Stephanie Salter: 'We appear to be a people paralyzed'

[Newsjock]

http://www.tribstar.com/opinion/local_story_174234930.html?keyword=topstory

There was a time when the recent news that Mr. Bush’s approval ratings have dropped into the lower 20th percentile would have prompted hope.

The numbers would have meant an America awake, fed up, no longer in the market for cleverly packaged platitudes and prevarication. The dismal ratings would have allowed a reasonable person to think that, at long last, our national nightmare might be over.

But that time of hope passed awhile ago. Eighty percent or 100 percent, we can only believe what we see:

Approval numbers apparently don’t matter — anymore than the number of Democrats in Congress matters or the number of dead U.S. troops matters or the inexact but immorally huge number of dead Iraqi civilians matters.

The truth doesn’t matter. The facts don’t matter. The lies don’t matter.

... We appear to be a people paralyzed.

[villager]

1. hydrogenated fat, corn syrup, and television appear to have done their jobs....

...in keeping us "in line..."

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Phredicles]

2. Yep - we need someone to step up and lead, and right now no one's doing it.

[MatrixEscape]

6. Why do we ....

Like sheep, dogs, and other domesticated animals assume that we NEED someone to STEP UP and LEAD us all?

I don't understand that, except in a group-think, mob mentality sense. Maybe that was the model of the old way and a great relief when it came to putting someone else out there to get whatever comes from doing so, but this is now.

We neeed to step up and be the leaders in the sense that we want things to change -- each one of us. And don't tell me that is too big a task or we don't have the resources. Each can step up according to his/her means. Even small actions, en masse, can add up to something very functional and full of impact and transformation.

Let's step up right now and decide not to be sheeple. Many leaders are only titular anyway.

[Jonathan50]

7. I'm reminded of the old definition of a leader..

Someone who figures out which way the crowd is headed, runs up to the front and shouts "follow me". :)

[melody]

3. The press is finally catching up wtith reality

The people don't matter to these monsters ... most of us, on some level, realize this. All we can do
is fight for our individual family's survival and stay away from the spotlight. Sociologists have
been writing about the abused child psyche of Americans for decades. This is what they meant by that.

Given this, I think we're amazingly politically active.

[Nikki Stone1]

11. That's an interesting way to look at it.

We feel helpless in the larger scheme of things so we protect what we can.

[MatrixEscape]

5. Appearances are just that ...

I, like many here, have been through the mill as far as watching this long-term debacle unfold. For many, that debacle, the sheer manipulation and hypocrisy of it all, only serves to open your eyes to the historical precedent and repetition of the very same phenomena and systematic control of peoples around the World. There is nothing new under the Sun.

However, if you don't hold on too tightly to the inconvenient and uncomfortable truths -- along with the confusion that well-meaning debunkers and well-paid reporters create -- you should be assured that there is a threshold you can reach. There is a pinnacle, like a mountain on high, where you will see things more clearly without the clouds of fear and uncertainty that hit those who struggle to break out of the iron mold this culture forms around its well manufactured citizens.

Rest assured, you are just going to have to get through this. Like a Salmon swimming upstream, you are probably still so entrenched in the machinations of the society that has molded you, formed your opinions, and continues to force you to trade freedom, critical thinking, and control of your life and the joy of being here right now, for bread, water, and whatever shack you are living in right now, be it a McMansion Shack or a McCardboard box. And then, as you start to spasm and rustle in your pod of programmed controls, you have to deal with friends, family as you shiver and struggle to break free. Did you think it was going to be either easy or fun? If you have children, that is also one of the shackles to the system that keeps you doing what you are supposed to in many cases. This is not an easy journey, but there are many who are getting to a level where it changes dramatically. Yes, it does "pop" if you don't shrink back in fear or drop back into the abyss of sombulistic cooperation with the thought control machines of culture.

How do would you know the graduates of this process? Well, they will be able to have a sense of humor about it all and laugh heartily while respecting the grave and serious aspects of our current situation and condition. They will be knowledgeable, to various degrees, about the wool and how it is pulled over the eyes -- from both sides of every argument and equation -- and in what colors and types of weaves it comes. These adepts of the post-modern apocalypse that is the part and parcel of America will most likely not be too pessimistic nor too optimistic about anything or the situation at-large. They will demonstrate to you, in words and deeds and ideas, that they see both the fact that this is all we have, this is our time, (good or bad or in between) and yet, these are are problems and our crisis and our call to action no matter how we shrink from the fact that we are not only a product of it, but certainly able to respond, (responsibility) to it in powerful and unique ways -- but only if we can cast off our shackles and not cling so pathetically to the sides of our pods as our awareness and knowledge begins to free us from our mental, emotional, and spiritual prison that we dare to call LIFE.

So find those folks or pay attention. This is not about the details or the arguments, pro or con, or the theories and their debunking, or the various factions of this or that, (division is a major part of our collective problem you know) this is about a realization that allows you to be in this more intensely while experiencing it more like a ride in an amusement park than with all the grim and serious nagging created by old Gray Face and his profit-seeking pals.

As your freedoms seem to wash away in the ocean of propaganda and rhetoric that you choose to observe and participate in from day to day for fear of fear of fear of this or that, you always have the power to choose with every step you take. Choose to rise up and see it from a wider perspective.

Based on what I have related, you will most likely meet someone who has come close to, or actually transcended the control matrix and that will be a great day when you are open to it and see that fact.

We are going to wake up! Some of us are, and others are getting closer. And it is good! Very good. It is like waking up after a very good rest. You become refreshed. You see it all from a better perspective and your thoughts and day-to-day choices and actions begin to reflect that. That is where the results you intuit are going to emerge from. This is not about hope. This is about seeing, knowing, and doing.

[sleipnir]

8. Wait, this isn't a thread about Circumcision? Never mind, back to more fleshy (and silly) problems

n/t

[bleever]

9. Time was, a fella'd be impeached

for running the train off the tracks.

Guess we got a different standard now.



:thumbsup:, Faffadean.

[Kablooie]

10. Two legs good. Four legs bad.