I was born in the early 60's and America has become everything we feared.

[tecelote]

When I was a teenager, there was hope and pride in an America that was getting past the Vietnam war and becoming the beacon of peace and prosperity in the world.

But, from the eighties on, we have become everything we feared.

Corporations rule and profit is more important than life itself.

In my opinion, consolidation of the media is what has done the most harm. Journalism died. We get advertising disguised as news. We buy what we're sold hook line and sinker.

Now that our news comes from only a few sources, we are doomed to be blind consumers.

Break up the media and make it diverse and local again. Then we will start to hear the wheels of change turn back to better times.

When journalists can report the truth, unhindered, I have faith we will be better for it.

Unfortunately, it probably won't happen in my lifetime.

[randys1]

1. Yep and you can trace most of it to Ronald Reagan, who changed calif higher education system to

punish war protesters who were also students, there is not a single thing a republican has done in 50 yrs that has helped anyone but rich people and we are still tolerating this bullshit

someday you are all gonna figure out why I say property ownership (land, not things like flat screens or cars but real property as in land) is absurd, along with that came ownership of people.

etc

[tecelote]

2. I agree that Reagan paved the way.

Land ownership is ingrained in the American dream. I'm not arguing that it's not something to re-consider but your going to have to do a lot of educating to get people there.

Educating Americans as a way to build a better country died soon after Reagan. You see, educated people tend to be compassionate and liberal. I believe America has been dumbed down on purpose.

Tuition costs sky rocket, education loans become super expensive and the all volunteer army works.

I digress.

[Tikki]

3. And many of the religious institutions began to preach about a good in greed and exclusivity..

It fed right into reagan and his corporate masters' plans.


Tikki

[tecelote]

4. Religion has the opportunity to expose the truth.

How many people have died in Iraq this year in our name?

How much monetary profit did American corporations realize?

Where is the religious outrage? Minimal.

War profits are acceptable today.

[Tikki]

5. They sure do...some churches will, most won't.

Tikki

[hollowdweller]

6. Watch

please don't you rush me
i'm over the moon
I aint yet fit to come down

a rose is a rose
a balloon a balloon
you've got to go right now

go get a job
don't work for your father
he aint no salt of the earth
in your soft little palms
beneath the hollywood palms
you might just do well by some work

hey all you hippies you've got a bad name
ever since you left your guard down

here comes ronald reagan from the hollywood hills
don't look like he's fooling around

now you know how they feel
youre hip to the steel
strutting so bold and lose

you prey to god for luck
but the reconnaisence truck
is watching your every move

you wanted to fish
and to live off the grid
you said life should be easy and free

but just one bad actor
and his benefactors
can bring the old girl to her knees


hey all you hippies you've got a bad name
ever since you left your guard down

here comes ronald reagan from the hollywood hills
don't look like he's fooling around

do these fire work charades
and the low flying planes
stir your patriotic voice to sing

to each flickering flag
on the arlington lawn
for each pawn who has fell for his king


hey all you hippies you've got a bad name
ever since you left your guard down

here comes ronald reagan from the hollywood hills
don't look like he's fooling around

here comes ronald reagan from the hollywood hills
don't look like he's fooling around

[Leith]

7. It Seems Like History Is Repeating Itself

In the 1920s, there was a booming stock market, people were rich on paper, and partying was the thing to do. Then there was the Crash of '29, the dustbowl, union busting, unions winning, Father Coughlin, FDR, economic trouble the world over.

Since Reagan, we have had union busting, the rich getting richer while the poor got poorer, climate change, hate radio, and so on. The same old avoidable disasters happening again: same flavor, this time with nuts added. This time, though, a war won't help us out of our problems - it would just be a way to make them worse.

We've tried doing things the CONservative and corporate way and look where it got us. Why can't they see that conservatism does NOT have the answers, cons do NOT have the edge on morality or values, they are the ones who have been corrupt? It took people working together to improve the country. It took the prosperity of the middle class for the poor and rich to prosper. It took an intelligent and responsible media for people to understand what was going on in the world.

[tecelote]

14. Even with today's corporate owned media...

I don't understand why people don't see exactly what you are saying. We've tried the Conservative approach and basically, trickle down economics is exactly that. The rich pissing on the rest of us.

[Sancho]

8. It started before Reagan....

After WWII, with Korea and the cold war our military complex took over the US. After that, even those of us who protested and marched in the 60's saw our idealism slip away. Reagan just continued the program.

We went from the Peace Corps generation to a war-mongering super producer of weapons. We put military bases in every corner of the world, let corporations use the military to take over innocent cultures if there was a hint of profit no matter what the consequence.

The 50's and 60's saw the rise of the big military budgets and fake wars.

I'm angry at the lack of awareness of young people now. We fought hard for the 18 year old vote and to get rid of the draft. Now this generation doesn't get it, because they don't see it. To be blunt, 5000 killed in the mid-east doesn't compare to the 70,000 killed in SE Asia. The industrial complex has figured out that if they don't go past the edge that attracts the attention of the typical teenager, they can get away with war every day.

We need to take back our country.

[avebury]

9. I truly believe that, sometime in the 21st Century, the US

will become this century's version of Nazi Germany. Furthermore, if the crazy conservatives gain enough control I am not so sure that there won't be some type of death camp or egregious legislation against those who are not like them. The far right have demonstrated that they would be willing to burn down the country if they don't get their way. They don't care who they hurt in the process because the only ones that count are those who are like them. They would have zero concern about burning the US Constitution. A militarized police only help the Corporate Overlords control the masses. This country is becoming a huge threat to our own people as well as the rest of the world.

[Zorro]

10. This is Reagan's America

[Corruption Inc]

11. Easy to blame the media when it's people themselves who sold out

Every person who told themselves over the last 50 years that it's OK to trade your principles for profit is to blame. Sadly, that's about 2/3rds of the entire population of the United States.

It's so bad now that people easily support torture, criminal banks, cronyism, wars for profit, environmental devastation, arming terrorist nations, armed drone civilian killing, illegal surveillance, etc...

About 1/3rd of our population is acutely aware of what a criminal nation we've become but the other 2/3rds sellout every bit of their conscience and morals for money, a political win or some other wholly selfish interest. The corrupt corporate media just sells them what they already want to hear.

[tecelote]

13. I agree about the greed.

But, there was a time that media held people's feet to the fire. Locally owned media cared about their community.

Today's media allows people to feel OK about greed and profit.

[CrispyQ]

12. When your biggest export is war & weapons

we shouldn't be surprised when the chickens finally come home to roost.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.html

A Brief History of U.S. Interventions:
1945 to the Present

by William Blum
Z magazine , June 1999

The engine of American foreign policy has been fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but rather by the necessity to serve other imperatives, which can be summarized as follows:

* making the world safe for American corporations;

* enhancing the financial statements of defense contractors at home who have contributed generously to members of congress;

* preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model;

* extending political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as possible, as befits a "great power."

This in the name of fighting a supposed moral crusade against what cold warriors convinced themselves, and the American people, was the existence of an evil International Communist Conspiracy, which in fact never existed, evil or not.

The United States carried out extremely serious interventions into more than 70 nations in this period.

[tecelote]

15. Wouldn't it be great if we were given two daily statistics...

1. How many people were killed in our name today.
2. How much profit was realized for stockholders.

Where do Americans draw the line?

[Hatchling]

16. I thought we were winning.

Then came the assinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK.

I kinda knew it was over for us but deanial rose up and buried alll my hopes.

[indepat]

17. Control of the fourth estate is essential to gaining control of the three major branches of

government in order to establish a corporatist surveillance state.

[Avalux]

18. Agreed. I can remember my grandmother talking about Reagan....

she hated him, and said if he became President, he's destroy this country. It's happened slowly, a sickness that spread and here we are now.