How and when did the American population become so docile?

[RadioRaheem84]

I swear after watching Michael Moore's new film, it puzzles me as to how the American public has become so docile. They're getting outright robbed and the nation is starting to look like a third world nation. It seems like right wing libertarianism is the new hip thing for younger people and conservatism for the older generation. Everyone hates revolutionaries even though this nation was founded by them. Anything that questions the system is mocked in pop culture or supposedly "liberal" shows (case in point, Lisa no longer being the voice of reason on the Simpsons but just a mockery of social justice movements). All hope is vested in a rather seedy Chicago politician (Obama).

It's nuts how we can be robbed blind, layed off, have our pay be cut several times over, denied healthcare, the right to unionize, etc. and the public is ok with it. They could show Moore's film across the country on national TV for free and I bet it wouldn't put a dent in the system. Even companies are confident in this as evidenced in who produced Moore's film (owner of Overture is a Limbaugh loving media mogul). They know that people will pay to see Moore's films and make a killing off of it but that they will do nothing about the current system.

More people went to see Zombiland and other stupid films in my theatre than Moore's film. There was a line wrapped around the theatre to see everything but Capitalism: A Love Story.

Is there any real hope for this nation? Is the situation this dire in the EU?

[kellster102292]

Okay I agree with you completely with having America becoming docile and the people in my opinion becoming "weak".

Being a resident of the United States I have to say that the cause of this is that the citizens are not ready to accept the government being so corrupt and robbing the people's money. We are scared of having our democracy blamed as the reason we are slowly going down the drain in our economy, and many other problems the United States are bound to have.

The people are just not ready to accept, or are afraid of the fact that the government is using them, and sucking them dry.

[Red Icepick]

The answer is within your question. They have the population distracted with idiocy like 'Zombieland.' It's like what Huxley wrote about in Brave New World. You can keep a population complacent and docile through meaningless overstimulation and drugging. Reality tv, pornography, idiotic Hollywood schlock, Myspace, etc. All meaningless distractions. Then in addition to alcohol, there is now a drug to remedy any actual feeling. If you're angry about something, instead of directing that anger into an effective outlet, many people will just take a pill to keep them complacent.

[Invincible Summer]

Yeah, fun is counter-revolutionary.:rolleyes:

[Red Icepick]

Yeah, fun is counter-revolutionary.:rolleyes:

You can have fun while stimulating your brain. Most people are too lazy. It's the ADHD culture with no attention span to use their mind.

[Kukulofori]

The school system and media blast at us how great enterprise and opportunity etc are and that much propoganda is hard to dispell, especially when the school system focuses on destroying our critical thinking abilities and teaching obedience.

[Pogue]

When the IWWs branches died out after some really militant strikes. The IWW was the best thing to happen in the USA, alongside the Black Panthers.

[Psy]

The American Dream, the American worker thinks the long boom of the 50's to late 60's is the norm for capitalism. The 'recovery' of the 1990's made workers think the current crisis is just a business cycle and another long boom is coming, thus workers have a dream of having the living conditions of the 50's-60's, the concept of the long boom being abnormal for capitalism has not occurred to most workers in the USA.

[samizdat]

We've become a nation of instant gratification. Anything that doesn't demand instant satisfaction of our biological and social needs is automatically dismissed or is seen as unimportant. Anyhing with bright colors, tastes like sugar, engrossed in sex or ends controversy is a priority.

[samizdat]

In regards to the government and the financial system. I think the obvious problem is--no one really understands what the hell is going on at the top level. I swear i've read about Keynesian economics to the cause of the financial crises and I still don't understand the details of who did what and what went wrong and what plausable way there is to fix. Nor do I understant just what "fixed" is.

[RadioRaheem84]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y

I think you guys should watch this video. It really pains me to see the working class be so hate filled and vitriolic toward anything deemed helpful to their interests. I really don't think that there is much that we or anyone can do to help them. It may come down to an actual fight if things escalate to an extreme point. I would hate to align myself with liberals on most issues but these people (and there a lot of them) are downright scary! All of the political and economic education they've ever had has been through right wing radio.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I just have to say, Zombieland was great.

As for the larger question, I don't know, but it is sad.

[Plagueround]

Maybe they're turned off from anything the left has to offer since they'll be heavily condemned and ridiculed for everything from the clothing they wear to the movies they enjoy.

[Decommissioner]

I just have to say, Zombieland was great.

As for the larger question, I don't know, but it is sad.

I agree, zombieland was a good movie. I had a lot of fun going to the sneak preview here with a bunch of people dressed as zombies and zombie hunters.

I think you are placing to much blame on the distraction aspect, and not enough on lack of education and practice. Americans are raised to believe that in america, anyone can get rich and that getting rich is a fundamental right. The media is to blame for this disinformation, as are the books we are forced to study in school (remember the history book you were given in elementry and high school? Garbage!)

In order for the people to wake up, revolutionary ideas have to be put into practice, such as workers councils for working people. The right wing has hijacked the working class, and although it may seem hopeless to "win" them back, tough economic times may offer an opportunity for the working class to question the system they live in and to erect alternatives. When people start losing their jobs and their homes, whether they are right wing or left, they will all start to see that their allegiences aren't going to be based on a political party or persuasion, but instead with those of which class they belong to. People don't normally think along class lines because the "average joe" in america doesn't feel the effects of class in an overt way. It is only now that your "average joe", despite all his patriotism and hard work, may become one amongst the homeless, or or amongst those despised and "lazy" food stamp and welfare check recipients. In that event, people of the working class may come to realize that it is not "laziness" that puts people out of work and causes poverty (which is the scapegoat the ruling class puts forth, and that the working class buys into), but it is capitalism instead.

Working people are pissed off, but they aren't quite sure who is to blame yet. The right is trying to blame it on some abstract notion of "socialism" and big government. It is our job to inform them that capitalism is to blame, and that real socialism is the alternative. When more and more people lose their jobs and the recession grows deeper, this will become crucial in radicalizing the working class.

You also have to consider that we are just now entering a generation in which there are young adults who have no memory of the cold war. I myself was too young to remember what it was like to live under the constant threat of nuclear attack from another superpower. People who grew up in those times still have a hard time disassociating the paranoia and uneasiness that came with that era with communism. I think a lot of the backwardness we see in the working class today has a lot to do with that as well.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The IWW was the best thing to happen in the USA, alongside the Black Panthers.

While I don't necessarily dispute that statement, I think it's worth noting that the U.S. was frequently a nation beset by ferocious strikes long before the inception of the IWW (supposedly it had more class violence sustained over a longer period of time than any other Western country). A lot of them were organized and executed outside of (or in frequently in defiance of) official unions.

[Axle]

Its not exactly that Americans just let the government and capitalism lay us off, or cut our pay, or deny us affordable healthcare, or the right to unionize...but that the seemingly vast majority of us either don't care, or actually support those measures.

We've all heard the arguments:

"Businesses don't want to come to a place where the minimum wage is too high."
"They had to lay those people off or else the whole company would go under (and then who'd they be employing?)"
"Unions hurt the company's profitability and will cause lay offs."
"Why should I pay for someone else's healthcare?"

There's a sickeningly complex system behind all this to manufacture opinions, keeping the status quo intact.

Take the healthcare protesters. They ***** to high hell about the taxes a public healthcare option would create...a public healthcare option that would save people's lives who would otherwise not have healthcare, and keep people out of bankruptcy if they get too sick. I wouldn't mind paying an extra few percent of my income for that. I consider that a good tax.

Yet there isn't a peep about the gigantic chunk of their taxes the military takes...and although its really impressive that we've figured out how to use computers to send a $20 million missile up someone's ass...the American military budget is still disgustingly, and more importatantly, unwarrantedly, high.

America is up shit creek, there's no way around that, but there will come a time when the government/capitalist parasite will misstep and all the support and indifference to it will drop like a rock. If we're able to unify before this happens and become a real force in this country, we will easily scoop those people up.

[GPDP]

Its not exactly that Americans just let the government and capitalism lay us off, or cut our pay, or deny us affordable healthcare, or the right to unionize...but that the seemingly vast majority of us either don't care, or actually support those measures.

I think actual public opinion says otherwise.

Looking at polls on various issues, the majority of the American population does care, and does not support the way things are going. Most Americans are very much pro-health care, anti-war, and pro-many other progressive measures. They are surprisingly to the left of even the Democrats.

Do not let the minority (who is not only more vocal, but actually given the time of day by the mainstream media) who does support the status quo or worse have you believe otherwise.

[Mongol Swede]

Life to many Americans, when it is actually happening in front of them, in real-space, is often-times treated as nothing but a spectacle. I recently went to the G20 in the Pitt, not as a protestor, not as a demonstrator, but simply to observe things from a bystander's perspective. I donned an old dingy Steelers jersey and casually talked to people gathered downtown to watch the protesters on the Friday when they had the permitted march and rally at the City-County building, and I noticed it was like heading downtown to watch a parade, only they were enticed to perhaps witness some copper beat down a dirty hippie protester. Kinda like catching an episode of Cops, or watching some poor sap get pwned on Youtube. Roughly the same scenario to many bystanders I talked to.

Oh well, as Axle said, if we can get ourselves organized (getting really hard with all the sectarian infighting and various parties and fronts striving to be THE vanguard of the whole revolution here in the States), eventually we'll be able to move things forward when our actions are not being reduced to soundbites and other trivial Robot Chicken-like clips.

[Psy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y

I think you guys should watch this video. It really pains me to see the working class be so hate filled and vitriolic toward anything deemed helpful to their interests. I really don't think that there is much that we or anyone can do to help them. It may come down to an actual fight if things escalate to an extreme point. I would hate to align myself with liberals on most issues but these people (and there a lot of them) are downright scary! All of the political and economic education they've ever had has been through right wing radio.

They don't look like the working class to me but similar to the petite-bourgeois that backed the coup against Chaz in Venezuela. If they were really proletariat how did they get there without strike action, even farmers have to go on strike in order to demonstrate, yet these people are there and production didn't seem hampered by them not at work.

Whenever the proletariat moves for what ever the whole capitalist system rumbles simply because production is interrupted by them not being at work, meaning even if the proletariat protested for capitalism it would cause capitalism to shake at its foundation with the workers not being at work. Think back to the communist manifesto that part where it says workers can't stir "without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air". Just the act of the proletariat stirring upsets the normal operations of capitalism therefore capitalists don't want the proletariat to stir even in support of capitalism.

[RadioRaheem84]

They don't look like the working class to me but similar to the petite-bourgeois that backed the coup against Chaz in Venezuela. If they were really proletariat how did they get there without strike action, even farmers have to go on strike in order to demonstrate, yet these people are there and production didn't seem hampered by them not at work.

Whenever the proletariat moves for what ever the whole capitalist system rumbles simply because production is interrupted by them not being at work, meaning even if the proletariat protested for capitalism it would cause capitalism to shake at its foundation with the workers not being at work. Think back to the communist manifesto that part where it says workers can't stir "without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air". Just the act of the proletariat stirring upsets the normal operations of capitalism therefore capitalists don't want the proletariat to stir even in support of capitalism.

You're right, they're petite bourgeois. They're the typical types that listen to Sean Hannity all day and Glenn Beck all night. The white middle class suburban American. The type that thinks that this is HIS country and should be run HIS way. The type that believes everyone else is just "visiting". What are we to do about them and engaging them in civil debate?
It seems like though that they could stir into a frenzied mob if not challenged.

[spiltteeth]

I really think people underestimate the amount of propaganda in america.

Are people docile? Millions were justifiably upset about wall street. So, to channel that energy and anger away from them, the corporations, with some Fox help, created the tea baggers, who harmlessly protest while actually serving the very interests that are screwing them!

In America it's a more subtle form of 'thought control,' there is space to harmlessly vent, 'protest', just no real action.

See the 2-3 cops at the teabaggers? See the ARMY of cops at the anarchist protests last week?

We have been hypnotized into accepting a bizarre stance, with work, politics, war etc:

"I DISAGREE, BUT I OBEY."

It creates the psychological space to allow people to disavow their responsibility in this manner. Propaganda is insanely sophisticated. Never underestimate it.

[Psy]

You're right, they're petite bourgeois. They're the typical types that listen to Sean Hannity all day and Glenn Beck all night. The white middle class suburban American. The type that thinks that this is HIS country and should be run HIS way. The type that believes everyone else is just "visiting". What are we to do about them and engaging them in civil debate?
It seems like though that they could stir into a frenzied mob if not challenged.

When the proletariat moves these tea baggers would be greatly overshadowed, for example take the Winnipeg general strike of 1919 where the industrial proletariat was dinky compared to now yet when they moved all hell broke loose because the proletariat were stirring and capitalism within Winnipeg had grind to halt as the workers of Winnpeg as a collective refused to work and the RCMP (Canada's federal police force) using violence forced workers back to work.

When the workers start to move, groups like the tea baggers become irrelevant. You think the workers would give a shit about tea baggers when workers are engaged in class war, when workers are building barricades to repel the National Guard you think the tea baggers would be anything but a joke?

[RadioRaheem84]

Well I wouldn't say that the tea baggers (too funny!) are anything but a small bunch of rabid right wingers. They are quite a large faction of the middle class. Mostly small business owners and high end people in the workplace. There might be some working class people in there too. I know a lot of working class people (mostly white and associate themselves with the middle class) that love Glenn Beck and the right wing hysteria that he creates.

Where is the real working class and why are they no as vocal as the petite-bourgeoisie?

[Revy]

There is no strong left in this country. All the progressive forces are lined up behind the Democrats.
The two party dictatorship prevents any kind of third party. So even in socialist groups you have social democrats who attempt to lead the organization into support for Democrats.

I think the first step for anything to change is for the two party system to end. How exactly that will happen is not known to me. Does this mean that I support the idea of socialists creating a left-reformist front...no, but that a strong left in a genuine form would be beneficial to us, it would make our ideas more acceptable, and not leave us to be regarded as the mad fringe of society.

I mean for fuck's sake....look at how many votes the socialist parties get where there isn't this kind of terribly rigid two party system. Socialist parties here don't even get 1% of the vote, more like 0.02%! (all their votes combined, seriously!).

[RadioRaheem84]

The mission this time around is to expose the Dems for who they really are like the left did with the GOP during the Bush Jr years. Our only hope is to show people that there is NO HOPE in the two party system.

[Psy]

Well I wouldn't say that the tea baggers (too funny!) are anything but a small bunch of rabid right wingers. They are quite a large faction of the middle class. Mostly small business owners and high end people in the workplace. There might be some working class people in there too. I know a lot of working class people (mostly white and associate themselves with the middle class) that love Glenn Beck and the right wing hysteria that he creates.

Where is the real working class and why are they no as vocal as the petite-bourgeoisie?

The real working class is focusing on surviving like their peasant class ancestors before them and like peasants they are not very vocal till they are in a revolutionary situation. The workers go from being docile to rebellious quickly because underneath the surface of society pressure builds up behind the proletariat by the demands of the capitalist class till the proletariat lurches forward and the proletariat explodes onto the streets and shop floors. So you shouldn't really worry that much, American workers will eventually have a voice and when they do it would be a clear sign that the American workers are on the move.

[Code]

I swear after watching Michael Moore's new film, it puzzles me as to how the American public has become so docile. They're getting outright robbed and the nation is starting to look like a third world nation. It seems like right wing libertarianism is the new hip thing for younger people and conservatism for the older generation. Everyone hates revolutionaries even though this nation was founded by them. Anything that questions the system is mocked in pop culture or supposedly "liberal" shows (case in point, Lisa no longer being the voice of reason on the Simpsons but just a mockery of social justice movements). All hope is vested in a rather seedy Chicago politician (Obama).

It's nuts how we can be robbed blind, layed off, have our pay be cut several times over, denied healthcare, the right to unionize, etc. and the public is ok with it. They could show Moore's film across the country on national TV for free and I bet it wouldn't put a dent in the system. Even companies are confident in this as evidenced in who produced Moore's film (owner of Overture is a Limbaugh loving media mogul). They know that people will pay to see Moore's films and make a killing off of it but that they will do nothing about the current system.

More people went to see Zombiland and other stupid films in my theatre than Moore's film. There was a line wrapped around the theatre to see everything but Capitalism: A Love Story.

Is there any real hope for this nation? Is the situation this dire in the EU?

I think it's cuz Moore's too much of a pussy to really say what he's for. I think he's great and spot-on about what's wrong but when it comes to supporting something he wimps out!

[RadioRaheem84]

Has anyone else noticed that a good portion of the upper class's favorite book is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged? Doesn't that strike anyone as being truly arrogant? To think that they're the elite that make the world go round and with one single strike they can halt society's progress. I never used to think about it whenever I would read the bios of a lot of rich people in magazines. A lot of them list Ayn Rand as their favorite author. The latest one I read who admires Rand is Ralph Lauren. It makes me wonder if the upper class is truly conscious of their position and are totally aware that they are in control? I never used to think that they were mindful of their position because they did (or the media did it for them) such a good job of hiding it. Now it seems like they don't care to tell the world that they're genius people who deserve to rule. They're more vocal about their status now. They've created enough of a safe environment for them to vent out their true feelings.

[Code]

Has anyone else noticed that a good portion of the upper class's favorite book is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged? Doesn't that strike anyone as being truly arrogant? To think that they're the elite that make the world go round and with one single strike they can halt society's progress. I never used to think about it whenever I would read the bios of a lot of rich people in magazines. A lot of them list Ayn Rand as their favorite author. The latest one I read who admires Rand is Ralph Lauren. It makes me wonder if the upper class is truly conscious of their position and are totally aware that they are in control? I never used to think that they were mindful of their position because they did (or the media did it for them) such a good job of hiding it. Now it seems like they don't care to tell the world that they're genius people who deserve to rule. They're more vocal about their status now. They've created enough of a safe environment for them to vent out their true feelings.

This should be a new thread

[RadioRaheem84]

Yeah, sorry.:(

[Code]

Yeah, sorry.:(

It's all good man, I agree what your saying.