I wonder when a continuum is going to bend, so that the opposite sides meet. The continuum of left/right touch at the corporate takeover in America, as demonstrated by this thread.

President Eisenhower warned of the MIC. Then VietNam happened and the MIC benefited; they benefited again whenever they sold weapons/services to our friends de jour. Ralph Nader gave strong warning to citizens starting in the 1970's about general corporate intrusion into govt and our lives.

By the 1980's, instead of coming together to fight corporate control of politics/govt, citizens/voters were encouraged to be in separate groups/fight each other over wedge issues relating to religion (abortion, gays), to personal security concerns (along racial lines a la Willie Horton), and to other cultural issues (guns, feminism, patriotism). Those (usually on the left) who tried to reign in corporate power were labeled anti-capitalists at best, as Communists, Socialists, Marxists, or Maoists at worst. Union busting was made easy with the demonization of unions, and easier still as jobs were allowed to be outsourced and insourced.

When you blend into the mix a storyline about the rugged individual, personal responsibility, and prosperity theology/greed is good, there is little room for collective action, save to shop at WalMart.

All the above slight of hand distraction allowed for corporations to gain more and more control in Washington and for wealth to trickle upward. What citizens need now is Saul Alinsky style organizing...no wonder TPTB hate his very mention.

People have been disabled against true critical thinking. The absolute most powerful thing people could do is nothing. Don't go to work, don't purchase ANYTHING but only the minimal of what you need to get by. Better yet, stockpile some food and prepare. One month of nothing would have them on the ropes. Their businesses would die and government leaders would loose any power they held over the people. What would they do? Shoot you for not going to work and spending?

The big problem with that is as was said, division. You would be labelled and attempts to make the sane look crazy would be all over the place. The people are willing cattle. "Feed off me, just let me sleep".

Originally posted by Apollumi
People have been disabled against true critical thinking.

I like that.

One expression of citizens uniting to effect change that directly affects how they live, or for a cause, unions, has been systematically busted, to the benefit of corporations and the detriment of a nation.

Young citizens are left without an example of how to organize, to unite, to do the things you mention. They are left without leaders to help them unite.

It didn't matter if the persons united were of different religions or even atheists. Religion has played a role in the US since 1980. It has been used to help clean up the mess, by their charity work, that has been allowed to happen when citizens are forced to work longer hours for diminishing wages/buying power.

The brand of religion used by the PTB diminished thinking critically about issues, substituting thinking with the paternalistic attitude of "do what I tell you to do, believe what I tell you, or you will go to Hell." This paternalistic attitude dovetails with a paternalistic govt attitude of "do what I allow you to do, or go to jail, and don't worry...father govt will take care of everything for you...just obey me and don't make any noise".

When religion or govt does not allow for/encourage/want thinking, we are in the Dark Ages.