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Permalink Reply by Park Bierbower on October 31, 2010 at 9:44pm

so shall we now ponder why people choose to listen in the first place? honestly, it would hardly seem to make sense that we listen for no good reason at all... we don't listen to the crazies on the corner shouting about the end of the world, so why are we raptured (no pun intended) by the people on the tv?
~i've two ideas so far, after contemplating it for exactly 3 minutes
~ our fascination with people on the television is what keeps us in rapt attention. just how we love to wave our arms when caught on a national broadcast, we have the same fascination with listening to those on the tv itself. this one, i do not think, is the answer.
~secondly, and more likely, is that we are using it self medicate ourselves. while a persons life really has not changed much in the last 1000 years (you work to eat and sleep, your purpose is to keep the cycle going) we are becoming more aware of the philosophies concerning quality of life and meaningful life. ours are mostly not such, and so we latch on to a medium that millions of other people subscribe to as well, not just to have something to discuss but to feel like we have a purpose, and to make us feel better about our lives. that feigned threat of attack makes us feel like we have something to lose, like we've done something that is worth saving (damn! obamacare gonna take away my blue cross/blue shield!) and it is this attempt to rationalize the irrationality of our now awakened existence that leads to the hate so many people are feeling; they are truly falling into the trap. might this be why you don't get the same fervor out of print media anymore? its not as communicative, true to life?
~we are now at a point where purpose is a real question to us, and not simply an aristocratic musing whilst the peasants toil away in the fields. our lives for the most part lack real consequential purpose (hence the themes in movies that center around a hero [although i do understand that is an ancient and traditional archetype]) We mostly die before we realize we are really alive, although in recent years (since maybe the fifties/sixties?) the midlife crisis has emerged, realizing to ones self that more than half of the expected lifespan has passed and nothing of consequence has really been accomplished; this media-storm is our medication, our pacifier day to day as we slowly wither like the flowers in our garden. let us fight in the face of lack of purpose, let us spend our weeks in imaginary battle with ghostly foes, the random names that pop into and out of our lives week to week, and feel like we have really been a part of something, of a movement, and that hopefully, one day, we can look back and say "i remember that time, that battle, i was there and i did something as well." if only there will be someone to help us recall, in our old age, the days that we really will forget by then; the lives that we have spend doing nothing but everything we know we must, hoping for something better always, and never realizing what we have now, or what we should. we will be there, all of us, looking back over that hill we climbed and instead of seeing the battles we fight today, we will see, only with clarity, the distance from whence we came.

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Permalink Reply by Linda on October 31, 2010 at 11:16pm

@ David - I read your link. So are you saying the purpose of the freakshow we are watching is distraction? Like a dirty maniupulative trick? The Repub powers that be, understand the ignorance of the masses and know just how to manipulate them? Hmmm, stroking my imaginary beard.

After what happened during Katrina, I'll believe anything. Katrina shook me up worse that 911 in terms of confidence in goverment. Katrina made me realize what truely thin ice we are on.

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Permalink Reply by Brian on October 31, 2010 at 10:42pm

I see the tea party as an unfortunate consequence of a moderate working-class America being pulled to the right because the left has systematically written them off as nutjobs. The majority of these people have legitimate complaints. Their jobs have gone, and they are worse off than their parents were. These people are hurt, angry, and they want answers...and the right wing came swooping in to give them answers. Their jobs are gone because the liberals taxed their companies out of business. It's not true. A lot of the companies who shut down manufacturing plants were making record profits at the time. But, there is no left wing media presence that fills their niche quite like the extreme right-wing. People like Limbaugh and Beck are really good at appealing to emotions, even if those appeals are entirely fallacious.

Above all though I think the Tea Party is mostly made up of folks who want sensible reforms in government spending, but don't understand the fact that the Republicans aren't the party to accomplish that. The Democrats spend, yes, but they also try to pay for what they spend with tax revenue. Republican fiscal policy is like buying a brand new car, house, helicopter, and in ground swimming pool while demanding a 50% pay cut from your employer. They have been given chance after chance to demonstrate the effectiveness of their economic theories and have failed every. single. time. And their excuse each of those times? We didn't implement those policies ENOUGH! We needed to do more of what doesn't work to make it work. I'm serious. Their answer to the repeal of Glass-Steagal leading DIRECTLY to the financial crisis of 2008 is that we didn't deregulate enough!

But back to the tea party. There needs to be a concentrated, credible effort by the mainstream media to document exactly how it was conservative fiscal policies that led us in this direction. Words like "spending," "government," and yes, even "socialism" need to be disarmed in the minds of the public.

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Permalink Reply by Linda on November 1, 2010 at 12:11am

we will be there, all of us, looking back over that hill we climbed and instead of seeing the battles we fight today, we will see, only with clarity, the distance from whence we came.

I was really gettting into your post and then when I read the last line - I was like, wha? LOL

One thousand pardons for my ignorance of poetic nuance, but were you saying, in the end, we will be able to contrive satisfaction when we look back on all the progress we accomplished in our life time? Or were you just winding down from an active week with a late Sunday evening glass of red wine?... Gin and tonic? LOL

JUST KIDDING lol. Personally, I could use a margarita after the weekend I just had. Hell, I could use a big fat reefer but I quit smoking pot over 20 years ago.

But seriously, what I took from your post was it was a cry for rationality. I think atheists are damn good at that. Now if we could just figure out how to get the masses to understand our perspective. If they could just stop seeing us as some kind of smelly slimey creature that just crawled out from under a rock in hell somewhere, and that we are more kind and more fair than they ever could have imagined, well then maybe we could get somewhere.

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Permalink Reply by Park Bierbower on November 1, 2010 at 7:37am

I guess the real point i wanted to make is that we all know deep down that these days will be forgotten, these issues forgotten, just like the issues that occupy most of the years past. they will be inconsequential, and more than likely won't even make the history books. we spend this time fighting, quarreling and struggling just so that we have something to pass the time, and to feel like we are getting somewhere; we are, but not because of these things. time itself is the only progress, and soon we will be looking back on our lives and not seeing so much that we won or lost these battles, but that the time we spent on them is gone, never to return

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Permalink Reply by Dan DuPree on November 1, 2010 at 9:46am

http://www.infowars.com/articles/bush/fascist_coup_owes_to_bush_naz...

Discussing the tea party reminded me of this. BTW this was researched and presented on BBC radio and is documented in the Congressional record in our National Archive. There were Senate hearings on this. It is not conspiracy theory.

But, in my opinion this very much reflects the state of the tea party. Grandpa Bush(Shrubs Grandfather the Senator, Prescott) was the bagman for an attempted fascist coup. He was trying to buy a General to lead the hundreds of thousands of WWI veterans who had been promised extended pay and pentions following the war, which the gov't then failed to follow through on. The richest families in America were going to use that disenfranchisment to motivate then arm this out of work army to stop financial reforms being started by FDR to pull us out of the Great Depression. Gen. Smedley Butler decided he wanted no part of it and appeared before Senate committees testifying against PBush. The families involved were too powerful and the whole thing was swept under table.

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Permalink Reply by Park Bierbower on November 1, 2010 at 10:16am

This may not resonate with everyone in this thread, but its the lyrics to a song called Nautical by Protest the Hero, I like it, i think it is an excellent way of describing certain elements of whats going on right now, or more so where we've been.

The day that civil glory dismembered my civility
I could have parted ribs and flesh like a different kind of Red Sea
Drowned the ancient east in western progress
Custom and the least of all our pride and sentiments
Which turned out to be the closest thing to a fashion trend
That's ever been put on trial
Which turned out to be the closest thing to a fashion trend
That's ever been put on trial
The rest was cast off as denial of statehood and mastery;
The ultimate form of treason is the treacherous use of reason
Employed by the bastard sons of American fore-fathers who keep this fire burning
With the flesh of their would-be American daughters, daughters, daughters, daughters!!

What will happen to our children when the least of us pass on?
Us who fought the monsters of our country's crowded closet
Us who dropped the bombs on goodness when we saw it wasn't flawless
Us whose youthful life was hostage to what harm did
Us who fought the hardest to be swept under the carpet

And I'm still a cigarette softly smoking on the edge of a metal ashtray
I begged this place to let me burn, and it whispered, "burn away"

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Permalink Reply by Linda on November 1, 2010 at 12:07pm

Clark Howard (Consumer Protection guru on CNN) said Rome is burning while the politicians play (tiddly winks or twidling their thumbs or something like that - I can't remember exacty) - (Rome being America and debt being the fire). He said at the rate of our growing debt, in 10 years we will be like a third world country.

I feel this fear is what fndamentally puts the fire under the Tea Party's ass. They are the average Joe's screaming "Let's get off our normally apathetic asses and do something - it's crisis time." But all they're really doing is showing their ass. I've seen enough asses. I'm looking for a hero with a big red S on his chest. I guess it's too soon to be looking for one with a big scarlett A on this chest.

Clark rarely makes such pessimistic political statements (that I know of). I wonder what happened to turn him down that path?

Makes the hair on the back of my neck prickle. He is usualy somewhat mild mannered (no pun intended) politically speaking (imo).

Maybe Clark Howard is our hero! lol

Clark for president - rotf. Hmmm, Clark Kent - wow, I"m rolling in accidental puns this morning.

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Permalink Reply by Park Bierbower on November 1, 2010 at 12:41pm

what gets me is how people fear this debt, like china is gonna call us up and demand california as a late payment~ our monetary system is almost entirely theoretical; the dollar has no intrinsic value other than the value assigned by the rest of the world. I just don't get it. maybe the US will file for chapter 11, that would be classic lol. theres a good video on theonion.com (and on youtube) about congress staging a fake coupe to eliminate our debt~ i thought it was pretty funny, i'll have to post a link

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Permalink Reply by david perry on November 1, 2010 at 11:27am

The tea party is, of course, a media driven creation. Can you imagine trying promote that kind of lunacy without television? lol...like that hasn't happened before.
I suppose some comments on the media from McLuhan would work here(for some: I think he's shallow and glib for the most part), but this analysis of the corporate media industry was written some 60+ years ago and is somewhat more trenchant than McLuhan, from a rather different point of view.
Be warned, it is rather long, but I think it's one of the most insightful critiques on the subject I've come across.
Even if you're familiar with this, it's complex enough to warrant multiple readings.

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Permalink Reply by Maia Rodriguez on November 1, 2010 at 1:08pm

Every one of you should watch this video.

Faith Based Candidates.

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Permalink Reply by david perry on November 1, 2010 at 1:52pm

On CNN they promote the same crap as Fox. Here we are, arguing in at least a few places on the Nexus about the atheistic equivelent of how many demons can dance on the head of a pin, and the country stumbles towards a theocratic nightmare.
The logo on my Nexus home page is "Atheism Is Politics" for a damn good reason.
I think that something we often overlook is that Religion Sells. The thing is, they're like snake-oil salesmen, they can do their business wholly knowing what they're selling is crap, and the people will keep on buying it regardless("there's a sucker born every minute"). (If any of you ever can, I can't recommend enough that you see the movie "Marjoe". Remember the actor Marjoe Gortner? Before he became an actor, he was a carny tent preacher as a child, and a profitable one too. It's a behind the scenes documentary about how he separated people from their salaries. He was in on it which is the kicker, his flock had no idea he was being filmed to expose the hypocrisy, not because the lord told him he had to return to the pulpit.)
We've been talking about the evils of the for-profit health care and so forth, I think it's time we do the same for religion. Somehow take the profit out of it. If there's no money in it anymore, people will stop paying attention fast ya' betcha'.

Anyway, this is another interesting blog post about the republican agenda.

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