It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct
the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present
period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its
being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree
of comparison only.
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
English novelist (1812 – 1870)I am appalled as I watch the news lately.
All these angry people, screaming at the top of their lungs, having so readily digested the lies fed to them by the multibillion dollar corporate interests which are set on keeping the status quo at all costs, via supposedly community organizations in favor of “citizens”, it’s shameful!
How can these people believe such outrageous lies and without fact checking, pounce on others, make a show of themselves in front of cameras, for the world to see their misguided anger and inexcusable rudeness?
Where was that anger when Bush, Cheney and company were trampling our constitution, lying for a profitable war that brought millions to their private companies’ coffers (Halliburton) and death to so many?
Where was this angry mob when the Republican-majority congress rolled over and green-lit every greedy, selfish, corrupt and misguided request of their Republican peers in the executive and legislative branches?
Shameful disrespect for our president - Photo Credit: Erica Stead - Huffington Post
These embarrassing angry mobs are made up of the same people who were happy to stay home and do nothing about the disastrous situation the Republican party was leading our country into for the past 8 years.
It seems so hypocritical to me now that there is a new president making changes and working hard at fixing the mess left behind, now that finally the democrats are truly back in power, only months after their inauguration, how everyone is throwing rocks at the administration, including the media, without giving them sufficient time and space to clean up and undo all the damage left behind by the previous administration.
Did they forget who started the fire on the house and kept it going until it burnt out of control?
The very members of this mob helplessly and lazily watched things burn and get destroyed in Washington by the Republicans and did nothing. Oh yes, they did one thing, many voted for the same gang to keep burning and destroying what president Clinton and the democrats had left behind before the Republicans stole the election in 2000.
We went from a surplus in 1999 to a multi-billion dollar deficit by the time there was a change of power in January 2009. But that wasn’t all.
We were at the brink of a depression, a deep and fast-spiraling recession that had started over 12 months ago, but the Republicans kept denying and doing nothing about!
Photo Credit: WTSP.com - Click on the picture for source article
Where were these angry people? Why didn’t they ask for their “America” back then?
Where were these angry people when the WMDs were found to be a falsehood?
Where were these angry people when Katrina happened?
Anger unleashed - but is it the right time and place?
Where were these angry people when the man they called their president just flew over the largest natural disaster area as he watched from his plane window, so detached, as if it were a TV movie, not happening to his constituents?
Where were these angry people when Dick Cheney and his gang divulged the name of a CIA operative, committing treason and endangering her life and that of those around her?
Where were these angry people when Abu Graib occurred and the shameful pictures were shown and the Republican administration in a gesture of their trademark hypocrisy had the nerve to pick on the low ranking members of the military who were only following orders from the upper echelons?
Democracy at its best and its worst
Where were these angry people when their Republican-led congress passed every initiative and law suggested by the thugs running the country from the White House?
Where were these angry mobs when many attorneys in the White House staff were fired for refusing to yield to their political agenda?
Where were these angry mobs when the elections were rigged in Florida, when the count was unfairly stopped? When proof of election fraud was found in Ohio in 2006?
These people may not get paid to do this, but no doubt their biases & fears are being exploited
Oh! “Americans are cool.” I was told. “They are respectful of the law and order and even if they don’t agree with their politicians, they abide by the democratic process.”
I’m not so sure I can believe this today, as I watch the nastiness, the malicious lines, the lies, the outrageous exaggerations (death panels, socialism).
Are people so desperate to believe anything the mouths of hate tell them, no matter how incredible, so they can have an excuse to hate and look to destroy an administration that is trying hard to put out the fire and fix the mess left behind by the very people they have supported?
They call this a process of democracy. I would like to applaud it but as much as I agree it’s an extreme form of democracy, I feel shivers down my spine because I see the hate and the anger. And like many, I find it disturbing.
How far are we going to let things go?
I try to understand where this anger is coming from. But I can’t excuse the behavior. I cannot understand why are they taking their anger out on the wrong people, on the very people who are trying to fix what’s wrong.
I can’t understand why they continue to be kind to the ones responsible for their woes.
It puzzles me greatly.
And then, I have to unfortunately recognize that the only reason for this irrational behavior, for these mobs to side with the very people responsible for the damage and to yell and scream at those currently in power who are trying hard to fix things, is one thing.
Race.
These mobs are not angry over what’s happened. They are angry that people who do not look like them, who may be of a different culture or color are now in charge and making decisions that will affect their lives.
They fear perhaps that the way they have treated those who don’t look like them, is going to come back and bite them. And so they fight hard and use any excuse, no matter how outrageous the lie, to call for death, for hate, for insurrection, for disorder, against those currently in power, who are trying hard to fix things, who were either powerless or not around –for the most part– when the Republicans (who for the most part look like them) ran things and drove the country into the ditch we’re so hard trying to pull ourselves from.
No doubt that the likes of Limbaugh, Beck and Dobbs (interestingly, white men) have done a good job bringing out the worse in some people, who I’m aware still make up a minority, yet large enough to grab the attention of the sensationalist media that thrives on chaos and ratings.
And I worry.
I do hope that the Democrats and truly independents, as well as those enlightened members of the media and the Republican party (or whatever is left of it) take notice, realize that this hateful and dangerous noise needs to stop. It needs to be diffused because standing in the way of progress is not true democracy, is damaging to the sorely needed process of rebuilding.
I worry because I don’t know who’s watching the mouths of hate, the mouths of those calling for insurrection, calling our still newly elected president a Nazi, among other awful racists and hateful adjectives.
Who’s watching?
Is anyone wondering how far is this going to go?
Guns, righteousness, hate, anger, lack of respect? It’s not a good combination.
He’s only been in power 7 months! And we’re already rating him???
Did we forget it took 8 years to get us into this mess?
I thought only the poor and the ignorant in Latin America could be fed a plate of lies by their so-called “thought leaders”.
North Americans have always been proud and considered themselves more “sophisticated” and “civilized”. But I see there is really no difference when it comes to some people here in the States. I see the pro-Zelaya, pro-Chavez thugs, in Latin America, wearing red, armed with flags, hateful posters, with sticks, guns, spewing hate, calling for insurrection, insulting, screaming and taunting others into violence. I watch these mostly white crowds do the same here in the States, and I cringe.
These are the tactics fed to the mob to unleash them to cause disturbances
I realize that as a human race, we haven’t advanced much from the mob that filled the Roman coliseum centuries ago and delighted on chaos, blood and killing those they didn’t understand.
Unfortunately a thought has begun to percolate through me and thousands of other citizens with whom I share here and in other communities such as Twitter, Facebook, business networks, etc… Having been raised partly in Latin America, race is not how I define someone, and so I have refused to consider race a factor behind people’s mean and irrational behavior, even if it was blatantly in front of me.
But today, after all I see on TV and in the faces of some of the older white folks around, the damaging thought is beginning to seep in my head. Could it be that because now women and minorities seem to be in more prominent positions in government, the less enlightened feel they can yell and scream because after all, they have no respect for them, even if they are now in positions of power?
Could it be that people’s racism has been exacerbated by the hateful rhetoric of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Lou Dobbs, etc…?
A black family in the White House, a Wise Latina in the Supreme Court, a woman as Speaker of the House. Could it be that some people are getting nervous? And their fear of “losing” their power, “their America” is expressed in the excessive and misplaced outrage many years too late, way after the fire has damaged so much and the new administration is fighting hard at putting it out?
These “outraged” folks are now screaming at the firemen because the house looks messy and burnt?
It is obvious that the desperate attempts of the drowning existence of the fading Republican Party have finally found a cause to get people out. Something finally has caught on and enraged people. The “tea parties” sham didn’t catch on. The birthers were denounced even by some of the more enlightened conservatives.
Spreading lies and disinformation about Healthcare Reform has been the bonanza of the birthers and the tea party crowd, because now the issues are closer to home, enough to bring many of these less enlightened folks out.
The corporate interests were only too happy to pour their millions behind the right wing groups to stir dissent, hate and fear, and send people, who were ripe for it, out like mad dogs after the very people –a very diverse team spanning all races and age range– who are trying to fix the system.
And it seems to be working.
I only hope that this fever pitch has reached its zenith, and more cool heads will prevail.
We NEED health care reform.
We NEED a public option.
And this CANNOT wait any longer.
I was inside corporate America when Hillary care was attempted. I saw the hate and the money behind the effort to defeat the Clintons’ attempts to break the status quo. I saw the joyous celebration of the high ranking corporate executives congratulating themselves on the defeat of Hillary care back then. I saw them get themselves in their limos and celebrate at the most expensive restaurants with the most expensive bottles in the menu. Money of the tax payers, of insurance companies, of hardworking Americans goes to pay these excesses, these multimillion dollar efforts to defeat initiatives for the people.
When are people going to get it?
These so called “citizen” groups are a front for corporate efforts to keep the status quo.
Can’t people see they are being used?
Their emotions, fears, anger and bias have been aroused with lies and are being steered against the very change we voted for.
It’s the old trick that I see typically in South America, used by the likes of Chavez, Zelaya, Correa, Morales, and Castro. Blame it on the other guy!
I really thought all Americans had been inoculated against that.
It’d be a shame when years later, quite too late by then, should these lies-based movements have any success at thwarting progress, people will finally see what our current administration is trying to do: fix what’s wrong, and prevent the catastrophes that are likely to occur in our future if we keep going in the same path as the past 8 years.
Change is not easy, but it needs to happen.
Those daring enough to initiate change have endured the ignorance of those comfortable in the status quo:
1. Remember abolition? Wasn’t that the birth of the Republican party? How far have they strayed from their origins.
2. Remember the Woman’s Suffrage movement and what those brave women endured?
3. Remember the Civil Rights movement and what many brave citizens endured.
4. Norma Rae
5. Ghandi, Walesa, Mandela… yes, change is not easy on those comfortable with the status quo.
The anger needs to be directed to those responsible for the damage, not the ones who are trying to fix things.
People need to get over the race issue.
Is that too much to ask for?
