Is there any Institiution that you DO Trust?

[Perky]

Ok broad categories here but I was contemplating this on the way to work. WHo do DUers actually trust?

You don't trust the DLC.
You don't trust the MSM.
You don't trust Corporatists.
You don't trust religionists.
You don't trust the Military.
You don't trust academe.
You don't trust elections.
You don't trust the electorate.
You don't trust the Courts.
A lot of you don't even trust Democrats.


So here is the question. Who do you trust and why?

Here is the other question if you don't trust mainstream institutions, what are you going to do about it?

[eallen]

1. Seems to me there's a mistake in thinking of groups or institutions as if they were people.

Trust, of course, is a word with broad connotation. I trust the Catholic Church will keep electing Popes, and will not soon give up on the notions of faith, revelation, and tradition. :eyes:

But trust in a narrower sense pertains only to a relationship between two individuals. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking about groups and institutions as if they were individuals. But they aren't, and those who fall into that trap will continually be disappointed that they follow a logic all their own, and never exhibit the characteristics individuals might. This disparity has nothing to do with a group's goals, membership, or leadership. There is simply an internal logic to any group that gives it identity as a group, separate from the characteristics of any individual in it.

:hippie:

[bryant69]

2. The Department of Frogs

Everytime I've needed a Frog, they've been there.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[sweetheart]

3. HRW, ACLU, Amnesty International

The anti war alliance is mostly individuals, but a few institutions are worth trusting.

If the institution respects truth, and even better if it is willing to look beyond conventional wisdom
to the truths that are buried and lied about.

[Freddie Stubbs]

27. Human Rights Watch is a tool of the anti-Chavez neo-cons

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/07/08/venezu11299.htm

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/04/05/venezu10423.htm

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/24/venezu10368.htm

;)

[sweetheart]

42. An honest 4th estate

They are one of the few groups that has consistently indicted the US concentration camp
system for torture and its evil systemic abuses.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/14/usdom8583.htm

Can't speak for chavez. ;-)

[Perky]

52. kick

[H2O Man]

4. To quote John:

I don't believe in magic
I don't believe in I-ching
I don't believe in Bible
I don't believe in Tarot
I don't believe in Hitler
I don't believe in Jesus
I don't believe in Kennedy
I don't believe in Buddha
I don't believe in Mantra
I don't believe in Gita
I don't believe in Yoga
I don't believe in Kings
I don't believe in Elvis
I don't believe in Zimmerman
I don't believe in Beatles
I just believe in me...and that's reality

[Hubert Flottz]

5. My eyes.

And I can't believe them half the time.

[Toucano]

55. Good answer! n/t

[tnlurker]

6. I can't come up with one

The only thing that I do trust is the intuition of the founding fathers. They had the good sense to distrust most forms of government and they laid out a Constitution that limited the power of our government. Unfortunately most of those limits have been stripped over the years and we now sadly cannot trust much of anything. It seems like every institution now has some bias or ulterior motive to their existence.

[Genki]

7. Question Authority Including Your Own n/t

[unpossibles]

11. why? :) n/t

[Genki]

53. grins n/t

[Atman]

8. I trust nobody. I think it comes with age.

I don't know how old you are, but I'm 47, and not only have I seen the Viet Nam war and the criminals of the Nixon era still slithering around the halls of power, while a complacent media clearly helps take down one president while propping the next, but I've seen how evil and shitty people can be in "real life," too. Real life being the actual stuff that affects us every day in our contacts with family and friends. I've seen people whom I trusted for years turn around and do reprehensible things for money or business leverage, without giving it a second thought. And I'm speaking on a middle class scale, here. That is why I simply have to laugh at the naivete of anyone who thinks Dick Cheney is just a business man doing a job. When you're playing for stakes as high as Cheney does, you simply cannot possess a soul, or an ounce of compassion. I am not speaking in hyperbole. People like Cheney are focused on money and only money, the way a hawk focuses on a field mouse from a hundred feet. Money truly is the root of all evil, and when you look at the list you compiled, it would seem to be the one common thread throughout them all. Wherever money is involved, power is involved, and wherever power is being brokered, the power-hungry and the power-mad begin circling. It's actually very primitive in a sense...the bullies and the tough guys and the A personalities get first dibs at the slaughter while the "compassionate" ones get pushed aside and left to pick over the lesser cuts.

It's all about money and power, and you simply cannot trust anybody who is intent upon amassing either of them.

.

[noonwitch]

9. There are specific individuals within organizations that I trust.

There are family court judges that I encounter through work that I think make good and fair decisions regarding children and their families.

I trust my church.

I trust most of my coworkers.

[unpossibles]

10. All i wanted was a Pepsi

but she wouldn't give it to me.

[Jed Dilligan]

25. How can you say I'M crazy

when I went to your churches

when I went to YOUR schools

when I went to your institutional learning facilities

[unpossibles]

51. thanks! I'm glad someone got that one... n/t

[Double T]

12. Institutions, corporations, religious organizations, ALL levels of government......

are ABSOLUTELY corrupt; MANY run by corporate minded psychopaths. I trust certain individuals, my dog and my cats. The world has become a back stabbing, dog eat dog, undermining place.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. As free people we aren't supposed to "trust" any of them.

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." - Thomas Jefferson

[magellan]

14. No one

The world has always been this way. It's just that new people are discovering it all the time.

[Perky]

15. well this is depressing

KIck

[Skidmore]

16. I trust only that there are principles of justice, fairness, and equality

and that I have can exercise choice in how I apply those principles. I trust only that a group of men saw these same principles as important to the existence of mankind and wrote them a document to ensure that they are practiced. I hope that enough others have the same trust in those principles to continue to strive for their actualization. Beyond that, all humans can be corrupting and are corruptible.

[The2ndWheel]

17. Unfortunately it doesn't matter which you trust

Fewer and fewer institutions have more and more control over life.

What am I going to do about it? Well, we live in a world of, by, and for the large scale. So I'd have to get with some institution to do much about anything, which would defeat the purpose.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

18. GMHC, ACLU, a lot of dem politicians, Human RIghts Watch, Planned Parenthood

[La Lioness Priyanka]

19. also what is it that you trust?

[Perky]

33. Me? I trust God

To be both merciful and just. I trust that God's infinite wisdom in letting us run the planet will someday make sense to us mortals. And while human institutions fail regularly, I also believe they endure and can be made better when we engage them rather than assuming the role of victim or assuming they are somehow always villianous.


The world is what we make it. God help us all.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

41. last time i heard god isnt an institution...

[Perky]

44. Fair Point.

But you asked what I trust.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

45. but you implied the rest of us are cynical because we dont trust institutions...

and that it depresses you...

well it seems weird that you are much the same way

[Perky]

49. Oh no.....actually I am actually pretty hopeful

Mostlyt because nmy pwerpectice is more long-term I suppose. The conversation I want to have is what do you doe in response to institutions you do not trust. Do you check out..l. do you get bitter? Do you protest? Do you engage?

The point is that we have to take responsibility for making things better through actions rather than just constant complaints and virtual bickering.

[LoZoccolo]

20. You'll find some DUers trust Chavez more than Amnesty Intl. and Human Rights Watch.

Ditto for Castro.

[Chomp]

21. Marriage.....nt

[Bandit]

22. No one over thirty....

:shrug:

[MazeRat7]

39. Hey!!! I resemble that remark....

:rofl:

MZr7

[Jed Dilligan]

23. There are some research institutions that are not

complete and total whores like most of the institutions you name. NOAA, PPIC, CLUI, and a few others come to mind. I wouldn't call academia an untrustworthy institution. There are scrupulous and unscrupulous scholars in every part of it. I try to be a scrupulous one.

I generally do trust the electorate, i.e. "the People." If they were given the right things to vote for, they would vote for the right things.

A lot of religious leaders are very trustworthy and admirable. I say this as a totally nonreligious person.

Out of the list you name, the military, the courts, and corporations are the most frequent liars and abusers of human rights. The rest of the list, DLC, MSM, etc. are evil only to the degree that they are complicit in the evildoings of those institutions. If I could totally destroy and reform one of the three overnight, it would be the courts and law enforcement in general and the penal system. It's tempting to say the corporations, but at least they don't act "in my name," pretending to be "the People" while seeking only to increase their power and profit. That's the offense of the courts in my book.

[The2ndWheel]

29. "If they were given the right things to vote for, they would vote for the right things."

I like that sentence. Don't see why they would have to vote if that happened though.

Given by what? I thought we gave our consent?

All of which can go back to trusting institutions when you can't(or very, very, very, very, very rarely) have any face to face contact with what is governing you, other than through another institution that has it's own specialized experts.

[Jed Dilligan]

34. I think if there were non-corporate-controlled politicians

available to vote for, people would vote for them. But they never seem to get media coverage... I wonder why... and media coverage ultimately determines who is "electable"; who is elected out of those choices makes very little difference.

In California we have ballot measures. Most of them are sleazebag moves by people who have lots of money and want more. But occasionally a good one, like 215, the medical marijuana initiative, is put forth--and we voted for it.

[novalib]

24. SMITHSONIAN Institution

I trust the Smithsonian Institution.

It has nice museums.

[jokerman93]

26. You forgot Poland

I don't trust Poland.

[marmar]

28. The great Howard Zinn says it best:

"If we as citizens start out with an understanding that these people up there -- the President, the Congress, the Supreme Court, all those institutions pretending to be "checks and balances" -- do not have our interests at heart, we are on a course towards the truth. Not to know that is to make us helpless before determined liars."

[porphyrian]

30. Institutions are only as trustworthy as those involved in them.

Institutions are tools that are as potentially dangerous as a weapon. It is important to make sure they are being employed safely and, especially in the case of public institutions, in our better interest. Much of what you perceive as a lack of trust is really disagreement about how the institution is being used - it's the person driving who isn't trusted.

[Perky]

38. IS it reallly disagreement or is it disengagement?

If we choose to believe that we can not change institutions who is to blame?

[porphyrian]

40. Who is choosing to believe we cannot change institutions?

I don't think that's the case generally. I think you're referring to something specific.

Regardless, trust has to be earned. Mere association with a trusted "brand" doesn't guarantee or even deserve trust automatically.

[Perky]

46. I think many of us on DU or more inclined to raise rabble

and be anti-institutional than we are interested in taking the food with the bad and engaging to do something about transitory and often illusory problems.

Not trying to squelch rabble-rousing, but for many it seems to be the end-game rather than seeking solutions.

[porphyrian]

48. Anything that leads to the solution is part of the solution.

Even if that means the rabble-rousing inspired someone to get off their ass and do something. There's more than one way to skin a republican.

[The2ndWheel]

50. Ever notice how solutions only bring more complex problems?

Which then need solutions, which then bring more problems, which then need solutions, which then bring more problems.....

Maybe if we had some destination, some end-game, it might make more sense.

[Fire Walk With Me]

31. Quantas.

Aw, definitely Quantas.

[JacquesMolay]

32. Webster's Dictionary - that's 'institution'

n/t

[lumberjack_jeff]

35. I trust the system.

Trust is warranted only when the system is followed.

The interrelationships between the various institutions are supposed to keep one another in line.

[shadowknows69]

36. The Shadow Knows fan club has never fucked me over

Although membership only includes my wife and I.

[MazeRat7]

37. NOAA comes to mind followed by the USGS....

For things like weather and cartology I would be hard pressed to find an alternative source of their research and information.

MZr7

[izzybeans]

43. We obviously trust DU and other organizations within the institution of civil society otherwise we

wouldn't be here.

This is the place to work out those trust issues. But some of us are trusting to nearly all of those you mention, just not blindly. Love can not be blind.

That is why we are here. We are establishing and disestablishing trust all the time, sometimes unfairly, but always this is what we do. This is possible because we trust this as a place within which we can do so.

Do I trust corporations? As much as I trust other bureaucracies. They are big behemoths that can be wielded for good and/or evil; sometimes simultaneously. Trust is an earned social outcome. Some of us are not in a position to know who to trust, so we rely on the company of friends who might provide some insight.

Do I trust democrats? More than I do other party politicians, but I will not be blinded by loyalty.

Do I trust the military? No. They have not earned it.

Do I trust the academy? Yes. But I will not be blinded by its mythos of being a beacon on the hill.

Do I trust the election system? No. It must be earned.

Do I trust the courts? No. They have proven that justice is not blind, and I do not like that.

Do I trust religion? Modernist or liberal religions yes. I know they mean no harm. Fundamentalists of all stripes, no.

Do I trust the electorate? Only those with whom I have established a solidarity with. I do not trust my opponents to do what I feel is right. Can oppponents win that trust, as I to them, yes. But only on the condition that my principles are not flipped on their head, turned to stone, and smashed over the knee of a false compromise.

Trust is a powerful thing. It seems trust can be built even when we must agree to disagree, so long as the things we disagree about "first do no harm onto others." If the latter is true, then we must establish the sort of trust that is meant to pursuade. Facts don't work, but trust does. Trust and how we concieve of truth (or what is true) are running mates in the political game. This is why it is easier to flip a friend on the basis of your friendship than it is to flip a stranger on the basis of fact.

That is why rightwingers spend half their time creating the illusion of "you are one of us and we are just regular folk". They've mastered it.

[Armstead]

47. I don't trust the PEOPLE running many instotutions -- That's an important distinction

You are assuming that not trusting the people in charge of an organization or institution is the same as not believing in the institution itself.

For example, I would trust the MSM IF they actually took their role as the nation's information infrastructire seriously and honestly. However, the shysters in charge of the Big Media Monopolies have totally disregarded their responsibility to provide public service, and instead focus exclusively on perpetually goosing the bottom line.

In a larger sense, if the Corporatists were not such self-centered, amoral and greedy pirates, we might be able to trustv them to act responsibility.

[slackmaster]

54. My mom and my brother

And several other close family members. Also a handful of long-time friends.

I actually trust my ex-wife in a strange way.

[PsN2Wind]

56. Victorias Secret

They hide almost nothing!!!