US interest: Bill Moyer's latest.

[Sibling Chatty]

http://www.alternet.org/democracy/85521/?comments=view&cID=909738#c909738

The following is an excerpt from Bill Moyers' new book, "Moyers on Democracy" (Doubleday, 2008).

Democracy in America is a series of narrow escapes, and we may be running out of luck. The reigning presumption about the American experience, as the historian Lawrence Goodwyn has written, is grounded in the idea of progress, the conviction that the present is "better" than the past and the future will bring even more improvement. For all of its shortcomings, we keep telling ourselves, "The system works."

Now all bets are off. We have fallen under the spell of money, faction, and fear, and the great American experience in creating a different future together has been subjugated to individual cunning in the pursuit of wealth and power -and to the claims of empire, with its ravenous demands and stuporous distractions. A sense of political impotence pervades the country -- a mass resignation defined by Goodwyn as "believing the dogma of 'democracy' on a superficial public level but not believing it privately." We hold elections, knowing they are unlikely to bring the corporate state under popular control. There is considerable vigor at local levels, but it has not been translated into new vistas of social possibility or the political will to address our most intractable challenges. Hope no longer seems the operative dynamic of America, and without hope we lose the talent and drive to cooperate in the shaping of our destiny.

Somebody's finally said it. We've been sold out, and we may not be able to buy our way free--or fight our way free.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Well fuck.


I want to say that perhaps the introduction of my generation, and the first national election we've ever been able to part take in will help to start to change things, but I doubt it. Though no doubt some will suggest so.

I'm not sure what can be done about national political apathy. But something does need to be done.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Science fiction has long predicted the demise of democracy to the interests of multi-national corporations, controlled by a very small group of people.

The problem with corporations running things is that by law, they must be profit-oriented.

And profit-oriented is basically greed-on-a-stick. 

That is never a good way to govern anything.

[Sibling Chatty]

And aren't we all just trilled shi breathless that they chose to center on getting the 'pushing point' power by co-opting spirituality by going after Christian faiths??

There are times that an AK-47 transported back to strategic times in the past would be useful...

Scrib, I hope your generation CAN make a difference. There's a hint of a possibility if Obama's elected. His constituency WILL hold his feet to the fire on some serious issues.

If it's McSame?? I'd be better off stopping all medical treatment except pain meds that to wait for the next round of "entitlement cuts".

Bob's right. Read almost any serious sci-fi futuristic novels. The corporations have taken control, they've set up the enclaves of the wealthy, and the masses are channel or worse. ('Spare parts' for their medical needs--willingly or unwillingly, brute labor to be worked to death, etc.) The fact that sci-fi has been prescient on so many other things shouldn't worry us at all...

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I see a lot of anger towards the apathy in my cohorts, but not much is done to change it. Not actively, though I do see more people paying attention to politics lately. And some of my more passive friends and relatives are starting to get riled up, which bodes well.

If it's McSame, as you put it, I recommend we succeed. Chip in and buy Iceland or Tahiti or someplace.

[Swatopluk]

Fleeing is useless. We must go Alien II in that case, it's the only way to be sure.

[Darlica]

Nuke the site from orbit?

Hmm, anyone got a spaceship type ARK but with some guns on it too?

[Swatopluk]

Only Aaaaargh! with some guns, but not in space (can't find a link to a picture from the Futurama episode where the Planet Express Ship is attacked by space pirates*)

*it's the one where Bender temporarily becomes a God with two civilizations on his body