The Foundation is Crumbling

[mopaul]

the system is broken, the vandals took the handles, the marble pillars are cracking and the mammoth burden of corruption and evil is now crashing in front of our eyes. you are witnessing an awful moment in history. i never thought i'd live to see it, the end of america. after daddy and jr. bush's carnage, it will take america and the world much time to recover and repair the wreckage.

the numbed will soon awake from THEIR drugged state too, and the fall will be great and terrible to behold.

stay frosty

[brokensymmetry]

1. Sad to say, I agree with you.

Exactly when things will come apart - to the point where everyone sees it and recognizes it - is hard to say. But I think that we are getting close - certainly in less than a decade. Maybe before 2008.

[skooooo]

2. Amen!

[Shakespeare]

3. Or, as Yeats said...

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[BigDaddyLove]

4. A distinct possibility if written in 1863 or so...........

THAT was a tough time in American history, but I refuse to believe that Bush and his henchmen can bring this great country down.

If anything, once they are escorted out of office in November, they will have so soured the majority in this country that it will be a cold day in Hell until another Republican gets into the Oval Office.

[KissMyAsscroft]

5. Yep..its gonna take a disaster to make us wake up...

You would think 9/11 would have done it, but it looks grim. People are just asleep at the wheel. It's the ignorant population that will destroy itself.

[Deja Q]

9. 9/11 made us:

* more blind
* Willing to trust a complete imbecile
* Willing to be led by anything the imbecile said, without looking up facts. Yet alone thinking.

If America is dead, we deserve it. :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: America has turned itself from a community of people (under spurious morality, as Native Americans and African Americans will readily attest to, as would many women and others if ripped out of their own time and transported to the here and now) to a land filled with corporate opportunists who'd sell your guts for money while rippinfg them out of you in a healthy conscious state if they could while suing everybody else for every reason fathomable. We are disgusting, I regret to say.

And while I'll vote for him, I have no faith in Kerry whatsoever. He's a brownnoser to businesses as well.

We need more Kuciniches, more Greens, more Wellstones. But there are too many factors. It is too late... (then there's the looming peak oil crisis. Even if that's a kettle of cattle cack, at the rate we consume oil, we've about 20 years left, instead of the ~5 peak oil claims, and some have said peak oil has already come and gone...)

More hideous reasons why Kerry's no dreamboat of any sort: http://www.issues2000.org/Dems_USC_2004.htm

Like a famous robot once said, "We're boned."

[Missy Vixen]

10. It's like this

>People are just asleep at the wheel. It's the ignorant population that will destroy itself.<

Here are my observations.

Most Americans, at this point, are hanging on by their fingernails.

Between the job (if they're lucky enough to have one,) the house (again, lucky enough to have one,) the kids, the pets, the spouse, SO, or lack of one, their extended families, whether or not all of the above are healthy, whether or not the bills are getting paid, running here, there and everywhere on errands, practice, meetings, etcetera, being fed fear fear fear fear fear 24x7 on television (hell, in all media, for that matter,) the upkeep of what we're all told is the American dream, they're frigging exhausted. Multiply the stress of the above by 10 if they're out of work for any length of time, have a sick kid and no medical insurance, etcetera. I might also mention that the average family's credit card debt is now over $10,000 as well.

I refuse to believe that the average American is a "sheep". I think they are stretched to their limits, mentally, physically, and certainly financially. There is only so much anyone can take before they just shut it off.

This is why people spend their evenings eating or drinking anything that is remotely comforting and watching programs like "American Idol" and "The Swan". The average American is overscheduled, overburdened, and stressed beyond belief.

IMHO, YMMV, I'm putting on my asbestos underwear.

Julie

[LunaC]

13. I agree to a point......

Yes, many, many people are too overwhelmed to pay attention to the evil men behind the curtain at the WH and I understand their weariness and don't totally fault them for it but I also see some that are doing VERY well (and they're Libs not Repugs, surprise!) but they're so much into themselves and their Good Times that they could care less about politics. THESE are the folks I would call sheeple because they're just along for the ride even if it's the Road to Hell.

One couple in particular comes to mind that I've been trying to interest in the world beyond their cocoon (especially with two teenage boys nearing draft age) and their inevitable response has been "Yeah, yeah, yeah....can't do anything about it. Gotta' go to the gym now, make a stop at Nordstrom's and pick up the boys from soccer." End of discussion. They may as well just put their fingers in their eyes and sing out "La-la-laaaa" as I talk, they're so oblivious! These people are unquestionably SHEEPLE of the highest degree and I've witnessed first-hand they they DO exist!

[KissMyAsscroft]

17. I agree to a point...

Yet, I deal with all of these same issues and I had it figured out pretty quick that we were headed in the wrong direction. I don't think "being busy" is a valid excuse for thinking invading Iraq was a good idea...

But, I do agree that people in this country are overworked but it is their own fault trying to "keep up with the Jones'"...trying to chase pop culture bullshit will always destroy you. Working extra hours to buy your screeching trophy wife a flatscreen TV...

[FlemingsGhost]

6. It is inevitable. All empires fall, eventually.

What I find fascinating is that Americans truly believe we are immune to history, thus willful ignorance is ushering our collapse.

[mopaul]

7. we were badder than rome though weren't we?

we showed them suckers didn't we?

[Codeblue]

19. Hmmm...

I'd say Rome was bigger, better and meaner. They owned the entire known world at the time, something America hasn't done. They had a period of 200 years of absolute peace. No wars, no nothing. Until the "War on Terror", America had seen a period of peace at longest of about 40-50 years.

In the long run, I don't think America will match up well with the empires of the past.

[DustMolecule]

8. It didn't have to be this way....

...this is what I find so very very sad. It didn't have to 'go' this way at all.

[Gold Metal Flake]

11. I ain't done fighting.

How 'bout you?

[Ardee]

12. We are allowing it to happen to ourselves

seduced by cheap and shoddy luxuries we are a nation of overweight slackers seeking some miracle and instantaneous fix for all our problems...it aint gonna happen and the sooner we awaken , the sooner we refuse to accept the bullshit of voting for the lesser of two evils or Anybody But Whoever and retake our responsibilities as participants in the democratic process, including actually thinking about things rather than accepting stupid and outrageous lies as a substitute for the hard work of researching and acting upon that research the sooner we make it stop!

Bush in '08 Jeb in '12 and again in '16 folks, its really up to you!

[killbotfactory]

14. It don't matter...

in the future "we'll all be dead..."

[Ardee]

20. but your children will certainly be alive

at least hopefully, and that is what keeps me working to correct this godawful mess of a government.

[DivinBreuvage]

15. History Gives Us Hope

Germany and Japan were utterly wrecked at the end of World War II, but survived and are better now for having been shattered. Russia survived a thousand years of Czars, the Russian Revolution, Iosef Stalin, and the loss of 27 million people in the Second World War. Poland literally disappeared from the map twice and during the Nazi occupation lost at least 20% of its population, but Poland is still here. Britain has suffered through civil wars, peasant revolts, religious strife, and lost TWO empires, but today is still a pretty nice place to live, all things considered.

I do agree that we are most likely going to experience an immense altering of America in the coming years, and I do think that that time will be filled with suffering and misery, and we will be lucky indeed if economic distress and the shame of losing our dominant position on the world stage are all we have to contend with.

BUT. It will not necessarily mean the end of America. In fact, as some of the examples above will suggest, we may emerge wiser and more mature. The death of the American empire may in fact give birth to a new American republic.

[opihimoimoi]

16. I agree, this Opihi is going down swinging

fk those assholes.

From my old cold dead hands......

[Kazak]

18. Gonna be a bright, bright, bright sun-shiny day...

Damn, you're a breath of fresh air, aren't ya?

But seriously, how many times have we all heard it?

[caffefwee]

21. bump

:kick:

[doni_georgia]

22. Bound to happen

The question is, can our democracy rise from the ashes? I believe it can. Americans just have to be shaken awake and resolve to never hand over power to those who would take away our Constitutional liberties again.