Here comes "The Squeeze"...are you going to stand by your fellow Americans?

america is divided right down the centre. civil war might not be a fantasy if something were to provoke both sides into a conflict with each other

Originally posted by SaturnFX
Good example:
No to removing the bush tax cuts. Why? 250k is not rich, 250k is damn near poverty levels..do not tax them
turn around
Remove unions...some teachers are making almost 80k a year (when you include benefits). They are riding the gravy train and need to have their pay pinched and their voice removed.

so...what we learned then is that 250k+ in profit alone (not including benefits they get) = poor people that need protecting
whereas 80k total (benefits can take up to half that number) = rich elitists whom need to be crushed and hammered...

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
George Orwell

Since the squeeze began in earnest 3 decades ago, it is as if one squeezes half an orange and keeps on squeezing until it's dry of juice. There are no drops left....no, wait those greedy workers in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and whatever state employs workers.

Americans will survive...after greatly lowering their standard of living, as happened during the Great Depression. A standard of living, our "way of live", that soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan fought and died for, They died in vain.

Those who helped put us into this financial mess are not white collar criminals, they are traitors to America during wartime and should be punished accordingly. Well, that's probably stretching it, but no one is even being held accountable. Hell, George Bush gave away Medals of Freedom to Rumsfeld, Tenet, and Bremer, and the equivalent in the financial world is the payout of bonuses. Bonuses paid for their participation in the War on the Middle Class.

I was struck with a revelation recently: It's no longer enough to simply criticize the current ideological frameworks -- its now time to build a new one. The only truly effective way to combat a deeply embedded symbolic system is by offering an alternative symbolic system that meets the needs of the discontented, whoever they may be. This is/will be enormously difficult becuase ideology by its very nature distorts cognition and even perception, and a perfect ideology is impossible. But the new ideology doesn't have to be perfect -- it just has to be good enough.

Essentially, people need a new story to tell themselves, a new set of mythic archetypes, if you will. The old ones are all products of an earlier era, and their powers have run dry. We are nowhere near reaching a new coherent ideology, but at least we can see glimmers of people reaching towards this goal and realizing its increasing importance.

reply to post by Southern Guardian

You know David I supported bail outs of the auto industry believe my buddies would have their jobs saved, believing we had no choice, believing that we needed to take action to save this country... but it was all a scheme, a way to bail out wealthy folks.... I fooled myself, I was fooled with the bail out of wallstreet, and I am not afraid to admit this. People need to come to terms with the reality that this way of belief, this ideology of relying on the wealthy, it is a ponzi scheme and it eating this country alive.

We've alI been wrong. I know where you are coming from SG. All one has to do is look at my long history here and the things I used to post. Although I was anti-bailout.....i was completely in the tank for right wing rhetoric. I admit it and I believe it has hurt my credibility on this website for how much I have changed since then. People that i used to converse with on here simply will not comment on anything I write.

At one time I was advocating eliminating SS and medicare...something my father relies on as he simply cannot work due to medical conditions. What was wrong with me? It makes absolutely no sense.

it seems as if the matrix is falling apart i agree most of us are busy being brain washed by reality tv,main stream media music and video games oh and lets not forget about charlie sheen! we should be learning a lesson from the mid east and make the same play and show this !@#*&#@*#&$^% government that we are not going to take this s@#t any more we look at history and say our fore fathers would not have stood for this well i say screw history the time is now. we must stand as one or die individually those of us who know whats really going on will be the first ones they do away with and i will not go quitely or die alone some dont want to be awaken i say let them sleep loved one or not you have to make some uneasy choices in these times of tribulation gods hands are all over this thats why i have no fear let the dead bury the dead and let the living deal with tptb

reply to post by David9176


It was not mean, dark hearted, or evil people who voted corporate loyalists into office. Good people with good intentions voted, often based on morals or faith, or led by leaders who gained their confidence, then conned/used them. These people were concerned about their family and country, and looked to politicians for solutions.

We all have had blinders on for something at some time or another, and having them ripped off can be scary, doubt causing, but in the end we are for the better.

I feel badly for family members who did everything they thought was right and have been trampled underfoot by this economy. A teenage mother who chose to have her baby, based on her religious beliefs, who dropped out of college when govt program $ ran out, who then married, but now both are unemployed and moving in with mother, who might lose her house when her income declined and her teaching job might get cut. Three generations in one house is nothing new, just not what Americans have been used to. And no doubt things will get worse with rising fuel prices.

Years ago, there was a very precious, sweet couple who owned a small business I worked for. One day the husband took me aside and apologized for his wife's rantings on certain topics. He said that he had been in the military and had seen more of the world, which made him more tolerant on topics his wife didn't understand.

Your generation certainly has been given a lot of poop to shovel. At least you recognize the poop for what it is.

Hey guys, I wanted to start a topic on this video.. But don't have enough posts yet. Found this video of Ron Paul to Bernanke (FED chairman) -- Just look at Bernanke's face, I've never seen somebody so scared.

If anyone would like to start a topic with it on to highlight it, that would be great thanks .

Of course i will. A nation that divides against itself falls.

reply to post by LeJimster




Barney Frank is the biggest slimeball lizard criminal to ever walk the face of this planet. Look at how he and the other shills mock Ron Paul as if he is insane for wanting transparency.

There is no win for the people when every elected official in our government is in bed with the people who are serving to rob us all blind. They are smug and confident in their beliefs that we will never be able to change anything.

reply to post by David9176


OP, would you say that the people of egypt and the people of libya "finally came together as a nation" during their squeeze?

perhaps its all relative to how hard the sqeeze is. right now, there is still plenty of blood being easily squeezed from "our rock" by the hands that hold "us".

Are we really victims in all of this; aren't we all complicit in the grand scheme? We all want the same things those billionaires have and isn't that why we allowed ourselves to get fat and lazy here in America? I mean that literally and figuratively. We divide into parties easily because we all want to protect what we have so we join a "gang" to protect us.

We must have been in a trance to sign those ARMs; we were proud of our credit scores and our credit limits, and a car for him and one for her....maybe one for the kid too. We wanted bigger and better, faster, easier, and on and on. We complain about being too busy to have done anything about it all these years, yet WE 40, 50, 60 somethings knew deep, deep down something was wrong. It was the Kennedy assassination, it was Kent State, it was the Viet Nam war...and we buried those things because we were "too busy" to do anything about it. Of course we were, we needed stuff.

It wasn't always a damn recession in my lifetime...there was boom not long ago! What did you do with the money? Who did you hire? Did you chase the American Dream, or did you get stuff?

Im not sure if it's a grand design or gross mis-management. One thing that was born in America is a lack of respect for elders, and thus, for experience. Our grandfathers knew what work was, how to save, how to spare, and about discipline. The Great Depression taught them much about life which the post- war era quickly discarded in the fifties an sixties. By 1970...we were flying solo. Screw you mom and dad.
We want so badly to sound like victims, but instead we sound pathetic, like a failed child blaming the principal for squandering the opportunity of an education.

WE are the government, WE are the business, WE are the politics, WE are the People of this Nation in good and bad, boom to bust....Hey, lets blame the government. Dammit Who Broke my Couuntry?

WE DID.

I wish I could say what I really wanted to say, but time is up.
There never was a WAR...there were a multitude of small battles no one ever showed up to fight...busy, watching TV. I'll watch it on TV and we'll complain about together at work tomorow. Gee, I hope my gang leader does something about it, forgetting that He, like you and I, was just a man, one man....

WE all failed...United...sorry if you don't think so.

Hopefully you can still hear your grandparents wisdom; you're gonna need it.

So you really think people are gonna show up for the revolution??????

FAT CHANCE....I mean that literally and figuratively.

S&F Very well written OP, I agree with you completely, they have gone to far, the more they push the people the more they realise what is being done to them! We have strength in numbers and they know it, but they are very good at controlling people's thinking, I watch the mainstream news every night but I can distinguish very well and only watch it for information to see what they are trying to make people think so I can understand the people around me in everyday life so I can try and help them best! Help those you know wake up! do it slowly and they wont even notice, they must be deprogrammed much like they were programmed!

Bevor Americans ever come together as a nation or even as a clan for survival purpose, the'll attack each other like animals for a crumb of bread, just like they become subhuman today, falling and crawling over each other just to get the latest plastic gadget cheaper then the other guy. Face it, Americans: The illusion that has been brain washed into you, that shopping and owning loads of crap brings salvation, has allready reduced you to a certain degree to subhumans..

Originally posted by CarlitosAmsel
Bevor Americans ever come together as a nation or even as a clan for survival purpose, the'll attack each other like animals for a crumb of bread, just like they become subhuman today, falling and crawling over each other just to get the latest plastic gadget cheaper then the other guy. Face it, Americans: The illusion that has been brain washed into you, that shopping and owning loads of crap brings salvation, has allready reduced you to a certain degree to subhumans..

I see you're from Germany. I know people get tired of WW2 being brought up time and time again, but honestly... Granted, the materialistic culture that this generation of Americans has been raised on is alarming and self destructive.... Repeating the mistakes humans have made throughout history does not make us sub-human. It reflects poorly on us all, really. All this time and we humans have not evolved past our tendency to self implode. Bigotry is arguably as much to blame for that over the course of history as materialism though. Two sides of the same coin. Just sayin.

I know I can be "little miss fix-it" (it's a curse).

But can we find a way to make corporative lobbyists illegal? Would that help?

David? SG? Anybody?

Originally posted by odd1out
Are we really victims in all of this; aren't we all complicit in the grand scheme? We all want the same things those billionaires have and isn't that why we allowed ourselves to get fat and lazy here in America?

I totally agree.

I think the majority of Americans were okay with the pyramid scheme when they were comfortable with their current level and believed they had an opportunity to climb even higher. The recession has caused some people to slide down a few levels and forced them into a less comfortable and less sheltered existence. That is really the only thing that has changed.

America will not change. The middle class in 2011 is just as content as the middle class was in the 1960s and will not revolt any time soon.

I think all this talk of a middle class revolting is really lower class people who do not realize they are no longer middle class.

reply to post by MaryStillToe


Unfortunately, you are correct. As long as people believed they could benefit from the oppression and mistreatment of others, it was fine. Only when it became apparent that they were going to be mistreated to did they care. And yes, this includes the middle class. Those who are still financially IN the "middle class" are not unhappy with the status quo. (Unless they are a philosopher or someone else who is thinking past their own self interest, which is rare in humans)

Those who are on the verge of falling out of the middle class, and those who HAVE fallen out of the middle class are those who are most unhappy.

reply to post by ladyinwaiting


It would help, but at this point you would have to amend the Constitution to remove corporate influence from our government.

There is a move to make a Constitutional amendment to dispense with the fallacy of corporate personhood, but that in and of itself would not remove all corporate money from campaigns.

reply to post by odd1out


We were not wrong to "want more", but we were wrong in how we got that more. Our elders wanted more after the Great Depression and raised us on that more.

We went wrong in a few ways. We didn't think about the costs going into having that more. Costs being energy and human resources. We became complacent, resting on our laurels, like the hare in the race. We believed we elected leaders who had our best interest at heart.

Reagan did not tear down the Berlin Wall, but he tore down the solar panels on the White House signaling a return to a petroleum based economy. We now drink from plastic bottles and greatly use petroleum products, for which we must go to war over control of resources. We rebelled at conservation...who is to tell me how I should [ .... insert anything you feel govt was forcing you to do.... ] !!......which plays into corporate hands, as they ship our jobs offshore to make the products we desire cheaper using cheaper labor. And the products are cheaply made, forcing us to replace them more often, in an endless cycle.

Is that what we voted for? No. We voted to end abortion, run our country as a theocracy, stop gay marriage, stop teaching evolution, [...insert any other cultural wedge issue...]. We were told "We're Number 1 !!", as if we were in a stadium cheering as we watch a game being played, while outside our cars were being broken into and our valuables stolen.

We relied on a political party to help us keep our wealth, when politicians, increasingly beholden to corporate legal bribes, wrote policies that allowed our wealth to be stolen. We were told it's unAmerican (Communist, Marxist, Socialist!!) to put pressure/rise up, unless of course it's by a group formed by former elected officials with corporate ties. It's unAmerican to utter "social ....or economic....justice", as the social/economic table became increasingly tilted to where more of us fell off.

If anything, we became guilty of extreme naivety and lack of big ideas. We stopped dreaming, saying "what if". That, along with greed and selfishness, stopped us from realizing that to enter the 21st century we must reach out to other nations, not with guns or armies, but with big ideas and a willingness to help them in their quest to want more.

If we can help other nations have what they materially want but not at the cost we paid and not with an example of growing economic disparity, we'll all be better off.

reply to post by desert


Good post.

But, I disagree that we have lost our creative edge. India and China are not the new big thing because they are coming up with things we have not, or cannot. They are the new big thing because the stuff we are still largely responsible for creating can be manufactured more cheaply there because of lower labor cost, (high supply of workers) and in the case of China, a government that flat out subsidizes industry to make it more competitive.



The other thing I have to disagree with is the idea the best thing we have to export is "wanting more."

"Wanting more" is a sickness when you have enough, and its a sickness that has infected America, and we are spreading that disease around the planet. Our politicians are corrupt because they want more, and so accept bribes. Our corporations pollute, strip jobs from our country, etc., because they want more in profits. CEO pay themselves exorbitant salaries because they want more, we Amercians turn a blind eye to the fact that our prosperity came in part because of the exploitation of weaker peoples because we want more.

When our species drives itself off a cliff, it will be because we want more. More stuff, more money, more security, more people.


We need to learn the lesson that happiness comes from being content with enough, and wanting more is "anti-happiness." The only way humanity is going to make it work here on Earth is if we learn to control that insatiable, irrational desire for more.