. that's scary, huh, but unfortunately where we are headed....

and then someday the machines take over.....

[Brigid]

37. I wonder . . .

Do kids today read "1984?" If not, then their English teachers are not doing their jobs.

[laylah]

40. Not that I have seen; however,

when I worked in a "posh" local middle school in '02 - '03 as a Para, I provided copies to a few of the students. Could THAT have been why I wasn't asked to return in the fall?

As a casemanager in a boys "bootcamp" program for 3 years, I again provided copies to those that are interested. Took them awhile, but they got rid of me also. I had other infractions such as not allowing one of the boys to be sent to a juvenile lock-up, as in cells and all, on trumped up charges. Challenged his JCO...that didn't go over well for me.

I still have copies I will provide to students I am working with at an alternative school as soon as springbreak is over.

If there ever was a book that should be MANDATORY reading, it is that one.

[LSdemocrat]

9. While across-the-board progress is not inevitably, it would be naive to sanitize US history

While some serious discrimination still exits, many barriers of intolerance have been in place until very recently. For racial and ethnic minorities, women, gays, and other minority groups the United States of today (loosely interpreted) is a much freer place than the United States of 1-2 generations ago.

Yes, the Bush administration has committed horrendous wrongs under the guise of patriotism, but it is still naive to view the US of days gone by as some idyllic land.

[Laxman]

10. Not idyllic by any means

I agree. I never thought that I would have the opportunity to perform civil unions or to have the choice to vote for a woman or an african-american for president. These things were unthinkable 10 years ago, unimaginable 20 years ago. However, I believe these "advances" only constitute the inevitable acknowledgement of the value of our fellow human beings. Despite recent indications to the contrary, I believe that one good thing to anticiapte is that in another generation many of our unreasonable prejudices may be behind us. However, I also believe that this will be a fundamentally different country where many of our notions of personal freedom, personal mobility and generational advancement of means will also be behind us.

[Brigid]

35. Amen and amen.

Yes, there is no need to idealize the past. But another regime like the one we have now, where the Constitution is regarded not as the supreme law of the land but as something to be got around when it suits the powerful, and I think we're dead. In other words, in the name of all that is holy, don't vote McCain. We won't survive another four years like this.

[grantcart]

17. I left the US in 78 and came back to live in 94

You really see how big the changes are when you are not there to be desensitized by small incremental changes.

When I left G Gordon Liddy was a felon and considered both an idiot and a traitor. When I got back he was getting a first ammendment award for his radio show. I turned it on once and he was talking about the most effective way to neutralize a federal swat team member was to shoot him in the adam's apple - only leathal place never protected.

When I left college campuses were a check on the status quo now even a war doesn't even make them sneeze.

People have gotten so materialistic that they sell out so easily now. I am normally optomistic but I have to say that your OP depressed me.

[better tomorrow]

22. I remember as a teen.....

Kent State when it was the Feds doing the shootings on campus, unlike today when it is the kids doing the shooting....

Viet Nam when body bags were shown daily coming home....unlike today when you don't see any bodies being buried....

Jimmy Carter as the original Al Gore....wanting environmental impacts put in place....unlike today when Bush doesn't care about anything except his bridge to Alaska

Gas for .75 cents a gallon, unlike today when it costs 3.75

1979 when Margaret Thatcher became the first woman Prime Minister....unlike today when Nancy Pelosi finally became the first Speaker of the House and we have yet to have our first woman (or black) Predsident.

Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth's record honestly....unlike today with Barry Bonds scandal....

Supreme Court overturns abortion...unlike today when it is to be re-overturned by a packed court....

Star Wars thrilled audiences....unlike today when Star Wars means shooting down satellites with missiles....

Chinese clay army discovered....unlike today when Chinese make clay Army figurines for our kids painted in toxic paint....

etc. etc. etc...

[grantcart]

28. I hate talking about the good old days this way but on the other hand

I dragged my teenage daughter to a peace protest on Saturday and it was a three dozen 50+ year olds.

[Brigid]

39. I'm not a parent, but . . .

kids today don't realize that we old farts are being forced to relive some of the worst aspects of our youths (unpopular president, unpopular war, and so on). The reason all those fiftysomethings you mentioned were there at that protest? They recognize what's going on because they've seen it before.

[ClayZ]

19. K and R Great Thread

Bookmarked!

Keep speaking out!

[misanthrope]

20. The U.S. has been invading sovereign nations...

...who pose us no real threat for a long, long time and the hidden reasons have been mostly financial. There's nothing new about that.

You need to watch "Why We Fight."

And civil liberties have been curbed to greater degrees at various times throughout our history. Not to mention, more citizens have more rights and potential for influence now than did in 1789.

This country has always played loose and fast with definitions of "freedom."

[crimsonblue]

21. My guess?

On current course, less than 2. If Obama or Clinton gets into office, then 4+ and 3 generations respectively. McCain-- <2 generations.

[leftofthedial]

23. king george and the repukes

have created the worst times in my country in my lifetime.

[Beam Me Up]

24. How many generations . . . I've been wondering that myself.

A lot has changed in my lifetime and a lot has stayed the same. I was only 18 years old when this was said:

“Most of us grew up thinking that the United States was a great and humble nation that only involved itself in the affairs of other countries reluctantly and as a last and final resort. But now the war in Vietnam has provided the incredibly sharp razor that has finely separated thousands and thousands of people from their illusions about the morality and integrity of this country’s purposes internationally. Never again will this self-righteous saccharine moralism of promising a billion dollars of economic aid while we spend billions and billions of dollars to destroy them, never again will that moralism have the power to persuade people of the essential decency of this country’s aims. What kind of a system is it that allows decent men, good men, to make the decisions that have led to the thousands and thousands of deaths that have happened in Vietnam? What kind of a system is it that justifies the United States seizing the destinies of other people and using them callously for our own ends? We must name that system, and we must change it and control it, else it will destroy us.” - Paul Potter, President of SDS on “Vietnam Day” May 1965

Even before I'd already begun to question a lot of things I had been educated to believe was true. Now you can substitute Iraq for Vietnam in that paragraph and you see that it is the same thing. Some superficial things have changed but the real governing principals behind our foreign policy have not. What has changed is that we've allowed the events of 9/11 to be used to change our view of our national security. If you substitute 9/11 in the above for Vietnam, it all begins to become far, far more clear. We are now living in the nightmare Eisenhower tried to warn us against with his departing words regarding the military industrial complex -- that is, the relationship between the military, banking and corporate wealth and academia. It may never have occurred to him to also warn us that press and media influence and control by this relationship could blind us to what he was indicating was a genuine threat to our national security inherently emanating from within.

I fully grasp your question which is why, for example, I no longer watch TV at all. I haven't flown in an airplane since 9/11, either, not because I'm afraid to but because I refuse to allow myself the indignity of being searched for spurious reasons. Most people can't or won't follow my example -- and there are many things I probably should be doing that I'm not, or not doing that I should but the point is, somewhere along the way, we each have to begin to resist the creeping tide of fascism within this country. It has always been an aspect of this country and we have to acknowledge that. But if a balance can no longer be sustained through the execution of the Constitution and a separation of powers, then we're going to be faced with some very difficult questions. As others in this thread are indicating, it is up to us. Speaking out is a form of resistance. Free speech is a use it or loose it option.

Edit: html

[PA Democrat]

25. US teens 'reject' key freedoms

I think it's already happening. My son tells me the comments made by his classmates in his AP Government class and I am shocked. But apparently they are not unique.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4225013.stm

A significant number of US high-school students regard their constitutional right to freedom of speech as excessive, according to a new survey.

Over a third of the 100,000 students questioned felt the First Amendment went "too far" in guaranteeing freedom of speech, press, worship and assembly.

Only half felt newspapers should be allowed to publish stories that did not have the government's approval.

<snip>

Roughly half the students polled wrongly believed the US government had the right to censor the internet, while two-thirds believed it was illegal to burn the US flag - another misconception.

[Vinca]

26. Yike! That's frightening. nt

[Brigid]

34. What are they teaching in that government class?

And in other government classes? I remember talking about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in such classes back in my high-school days. But that was over 30 years ago. Yes, this is shocking. And this is how our Constitution will be destroyed: Lack of maintenance by those who never learned.

[Prophet 451]

27. It won't take one generation

The truest statement about politics ever written came from satirist Terry Pratchett: "People shout they want freedom and justice for all. What they really want is an assurance that life will go on, much as it did before and tomorrow will be very much like today".

Humans are amazingly adaptable. Bring the changes slowly, incremently and they'll learn to live with them and fairly soon, they'll only remember that things were different when they're reminded.

[Solly Mack]

29. It's been happening - the forgetting...the never knowing...

The erosion of rights has been steady for quite some time now.


for one example...

The war on drugs eroded rights...

http://www.aclu.org/scotus/2000/22346prs20000926.html

...think of all the children born since that began....they have all grown up seeing that as "normal" for democracy...so much so they don't even know that the war on drugs chipped (and continues to chip) away at their civil rights.

And if you don't fully know or understand your rights, then you won't really understand how you're losing them when government chips away at them...always a little at a time.

The war on terror is another policy that promotes the erosion of rights.

Children born during the Bush years will see everything he has done as a "normal" part of democracy if something isn't done about him and his crimes. That's why Bush is promoted as a failed President or a bad President instead of what he actually is (a criminal President who is a danger to America)...one of the reasons, anyway....to make Bush seem a "normal" part of democracy...sometimes you get a bad leader in the best of democracies....but truth is, Bush is a criminal president and a danger to America.

[Laxman]

30. Not Fade Away

This was what I was really trying to get at. I probably should have been a little more articulate with the original post. This was meant to be more of a call to action than a "remember the good old days" post. The alarmingly quick fading of memory of the way things were or should be and the replacement with acceptance of an altered reality is what is really bothering me. I was also hoping to get a good comprehensive list of those changes.

[Solly Mack]

33. The short - quickly fading memories - bother me as well

Never have to worry about me playing the "remember the good old days" game...

The America many people (think they) remember isn't and never was...that said, when I say people are seeing things as a "normal" part of democracy(such as the erosion of liberty/rights), I mean the altered reality you refer to....

Research...even a quick google... on the Patriot Act, the War on Drugs, and the War on Terror will yield how rights have been eroded and how things have changed over the last 20 plus years. (War on drugs)

and a search of how laws over the entire history of America have changed will yield how rights have been both expanded and eroded...

I'm not on my computer or I would delve into my favorites and post some links. Sorry.

[bdamomma]

31. we all have to remember do we really want other generations

to live like this, don't they deserve better, don't our sons, daughters, nieces or nephews deserve better, now is the time for all those who are not clear thinkers to stop thinking about themselves or the distractions and deceptions of what our media is telling us and to take back this country.

[pitohui]

36. no idea, i've never been free in my lifetime

as a woman i was not free to choose the career i wanted, from which everything else flows -- freedom to me is just a dream and always has been

any little bit of progress i've seen has been minimal and way overhyped compared to the reality of life on the ground for women of my age and class

how do i pay for gas and milk? to be honest i always worried about those things except for a brief 15 minutes in the 90s

no idea of what to tell you but i do know that the loud hosannas of "freedom" were pretty much always bullshit for some of us

i don't like to dwell on my own negativity but sometimes i can't help myself i guess

people who are completely disheartened and beaten down just don't stand up for themselves, they apparently prefer to join the crazy fundy cults so they can be beaten down further -- it's stockholm syndrome or something -- the worse things get the fewer people feel free to even squeak up and say something -- they're afraid, hell, we're all afraid

[lpbk2713]

38. We're well on our way.

I can remember a time that seems like it was not too long ago when police were more like helpful public servants than what they have evolved into today, totalitarian fascists. And it was all brought about by BushCo and his "Homeland Security" bullshit (I still think of Himmler and Goebbels when I see that name). They have no problem with roughing people up and trampling on their rights and their entitlement to human dignity and dealing with the consequences later. Joe Arpaio is a classic example. Things have got to change so that we can get our country back.

[Uncle Joe]

41. I believe we've already forgotten, now piss in this cup.

I suspect in a few decades if not sooner, someone will propose implanting microchips in all our newborn babies, so that in case they run away or are abducted, they will be able trace their movements. No one will care because it's for a good cause, but the result will be the same as it always is, less freedom and or privacy.

[lpbk2713]

43. The rationale will be 'What have you got to hide?'.

Freeper types just love to say that a lot ..... until they get arrested.

[Javaman]

42. America's death comes by a 1000 cuts.

Some deeper than others. the blood pools.

In the end, the body will still resemble it's old self but will no longer have life.

It's once vital being will be replaced by a dull stare which no longer registers emotion, but only indifference.

[Laxman]

45. Farenheit 451?

Will there be bands of people living off in the woods like the book readers in Farenheit 451 that Montag visits? Everyone else will live in blissful ignorance under the watchful gaze of the government back in town.