The Tyrants in Our Mind

[FleasTheLemur]

I remember reading a great poem by.. Cahlil (something) that proclaimed something simular to the question I'm about to ask.

How can we get rid of the tyrants in our mind? How can one get rid of the physchological oppression that's ingrained so deeply into the both the fabric of society and the fabric of most individuals minds?

Let's be honest. There is a lot of people discontent with George W. Bush. He's done more wrong than perhaps the entire history of presidents (with maybe, the exception of). He directly lied to the people of the United States which has lead in thousands of death on both sides. Yet outside of us, a couple of peaceful protestors and disgruntled Democrats trying to use the system against them, he continues to remain in power.

Even with the center-of-left, cappie loving news spouting out reports about torture and the problems going on inside of the White House, we have nothing. What is making us so ... content on living under one man like that?

[Commie Rat]

I know in Aus there is a real discontent toward john howard and yet no one does anything, people still vote for him ect ect ect

i think it is just the fact that politcal activism is a faux pas, only hippies, pinko's and nerd a part of it.

[FleasTheLemur]

Perhaps, though I feel that there is something more to it than the perspection that activism is some plaything for the youth or revolution is advocated only by lazy do-nothings.

I'm wanting to think that there is a serious level of mass pyschology involved, hence the title of topic. We live in an era that we're almost being 'programmed' to be hopeless. Look at my generation of 20-somethings. Emo (the new goth) is the counter-fashion to the main-stream fashion. Most, if not all music today just short of 'oldies' reflects either a down attitude, a 'let's get drunk and paaarrrtty' attitude, or the usual stint of 'I'm in love'.

Our visual entertainment has lost hope. Either our movies cry out for yesteryear by doing silver screen remakes of shows we used to watch, showing a much darker side of things or being realitively fantasy-based (escapism?).

America is seeped in depression. We're too 'depressed' to fight the tyranny that is the source of it.

[bezdomni]

People don't act against the government for a lot of reasons. I can think of a few.

1) Fear. They don't want to go to jail/lose their job/be killed, so they become submissive.
2) Indifference They think the system is helping them, or at the very least, not harming them.
3) Feeling of unimportance. One vote never changed anything, one more protester won't make a difference...etc.
4) Ignorance. They don't know how to make a change effectively. And if they did, they wouldn't know what to do afterwards.

There are probably more reasons people don't stop tyranny...these are just the four most common ones that I've heard or experienced from others or first hand.

[Clutch]

Originally posted by Commie [email protected] 15 2005, 06:43 PM
I know in Aus there is a real discontent toward john howard and yet no one does anything, people still vote for him ect ect ect

i think it is just the fact that politcal activism is a faux pas, only hippies, pinko's and nerd a part of it.
This is known by some as the seven year mentality. Basically the average transportation sentence to the penal colony of New South Wales was seven years (most however, were a life sentence). The convicts thought "I'm only here for seven years, why should I bother changing anything?" and even though most, if not all, spent the rest of their lives here, that mentality stuck and still, for some stupid reason, persists even today.

Something on convicts: http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/post...a/convicts.html (http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/post/australia/convicts.html)