Not to be a jerk, but Occupy was ineffective. Let it RIP. It spent so much time being leaderless they couldn't decide what the hell they wanted.
We have to be more targeted about the changes we want. "We're pissed off about lots of stuff and you better fix it all or else!" isn't going to work.
At this point though, it's almost like the house is completely engulfed in flames. Which section do we put out first?
- The corrupt banking and money system? Our capitalist system is an immense ponzi scheme. Economists act like you can have infinite growth. Forever. They're delusional. At some point, you run out of people's back to crawl on top of and your system collapses.
- On top of that, we have a one-party system: the capitalist-imperialist party. It is impossible to get a non-capitalist-imperialist elected in the United States! We need a voting system overhaul, but good luck getting that when everyone is bickering about abortion and gay marriage. The system has successfully turned us against ourselves on issues that do not affect the overall outcome of the nation, leaving the people in charge to do whatever they feel like.
- We have a government agency with a bottomless pit of money spying on everybody, effectively cutting off our freedom of speech (who is going to speak out against the government when a giant eyeball hovering over them at all times?) At this point, there's no ring to cast into the volcano either. Even if the NSA's activities are ruled unconstitutional, who's going to stop them?
- Our country's leaders are spending millions to create more terrorists by bombing countries in the middle east with drones. You take out some kid's house and family with a drone, what do you expect is going to happen? They'll thank you for keeping the streets safe? No, they grow up to be a "terrorist."
I hate to be one of those "the sky is falling" nerds, but if it takes as much work and pressure as it has to get the people around you to barely even raise an eyebrow at what's going on, you know you're not headed for something good.
Great post. I totally agree, and it is for these reasons I loathe anyone who defends the actions of the USG/NSA.
I also find it incredibly naive of others who make statements, here on HN and elsewhere, that the US is NOT a real tyranny as compared to others like Russia/CHina/Whatever.
Sure it is - its just much much more successful at population control.
Exactly. Our propaganda isn't posters of people marching in support of our glorious nation. It's much more subtle. Instead you just make people think they're free when really, they are only free to march along the dotted line. Free to buy what they want. Free to watch 500 channels. The government doesn't even need to enforce it because it's engrained in our culture. Try bringing up how failingly stupid US capitalism is or how broken the voting system is and people spend every breath they have bitching you out for being unamerican. I feel like we got really close to people waking up a little bit around when the 2008 crash happened, but since then it's been business as usual for the most part, unfortunately.
We have to be more targeted about the changes we want. "We're pissed off about lots of stuff and you better fix it all or else!" isn't going to work.
At this point though, it's almost like the house is completely engulfed in flames. Which section do we put out first?
- The corrupt banking and money system? Our capitalist system is an immense ponzi scheme. Economists act like you can have infinite growth. Forever. They're delusional. At some point, you run out of people's back to crawl on top of and your system collapses.
- On top of that, we have a one-party system: the capitalist-imperialist party. It is impossible to get a non-capitalist-imperialist elected in the United States! We need a voting system overhaul, but good luck getting that when everyone is bickering about abortion and gay marriage. The system has successfully turned us against ourselves on issues that do not affect the overall outcome of the nation, leaving the people in charge to do whatever they feel like.
- We have a government agency with a bottomless pit of money spying on everybody, effectively cutting off our freedom of speech (who is going to speak out against the government when a giant eyeball hovering over them at all times?) At this point, there's no ring to cast into the volcano either. Even if the NSA's activities are ruled unconstitutional, who's going to stop them?
- Our country's leaders are spending millions to create more terrorists by bombing countries in the middle east with drones. You take out some kid's house and family with a drone, what do you expect is going to happen? They'll thank you for keeping the streets safe? No, they grow up to be a "terrorist."
I hate to be one of those "the sky is falling" nerds, but if it takes as much work and pressure as it has to get the people around you to barely even raise an eyebrow at what's going on, you know you're not headed for something good.