The Dangerous Mythology Of American Hope

reply to post by mister.old.school


Number one great thread, best i've ever read on ATS!

I agree 100%! What really abolishes the idea of hope is that when most Americans came to the realization of what was (and) is going on in our country we did not stop it. This is no longer a government of the people it is a government for the people. Ron Paul speaks out from his heart and is honest about our government’s true intentions but his words fall upon deaf ears. What America has lost is not hope but the rationality of it's people. Unfortunately our government and the media have done such a superb job of brain washing the masses that our brothers and sisters no longer know how to stand up and rise against this machine we have allowed to be created. Even when we have witnessed blatantly our government do and declare things that we know are wrong we still allow it to happen. In the spirit of history, the true danger in all of this is that those running the show have already started planning as to what will happen when the population wakes up and realizes that we are being manipulated. We the people have traded all the hope, passion and determination that our forefathers held for freedom and liberty for material possessions and the all mighty dollar. There will be another revolution in America; there will be another civil war in the United States. Our government knows this and has wisely created partnerships in NATO and our own military to control it. The premises of which we have traded our freedom is for the idea that something of no value holds significant value. An idea/lie that has been carefully implanted in us by the fear that the hope it once gave us itself no longer holds value. While we sit here today and watch the economy collapse we fail to realize we are currently living in the past. Our economy has already collapsed. Our government is not changing it has already changed. It has already caught the attention of enough Americans and foreign citizens that the shadow needed to create yet again another vision of hope to manipulate us back into believing the game. My friends the only way out of this is for the citizens of the United States to take back their government. We are all slaves of this system. How many times must we the people walk around in the same circle with out taking note “hey we have been here before?” The only difference is that this time around, it is not just one ethnicity is being singled out but that all. The scenery has been changed and we have been carefully hand held into believing our government’s new definition of freedom, control. Although, honestly we all know deep down inside that this governments freedom is a far cry from what our hearts, souls and desires whisper to us. Only this time around the noise around is too great and our perceptions of reality have been to distorted to learn form history and take back control before it is too late. The only way out of this now is not to have someone fix it for us but for each and everyone one of us to fix it ourselves. I believe president Obama holds the truest of intentions inside for our nation’s people but the real issue is the man did not understand the role he was stepping into. It is like a game of check and he is in check mate, a puppet for those who put him there. A advertisement for a broken system and way of life that is far from that in which this nation was founded. It is up to us to stop this, we allowed it to happen and sadly enough we will pay the price for our irresponsibility. We are just as bad as those who have manipulated us for allowing it to happen. My only question is will Americans still have the courage to fight for truth or conform to hope?

Sorry about spelling and grammer i just got off a 13 hour shift at work and was so in love with the op's post in this thread i needed to say something.


[edit on 24-1-2009 by lightinthedark33]

Are humans pieces unto a puzzle as a puzzle is unto reason?

Does humanity itself, in collective fashion hold the keys to their collective salvation? What is 'in the way' and is it 'Natural'?

Is the bee unto honey as the flower is to the bee?

Are words to purpose as thought is to reason?

Why do most often contradict one another?

Can one be an 'individual' while at the same time be a part of a 'group'?

Does the word 'group' itself defy justice to reason and hijack jurisprudence to justice itself?

Why was Plato poisoned and what was the fate of Nero? Were they not their own worst enemies? Did 'reason' get in the way or did 'eGO' dilute their message unto themself and their neighbor?

And last but not least, why did Plato ask so many annoying questions? Were TPTB afraid to see themselves or were the people afraid to see for themselves? How could they both have been so wrong?

They both suffered in the end. Why does humanity continue to destroy themselves and their neighbors? Is this per design? Does 'Nature' make mistakes? Did the authors of nature itself design feedback to action. Why is 'feedback' itself so carefully controlled? Who/what is to gain by design?

One can't solve anything if one doesn't question everything that doesn't make sense to 'reason' itself.

The only justice to be found among a 'society' is one based on an 'inverse pyramid scheme, not the other way around.

Why are there so many secret, underground tunnels in the Earth today and why are they hidden in place as to purpose?

What compels one to be here in the first place?

Why are you 'here' on ATS at 'this' moment.

State your purpose.....unto yourself.

Unless one truly possesses a piece of the puzzle, how are they to know where it fits in the whole?

What did Einstein mean by the following:
"For those of you who set yourself up as a judge in the field of truth or knowledge, are shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods".

The creation of a literature such as the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations may be seen as an effort towards achieving a 'collective' End for a people on the journey of life itself lost in interpretation unto the other.

Truth is self-evident as evidence is to truth itself. May our Sapience determine the purpose of 'cause and effect' as Nature itself runs course with NO need of interpretation of it's design.

Books of Reason are to it's medium as Reason is to it's interpretation by 'the other'.

Is all life ONE? Is it not true that the greatest knowledge and wisdom to be found is often found in simplicity of interpretation and meaning?

What may natural law 'explain' when comparing the utility of electromagnetism with it's purpose of 'motion', time itself, as well as that of the compass? Is a UFO even flying? Why or why not? Why would this concept be so difficult for one to realize or envision?

Who put a price on energy? Is it not abundant and free? Was this NOT by design in 'our' uni-Verse?

Hotels coming to space? Perhaps it may 'put' things in perspective just as one's grave does unto their Mother.

Why does one disregard the importance of another as one disregards their inherent and finite six senses pre-post-mordem? Are these senses not lost post-mordem? Is life itself not a blessing if seen as it is? Is it 'seen' as it 'is' or is seen as interpreted? May we NEVER stop questioning. If something doesn't make 'sense', it wasn't designed to in the first place as per law of 'Reason' itself.

Is love and understanding not free? Are these NOT the most important traits amongst humanity itself? Why is so difficult to find? Why are masks to face as to purpose? Did the bearer of the mask not fool himself in the End?

Are not most 'trends' themselves merely a distraction to purpose? What did Jim Morrison discover that destroyed him from within? Was his Father privy to something so disturbing that would cause one to want to 'escape' from life itself? The dark messages in his music seems to touch those in ways not understood past or present. What is music and why is it more influential than a book of words? Does music not soothe the soul?

Often I find, if one follows their 'own' compass internal, we find 'our' way in the End unto ourselves as to our part in the puzzle post Matrix.

~I sigh to rest~



[edit on 24-1-2009 by Perseus Apex]

If people could, in large enough numbers, think in terms of solving problems instead of punishing, now matter how horrible the deeds, only then will hope, love, reason, truth etc. prevail. This is clearly an at least metaphorical or effective Matrix (same power as the real deal), so why not give everyone a fresh start/clean slate in the name of (the now) inferior-faulty programming? It's the "software" itself, not the inability of humans to "download" it.

Originally posted by mister.old.school

Hope is a far more dangerous manipulator than fear.
.............
Hope, especially on the heels of fear, is a far more dangerous and cunning method of control. From the acceptance speech to the inaugural address, our emotions have been expertly carried down a path from baited breath to tearful expectancy.
..................
There is no "change" other than a new act in the same old play.

What nefarious manipulations may now be accomplished under the guise of hope that could not happen under the specter of fear?

The past decades have shown that real American Hope is a myth.

[edit on 23-1-2009 by mister.old.school]

Well articulated and ironic.

You in turn speak of the use of "fear" as a tool of political manipulation...and then ask us to "fear" hope as well as the President who encouraged us to do so.

Three thoughts come to mind.

First...I have no doubt that what began as a heartfelt philosophy of "Hope" for Barack Obama was at times during the election cycle used and crafted by political advisors and campaign staff to be a tool of appeal and a strategy.

I also believe in winning the election in part on this platform of "Hope" it affirmed this personal philosophy of President Obama...and that he feels an onus to honor that philosophy and the public who endorsed it.

Secondly...I once had a very wise Uncle tell me that a man is never entirely destroyed until he loses "hope". He can lose his home, his job, his wife...but as long as there is "hope" he will survive...Once hope is gone, so is he.

What does that tell us about "hope"?

Thirdly... Abraham Lincoln and our better angles..

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stre[t]ching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

When I first read this many years ago I thought carefully as to what was meant by the "better angels of our nature"..

And during the most recent election resolved myself to vote for the candidate that appealed to "better angels of our nature" rather than the baser emotions of division such as "fear"..political ploy or not it was important to me to let the powers that be know what I valued.

Whether President Obama succeeds in his agenda...or whether "hope" was in part a campaign strategy is not as important to me as showing the world and the United States that we chose "hope" over "fear"...two VERY different emotions.

That was worth giving President Obama a chance...It is my opinion he is genuine...you may believe otherwise...but by simply not responding to the lizard brain emotion of "fear"..but rather responding to an appeal to "the better angels of our nature" we have already taken a huge step forward.

Also - You propose that "hope" is a much more dangerous tool of manipulation than fear.

I disagree. They are two very different things. ....Darkness is an "absence" of light...and thus wholly dependent on the presence of light for definition. It's very definition is an absence/void. Fear is the absence of courage..Despair is the absence of hope.

The baser emotions are voids...not things by themselves, but rather the absences of the "better angels of our nature".

My instincts tell me Fear and Hope are not interchangeable tools of manipulation. Think carefully as to real world examples on how each can and has been used? One for darkness (void..of light) the other for light.

Even false hope is better than hopelessness.

I can ramble on ...but I believe your premise is faulted.




[edit on 24-1-2009 by maybereal11]

[edit on 24-1-2009 by maybereal11]

Great opening post there!

And I agree that playing on our hopes for a better world will allow more control over us. And the fact that they've got everyone worshipping Obama helps too. As long as he's President I doubt people will complain if he does something wrong because they have too much faith in him and his message of hope and change and this will blind them to his faults.
They've also "forced" most people to believe that this one man can change everything. The only people who can change the world are us. He'll just do what he's told and the cycle will continue.

(I didn't read all the other posts, there are just too many. This is my 2 cents)

Good discussion.

Someone mentioned that courage arises out of hope. Yes, but...courage also arises when all hope is gone and only honor and necessity remain:

Leonidas and his fellow Greeks, not just Spartans

The Alamo; foolish and for the wrong reasons, but courageous nonetheless

Capitan D'Anjou's last four men charging more than 5,000 Mexican soldiers with three bullets between them: absolutely hopeless, but such magnificent courage that the Mexican Army honors it to this day.

The resistance of the Native American tribes to the genocide the Americans brought: hopeless, but courageous.

All the hopeless last stands ever fought in the nameless bloody shadows of history.

I am Ind'eh, Apache to you:

I was taught that when you are wounded, outnumbered, surrounded, out of food, water, ammunition and hope, you have one choice left: ATTACK! Attack in full knowledge of the hopelessness of the attack, in order to make your enemies fear your kin and make your ending one of your own choice, not that of the enemy. That is neither courage nor foolishness, rather the coldly calculated necessity to protect the vastly outnumbered, vastly outgunned, vastly outresourced people to your uttermost capacity: not merely with your body, but with your spirit too, that they may survive long enough to regain our freedom of old.

Hope, courage, fear: they all come in many flavors and usually work against reason. The mind works best when free of such distractions. It is necessary in a world that presents so much false information, and so many conflicting truths to be as free of such as possible. Being free of hope and fear allows one to see the realities and judge them according their logically predictable outcomes and act upon them to accomplish your goals.

What the OP was pointing out (as I read it) was that the hope most US citizens feel about Obama will probably blind them to the realities that Obama will be unable to change for the near future, a false hope based upon their need. Those realities are that the economy will worsen far beyond what most realize and will continue for longer than they'd like. Only true, gut-wrenching change will avert it, and that's the rub: hope will trump reality because hope is easier than action. When events overtake hope, those relying on it will flip to despair.

All that said, I still hope for the best, though I don't expect it and won't be disappointed if it fails to reach fruition: I'll simply deal with the realities with a clear and open mind.

reply to post by Godfinder


Sure, you can crash here, the bunkers big enough for everyone.
Personal hope and the hope in things we can change ourselves as you alluded to is one of the reasons human beings don't off ourselves when we hit hard times. My angst is delivered against this nebulous 'hope' that somehow things will get better simply because we have a new King on the throne.
I will say this, I DO NOT HATE the President. Not one iota, I do, however, mistrust him. And my trust, HAS TO BE EARNED. I do not give it freely.
In fact, his refusal to abandon our troops overseas and to at least attempt to make strategic decisions that will make their jobs easier, has garnered my respect. I will be paying close attention, and I suppose it did sound as if I called him a tyrant, not so. I merely meant to show that, throughout history, tyrants in general have always come in on white horses with promises of peace and change.
And no, I will not make allusions between Obama and Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot etc... That is unfair and unwarranted, and I wish others would decline from doing so as yet.
My final word on the subject is this; hope in yourself. Hope in the things you know you can change by your own means, observe, do not trust the government, but do not oppose it so to speak either. Work with the system and change it from within, and remember, courage, honor and duty are far more important than (and can only enhance) hope.

reply to post by SpecAgentDW


I guess we understand each other then .. Like you said your trust must be earned first.. Thats true. thats why I tried to explain in my musical analogy on my first post here that lets just sit back and chill and let the orchestra play.. Let us observe carefully if the conductor is worthy of an encore. Lets take it slow before we start throwing tomatoes and empty coke bottles. Like I said,whether we like it or not, the fact is he's on the throne. What will be will be. Lets just hope for the best. WE'll figure something out when it seems like its the end of all hope. We always do. Peace men

Please note that fear and hope are both emotions. Unfortunately for us as a nation, there are far too many people who are driven by emotion. We no longer develop strong minds for critical thinking. Our educational system is more concerned about how students feel, than how they think.

We tell children from an early age that their emotions are what are important. We tell them that there is nothing more important than love, without defining what love is. We ask them how they feel about every aspect of their young lives, without taking into account the fact that a child often does not know how they feel, especially if they are experiencing something for the first time.

We exhault the status of love, hope, happiness, and other emotions. We tell children that fear, despair, hoeplessness, are things to be feared. When we do this, we create individuals who are controlled by their emotions, instead of creating individuals who are in control their emotions.

As a result we have people in our society who have learned to control their emotions and have learned how to exploit others who have not. The best example of this is our politicians. They promise us hope, and never define what they will do that will inspire hope. They accuse their opponents of exploiting our fears, often without just cause. Whether it is justified or not, many of our politicians think of their constituents as sheep.

reply to post by mister.old.school


HOPE, I like hope. Give me more hope, I say. I have been without it and being trapped in a cage is not compatible with human life. During the Great Depression, the world looked for hope, and when things started to lift up and get better, people were relieved.

Yes, the honemoon will soon be over, and it will be business as usual in no time. But, for now it seems like anything positive is possible, and sheeple that I am, I LIKE IT!!!!!

I'm not a big believer in this New World Order conspiracy stuff. Go ahead, throw pies. I know I'm in the minority here. Disaster, embarrassment, war, conflict.....they are all pre-ordered and ready to arrive just because we are human, not because of a secret cabal of alien hybrid rich guys with a PLAN. Sorry, but WE are our worst enemy, and we have proven it over and over. Just look at the legacy of Easter Island. Humbling stuff, that.

As long as I don't have to carve giant head statues and fight to the death I'm good. Recession or not, I know we are gonna pull out of this, and hopefully (pun intended) will learn some vital things about caring for our planet and what really matters.

reply to post by jtma508


Hope and expectation goes hand in hand. When you have hope you expect something. You cannot have hope without expectation. Obama's hope and change BS is exactly that which the OP is warning about. The agenda of the ruling elite has not and will not change. All that has changed is their main character. They needed someone new that the masses would adore and follow with the hope of a better future. Bush lost his usefulness once the people started to see him for what he was. The same will happen for Obama. sure he might have the best of intentions but the decisions are not made by him. Like all former presidents he is merely the mouthpiece. The front man that people can look up to and follow blindly. It all looks rather ominous to me.

The poison of American minds is not HOPE. It is not FEAR. It is COMPLACENCY. It is PARALYSIS. When 9/11 happened we were PARALYZED. When the government swore to to take care of it, to solve it FOR us, we were COMPLACENT. Right now, Obama is promising Hope, yes, but the danger is in the COMPLACENCY that all too often, the public is willing to retreat into.

Originally posted by Amelie
All I see is he is a practiced and measured orator who gives inspirational speeches.

It's so obvious.

[edit on 23-1-2009 by Amelie]

Yer right.... it is obvious that he is a measured orator and gives inspirational speeches.

It's about time we had a President who could pull that off. Honestly, if you read the speech on the Lincoln Memorial, it's a fantastic and inspirational, albeit condemning of America in some aspects, speech.

[edit on 25-1-2009 by HunkaHunka]

Originally posted by Lifeadventurer
The poison of American minds is not HOPE. It is not FEAR. It is COMPLACENCY. It is PARALYSIS. When 9/11 happened we were PARALYZED. When the government swore to to take care of it, to solve it FOR us, we were COMPLACENT. Right now, Obama is promising Hope, yes, but the danger is in the COMPLACENCY that all too often, the public is willing to retreat into.

Now YOU have the BEST point on this thread in my opinion.


Star for you!

I definitely wouldn't go and get all excited about something that may never happen, because getting excited for changes has just led people to disappointment in the past.

reply to post by walterbarrett

Don't forget WE the people are the Government. That means you too. People all too often forget that we are the government and that it is WE who must change it, we elected them if they then sit on there arses and don't listen then guess what. Vote them out. We need to start raising our voices and not just sitting on our arses. Pay attention to the bills the politicians are trying to pass, the executive orders the president tries to quietly use to pass his agenda. Americans have sat on the buts far to long get involved in OUR government.

Constitutional Republic once again!!

Hope is the beginning of movement. Hope knows there is someplace to go even if you don't know how to get there or even what it will look like when you are there. It stirs us up and gets our juices flowing But hope is not itself movement let alone change.

I agree with several people who say that it is we who must provide the change. It's not easy because our elected officials appear to have severed ties with the actual citizens. This is not a new problem but it's getting worse. They are acting to preserve an old pay to play system instead of solving problems.

reply to post by mister.old.school


"Only for the sake of the hopeless have we been given hope…"




A-double

Originally posted by earlywatcher
Hope is the beginning of movement. Hope knows there is someplace to go even if you don't know how to get there or even what it will look like when you are there. It stirs us up and gets our juices flowing But hope is not itself movement let alone change.

I completely agree...

I agree with several people who say that it is we who must provide the change. It's not easy because our elected officials appear to have severed ties with the actual citizens. This is not a new problem but it's getting worse. They are acting to preserve an old pay to play system instead of solving problems.

I disagree, I believe we have turned a corner.

Originally posted by earlywatcher
Hope is the beginning of movement.

Or -- hope is the methodology of a means to an end.

Hope knows there is someplace to go even if you don't know how to get there or even what it will look like when you are there.

Or -- misplaced hope will be utilized to guide you down roads you would not have previously traveled.

It stirs us up and gets our juices flowing But hope is not itself movement let alone change.

Or -- under the guise of propagandized hope, your "juices" will be flowing and fooled into bringing about change you did not anticipate, nor hope for.