How did insanity in America become "normal."

[Cyrano]

In my opinion, most of us have never been rocket scientists, but neither have we been ignorant sheep who "followed orders".

However, another factor seems to have crept in. I never believed that most Americans were intellectually deficient, or just plain stupid. But in our current election cycle, it seems to me that far too many have totally lost it.

I don't know whether they've fallen for the ongoing propaganda spouted by Limbaugh, Fox "News," or the TV ads being thrown at all of us by unknown wealthy groups who we don't know, can't name, and whose motives have nothing to do with the well being of you, me, or this country.

At present, the political polls tell us we are screwed beyond repair.

But there's one thing they aren't taking into account. What if all of us sane people show up on election day and blow the maniacs to hell? Please, allow me to be optimistic for just a moment and hope that this happens.

There are more of US than there are of THEM. Let's vote and crush their demented dream of political/religious/thought-control domination.

The bottom line here is that our country is teetering on the verge of fascism, or perhaps worse. There are those who lived back in the 1930s and 1940s who didn't think that such things could happen until they ended up in "shower rooms" that delivered gas instead of water.

As a grandchild of such people, don't become victims. And to anyone who thinks I'm being overly dramatic here, do you really want to wait until you yourself are in some modern day equivalent of a "shower room" to say, "Crap, I never saw this coming."

Look around at today's America. Can you really tell me that there's not far too much irrationality, and even insanity, out there. We are living in a very grave, dangerous era. Please, please don't underestimate the outcome of where the hatred that exists today could lead us.

[Odin2005]

1. K&R

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. The US has had that edge, hard edge, of

Religiosity and anti-intellectualism.

We are in the midst of the Third Revival, and like the other two there is a conflict between good all fashioned book learning' and traditional American provincialism. Welcome to the soft underbelly, and some of this goes back a long time.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. Other countries of the world think that it is due to being a relatively new country?

you have to look at the disgusting treatment of Black people and First Americans including Latino/Latinas.

America is a disgusting media/corporation midden.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Add indentured servants

Bacon's revolt has been hidden...oh and May Day happened in Chicago.

[mrcheerful]

4. It started when Reagan closed mental hospitals and put the crazies out on the street

[MrScorpio]

6. Polarization... There's an app for that. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Link

I need to install

:hi:

[MrScorpio]

9. Kinda!

http://www.apptism.com/apps/polarize

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Should have learned by now

It will exist on the app store

[oswaldactedalone]

7. Greed, racism, and the farce that is American Christianity

Combine that with ignorance fostered by the Republicons facilitated by their control of the airwaves.

[jotsy]

10. A beautiful plea Cyrano.

:hug:

The list of explanations you ask for when you feel the pain in the struggle all around. Makes me hunt comfort for you. Hope a hug does, feel free to pm, should you require something more substantive.

Rec'd.

[HuckleB]

11. Soma = TOO MUCH TV, INTERNET, AND DISTRACTION.

People can't stop to think anymore.

[Cyrano]

29. Took me a while to recall that Soma was the brain-deadening

drug of choice in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World."

Unfortunately, today's brave new world is more George Orwell's "1984" than Huxley's more humane, futuristic view of population mind control.

(I know there are many here who never read "1984," or "Brave New World." Yeah, books are old news, but do yourself a favor. If you read no other books, read these two. I guarantee that they will help you to clarify, define, and sort out your perceptions of reality.)

[RagAss]

12. "Nobody expected the American Inquisition"

[hendo]

14. The answer is: The 24-hour news cycle

The world went to hell when we told journalists they had to report the news 24-7. After a while they just started making sh*t up.

[Cyrano]

15. Yep, hendo. I can't disagree.

And when it became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Repbulican Party, we Dems lost big time. I don't know if we'll ever recover, or manage to build a propaganda machine to neutralize them.

[hendo]

19. Meh, the republicans own Fox,

The Democrats until recently had a lot of support on MSNBC.

Aside from Fox, no one news show is decidedly partisan. All news channels have one golden idol - Ratings.

If it generates ratings, it generates money.

[BuelahWitch]

24. Yes, 24 hour news + death of the Fairness Doctrine

People could spout all kinds of lies around the clock.

[county worker]

16. go to MSM.com

See what Americans really care about. There isn't a whole lot there that takes critical thinking.

[jobendorfer]

17. a Swiss perspective

" ... Everywhere in the West there are subversive minorities who, sheltered by our humanitarianism and our sense of justice, hold the incendiary torches ready, with nothing to stop the spread of their ideas except the critical reason of a single, fairly intelligent, mentally stable stratum of the population. One should not, however, overestimate the thickness of this stratum. It varies from country to country in accordance with the national temperament. Also, it is regionally dependent upon pubic education and is subject to the influence of acutely disturbing factors of a political and economic nature. Taking plebescites as a criterion, one could on an optimistic estimate put its upper limit at about 40 percent of the electorate. A rather more pessimistic view would not be unjustified either, since the gift of reason and critical reflection is not one of man's outstanding peculiarities, and even where it exists, it proves to be wavering and unconstant, the more so, as a rule, the bigger the political groups are .."

-- C.G. Jung, _The Undiscovered Self_, 1957


Mispellings are my transcription errors, of course.

[upi402]

21. I talked to a Swede in SE Asia once

and told him I figured it was about 20% at most who are holding the line. But the media has fooled the people well, especially since Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act.

And now, even Democrats here still think there's an opposition party to corporate fascism. We can't even discuss that fact here on DU. It's the norm in America now.

[Raksha]

40. Good quote from Jung--and very timely.

If I've read that before I don't remember it. If Jung were alive now to see what's happening in America, I wonder at what percentage he'd put that "mentally stable stratum of the population." He says the upper limit is about 40% under optimal conditions, which is pretty discouraging in itself. So what percentage is it now? 10% or 5%?

It can't really be that bad...can it?

[mitchum]

18. When we quit marginalizing religious fanatics

I'm serious

[upi402]

20. TV and radio news propaganda n/t

[Romulox]

22. The range of legitimate political thought in this country is greater than corporate far-right to

corporate center-right.

Rail against the people all you want--this is a failure of leadership (and integrity).

[girl gone mad]

32. I think this is true.

The right has a bunch of very vocal, pushy extremists who pass for mainstream. The leadership on the left, however, consists of ineffectual milquetoast corporate puppets who too often would rather appease the right wing than fight it.

It's completely unbalanced.

[hamsterjill]

23. Wow! Have you been reading my mind???!!!

Your post echoes many of my own concerns. We ARE living in a grave, dangerous era. I have only to look at some of the Tea Party candidates to see undeniable insanity. Undeniable!

So, yes, please, please, let's all get out there and VOTE!!! And let's learn to put our petty differences aside long enough to look at the broader picture. Unless we want the Republicans (and that includes the Tea Party in my opinion) in charge, we need to get out there and support our Democratic candidates!

[Winterblues]

25. This is really out there but it has stuck with me all these years.

I used to get a small magazine called Fate. It dealt in the paranormal and other interesting stuff. Every year in the December issue they would have top "Psychics" give their predictions for the coming year. I believe it was about '69 or '70 I read one of those psychics, and I don't remember who, but they said that Russia had been experimenting with something that caused psychosis in people and they used it on America and it would last forty years....For some reason that has stuck with me all these years. I know most don't believe in any such things. Something has been going on in america for the last several decades though. Something definitely has happened to the mental abilities of every day Americans...It did not used to be this way.

[snagglepuss]

27. LOL My mom has Fate magazines all the way back to the 50s. I never

knew anyone else who read them. If I have time I'll hunt for the article.:hi:

[Initech]

26. It's because people take the teevee way too seriously.

[Cyrano]

28. Sorry to disagree, but it's because people don't take the dangers of

the GOP seriously enough.

Let's face it. The Republican Party is the exclusive property of big business. Its elected officials do as they're told, and the teabaggers are nothing more than ignorant thugs, and/or total imbeciles, who have been recruited into furthering total know-nothingism and hatred in America.

TV is just one of the many factors that creates the illusion that we are living on a sane planet

[Motown_Johnny]

30. 8 years with a Shrub for President. People now think that he was normal, not an idiot.

So they now think that other idiots are also normal


It is the new normal


stupid

[Cyrano]

31. Bush/Cheney were a cancer on our society.

They weren't "idiots." They were a disease. And that disease has now turned into the Tea Bagger/Know Nothingness of far too many.

All we can do, and what we must do, is show up at tho polls and vote.

[Scruffy1]

33. I don't buy this narrative

The whole right wing nutcase thing has been overblown by the MSM. When Palin came to Minneapolis last summer maybe 2000 showed up and were not very vocal. The papers claimed 2000. Most of these people currently on the Tera party wagon will get tired of it, or infighting will destroy the whole thing. It just amazes the press they get and the reaction of progressives. We need to get up, stand up and work for what we believe in instead of wasting all of our energies on them. Here in Minneapolis Elison will run virtually unopposed and Bachmann has never got fifty per cent of the vote in her own district, but instead relies on "third party candidates" to suck off votes. I have long suspected that these candidates (all "ex-republicans") are well rewarded somehow or other.

[RealisticDem44]

34. Because of moral and ethical relativism

The people who have desecrated the Constitution and the world don't value anything but their own pocketbooks.

Malignant narcissism-aka PSYCHOPATHY.

[spanone]

35. put it on teevee and it's 'reality'

[11 Bravo]

36. Friday, August 29, 2008 ...

John McCain, Republican candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America, selects Sarah Louise Palin, a proudly bigoted, nails-on-a-chalkboard-voiced, complete fucking moron, to join him on the ticket. That's pretty much when it happened.

[RealisticDem44]

37. She's not merely a moron....

She's a psychopath.

[11 Bravo]

38. Agreed. And welcome to DU!

:hi:

:toast:

[glitch]

41. A moronic psychopath with charisma (for the MILFers, anyway). She may epitomize the problem now

but she didn't start it. It's been "mainstream" for decades (since Reagan, before that fringe ala KKK, neoNazis, John Birch Society etc).

[opihimoimoi]

39. KnR.... :o)...lets do it...vote BLUE

[RagAss]

42. Insanity = Stupidity + Fear.