This Country Just Can't Deal with Reality Any More

[unhappycamper]

This Country Just Can't Deal with Reality Any More
Consortium News / By Robert Parry

September 16, 2010 | As Election Day 2010 approaches – as the United States wallows in the swamps of war, recession and environmental degradation – the consequences of the nation’s three-decade-old decoupling from reality are becoming painfully obvious.

Yet, despite the danger, the nation can’t seem to move in a positive direction, as if the suctioning effect of endless spin, half-truths and lies holds the populace in place, a force that grows ever more powerful like quicksand sucking the country deeper into the muck – to waist deep, then neck deep.

Trapped in the mud, millions of Americans are complaining about their loss of economic status, their sense of powerlessness, their nation’s decline. But instead of examining how the country stumbled into this morass, many still choose not to face reality.

Instead of seeking paths to the firmer ground of a reality-based world, people from different parts of the political spectrum have decided to embrace unreality even more, either cynically as a way to delegitimize a political opponent or because they’ve simply become addicted to the crazy.

The latest manifestation of the wackiness can be found in the rise of the Tea Party, a movement of supposedly grassroots, mad-as-hell regular Americans that is subsidized by wealthy corporate donors (such as the billionaire Koch brothers) seeking to ensure deregulation of their industries and to consolidate their elite control over the political process.

[RandomThoughts]

1. huh?

I think removing reality seems to be necessary.

obviously people did not want reality, and continue to not want it, so what reason is there to have it?

would there be less no beer?


Doesn't bother me one way or the other.



And the corporate system, or the money system, has no influence in lack of reality, so there is always that also.

[babylonsister]

2. Rec'd. How low it seems we've sunk. I'm just

hoping it's temporary. That's about all I can do. :(

[liberal N proud]

3. Our televisions are full of reality

Reality shows on nearly every network:

History Channel has Ice Road Truckers and Ax Men

Survivor is reality based

Then there are all the you want to be a star but really shouldn't shows scattered across the dial. Reality is everywhere but in the news. They are only looking for what is sensational.

This country is on reality overload and can no longer distinguish what is real and what is fake.

[old mark]

4. Rec. I just heard that our small PA city-Reading-has a 35% poverty rate...

people don't want to hear that stuff, though...

mark

[xchrom]

5. Who needs reality when there are social safety nets to destroy?

It's always more fun to blow something up.

[raccoon]

6. I think that's why so many people liked Raygun: he didn't deal with reality either,

he told people what they wanted to hear, that it was "morning in America," and that we didn't need to conserve, could have all we wanted. I don't know that he said exactly that, but it was implied.

I think that's one reason many conservatives are conservative; they don't want to deal with reality. They don't like to hear things like we have so many homeless because of a lack of affordable housing; it's easier to believe it's the fault of the individuals who are homeless. Also, if you believe that, you have absolutely no motivation to do anything about it.

[leveymg]

7. Denial can be either the first stage toward acceptance or the last stage before death.

Populations grieving over the loss of Empire usually don't reach the last stage. It's a long road upward from the depths of the stage of denial, according to Kubler-Ross:

[Tsiyu]

8. You are so correct

People want a Big Daddy to make everything all better...so they can be selfish and concern themselves only with themselves.

This was Reagan's appeal, and Repukes still gush about him like he was their personal Big Daddy.

He won because the Repukes sold the lie that the War on Poverty was a bust and that it took money away from hard-working Amurikans.

In reality, The War on Poverty was an American success story, and taxes were not quite the problem that Repuke manipulation of the CIA, media, military, etc. were or that corporate manipulation of congress were...

So now we have the Race to Poverty, courtesy of the Repukes, who truly pulled the wool over this nation's eyes.

[EFerrari]

9. Raygun was a salesman and an actor.

And after leading this nation not into the future but into fiction, he himself didn't recognize reality at the end of his life.

Raygun's people (or Poppy's people, depending on how you see it) divided the world into good and bad and invited you to join them on the side of the angels while they picked your pocket and trashed your house.

[EFerrari]

10. It's so difficult to believe that Newt Gingrich was ever Speaker

because he's already too disgusting to live, let alone lead.