American Psychosis: What happens to a society that cannot distinguish between reality

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by Michaelangelica, Dec 12, 2010.

  1. Michaelangelica

    Michaelangelica Junior Member

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    e United States, locked in the kind of twilight disconnect that grips dying empires, is a country entranced by illusions. It spends its emotional and intellectual energy on the trivial and the absurd. It is captivated by the hollow stagecraft of celebrity culture as the walls crumble. This celebrity culture giddily licenses a dark voyeurism into other people’s humiliation, pain, weakness and betrayal. Day after day, one lurid saga after another, whether it is Michael Jackson, Britney Spears or John Edwards, enthralls the country … despite bank collapses, wars, mounting poverty or the criminality of its financial class.

    The virtues that sustain a nation-state and build community, from honesty to self-sacrifice to transparency to sharing, are ridiculed each night on television as rubes stupid enough to cling to this antiquated behavior are voted off reality shows. Fellow competitors for prize money and a chance for fleeting fame, cheered on by millions of viewers, elect to “disappear” the unwanted. In the final credits of the reality show America’s Next Top Model, a picture of the woman expelled during the episode vanishes from the group portrait on the screen. Those cast aside become, at least to the television audience, nonpersons. Celebrities that can no longer generate publicity, good or bad, vanish. Life, these shows persistently teach, is a brutal world of unadulterated competition and a constant quest for notoriety and attention.

    Our culture of flagrant self-exaltation, hardwired in the American character, permits the humiliation of all those who oppose us. We believe, after all, that because we have the capacity to wage war we have a right to wage war. Those who lose deserve to be erased. Those who fail, those who are deemed ugly, ignorant or poor, should be belittled and mocked. Human beings are used and discarded like Styrofoam boxes that held junk food. And the numbers of superfluous human beings are swelling the unemployment offices, the prisons and the soup kitchens.

    More at
    https://projectworldawareness.com/2...not-distinguish-between-reality-and-illusion/

    you have to wonder why so many Yanks remain honest and loyal to the system when you read things like this
    https://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/12/12/vermont.unemployed/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_politics

     
  2. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    all we can do is hope the US economy collapses before they dso much more harm worldwide ...........
     
  3. milifestyle

    milifestyle New Member

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    I reckon we need more leaks from Wiki...
     
  4. Alex.s

    Alex.s Junior Member

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    Thanks for the link; the Pullitzer prize winner Chris Hedges wrote this, the amount of intelligent and highly acclaimed people warning of the coming crisis is startling.
    As for wiki, he goes to court tomorrow, and there is still the 'information bomb' if anything happens to him apparently.

    I just sincerely hope that the predictions which outline our incapacity to seriously disrupt the earth's harmony correct, i.e. not enough oil for runaway climate change. That is a bright light for everyone if it's true, that we can learn from this and build a sustainable society in the post-modern times.
     
  5. DonHansford

    DonHansford Junior Member

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    I try to be optimistic, but sometimes it's hard :( Even if the oil ran out tomorrow, the effects will take a long time to run down and then reverse the damage. In a few short generations, we have managed to pollute 70% or more of the fresh water available on the planet. The flow on effects of that alone could doom humanity to eventual extinction.

    Ooops ... getting pessimistic now, better stop :)
     
  6. Michaelangelica

    Michaelangelica Junior Member

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    https://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/06/live-from-planet-norte.html
     
  7. DonHansford

    DonHansford Junior Member

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    Scary thing I heard a while ago (can't quite remember where ... thanks alzheimers!) was that a US survey found that a huge percentage - more than half - of their responders believed that they didn't need to care for the environment, because the apocalypse is due soon, and Jesus will come and fix everything.
     
  8. Grahame

    Grahame Senior Member

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    Oh dear.
     
  9. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    How convenient! I wonder if any responded "well what do you think Jesus would think of your inaction?" I'd bet he'd be as angry as that day in the temple when he upset the money-lenders.
     
  10. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Senior Member

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    It is one of the major concerns that the Christian belief is this world will be destroyed mainly by our sins (which is true) but the solution is worship God, don't be concerned with the Earth as God will create a new one that's better than this one.
    Mainstream Christianity major concern with the Environmental movement is the worship of the earth and not the guy who created it.
    You combine that with the other main stream religion of Capitalism and its don't worry the market will fix everything.
    The delusional system that requires constant growth and massively undervalues finite resources can not go on for ever, the problem is its gone on for too long already.
    You think man would have learnt when he ran out of mummified Egyptian Cats to feed the steam trains and fertilise the fields or Sperm Whales nearly disappeared so we could have our lanterns on at night.There was always the next thing ,I just don't think we have a next thing this time that can totally fill the void that oil will leave.(and that's probably a really good thing)

    Bring on the post materialist agrarian renaissance I'm so sick of the Dark Ages
     
  11. 9anda1f

    9anda1f Administrator Staff Member

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    Thanks everybody, this article (and Joe Bageant's also) is so true. The majority of the US population has been rendered impotent and unable to think by television and anti-depressant drugs (https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5725E720090804) coupled with general "magical belief systems" (I won't go there) .... we've become a nation of zombies. In my experience, the vast majority of Americans cannot grasp the concept of "finite resources" and are firmly wedded to an underlying belief in "perpetual growth". It's pathetic to witness and it's hard to live among such folks, which is why I hang here with you all! = )
     
  12. Fernando Pessoa

    Fernando Pessoa Junior Member

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    This is a thread full of people care,and wishful thinking.
    It;s terrible to see a whole community politicized and happy to see the destruction of another community.America is full of people trying to make a difference,it's funny how Australians fail to place themselves in the same frame.We are after all the world highest polluters per capita.However when we start to attack people the religious views they hold and the country they live in,we have lost the game.Permaculture has been injected with a rank insensitivity,over the last number of years as we all wait and applaud a collapse.It would be similar to sitting at Christmas island and cheering as the boat smashed against the rock.We could justify this behaviour with "well they are only crazy Muslims who destroyed their own country and now want to destroy ours"it's a slippery slope this nationalistic judgement combine it with a little religious intolerance and you have a recipe for a good old fashioned genocide or at least a genocide of indifference.
    All you need is love da da da da da
    Best wishes Fernando
     
  13. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    I have no illusions about australians - the majority are dutifully following America. But then that is what America does - exports its brianwashing via TV shows, movies and reinforces it if necessary with their military ........ the whole world is a potential market - all they need is to brainwash ( oops educate ] them to the America way ..........

    If you have been here in Western Redneckia ( perth WA ) listening to talk back radio yesterday that is exactly what the wankers were saying

    I say roll on the big crash and the sooner the better !

    frosty
     
  14. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    "The majority of the US population has been rendered impotent and unable to think by television and anti-depressant drugs"

    9andahalf, you clearly know nothing about antidepressant medication or depression. I've been taking them off and on since 1997. If i wasn't taking them, I wouldn't be gardening at all. I would have neither the motivation nor the energy. They are the only things that actually make my brain and body function at the level that most other people seem to take for granted. I have also had occasion to observe that they make no negative difference to my sexual function either. That is more a matter for men than women anyway.
     
  15. Alex.s

    Alex.s Junior Member

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    I don't think anyone is happy that such a tragedy that will affect the whole human race is going to occur, but most people I know are optimistic that the consumer society will be replaced with something far more sensitive to our ecological role. I am cheering on the collapse of the society which fails to account for the true values of human life and systematically rapes the earth for a bunch of numbers that make a few men in suits feel smart and powerful. I am not cheering on the widespread famine, disease and greater depression that will eventuate. I am cheering on the anarchy and civil unrest as this great illusion unties it's weak promise of material satisfaction and comfort. This collapse is the only way out of this madness. America does get the brunt, but they are also the most twisted nation, read what their secretary of defence says about the wikileaks fiasco;

    This is politicising corruption and justifying a government that is not transparent, all because the economic system makes it necessary. It isn't just that this system is contorted in it's ability to exploit the masses through its pyramid scheme, but it is destroying everything of any real value in the process. The environment is more important to me than cheap plastic goods, bring on the collapse. If we humans are ignorant enough to keep on destroying the earth until we are destroyed, then bring on our death as well. Derrick Jensen states that what we are seeking is not a physical death, but a spiritual death. The spirit of humanity is being systematically polluted by the wrong ideals put forward by lies and conflict.

    It is not like the Christmas Island tragedy because everybody gets hurt, including the onlookers, including the world that nourishes us. It has been said that Western democracy is just a filtered form of fascism, with the power of our propensity towards ignorance and the illusion that being 'successful' requires money and a good job, we are within our own prison. It has been said that we are essentially living a psychotic illusion, we have caged ourselves and are slowly losing touch with reality which is the animals and plants and sounds and smells and sights that make us feel alive. If hunter-gatherers were to look at us they would think we are insane for the ways we act and the values we hold, and we are.

    Unfortunately America embodies these twisted ideals, and the rest of the world is racing to become 'like America', because we are just as blind. It is not the collapse of America I am cheering, but the collapse of the foundations of ignorance, corruption, greed and fear. I want these aspects of the human psyche to collapse so that we can come back to ourselves, grow up, and start living in harmony with the earth.
     
  16. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

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    Nice sentiments Fernando, we do need to think more on that aspect.
    I wonder what Bernado Soares would say to you reply if he was around ( havn't seen much of him lately)

    Thanks Alex that too is nice.
     
  17. SueUSA

    SueUSA Junior Member

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    First off, Americans have been educated to be ignorant and stupid for almost 120 years by the school system. The so-called 'education' here doesn't have anything to do with learning to read and write, math, geography, history, political truths, etc. It is estimated that 30 to 40% of our population is functionally illiterate. We are educated to do as we're told (remember Hitler?) and to be good consumers. That's it. After all, it's easier to control ignorant people than it is to control educated people.

    But the overwhelming greed (please learn to differentiate between capitalism and overwhelming greed, they ARE different) has a built-in OFF switch. You can't keep doing what this country has been doing and have it continue indefinitely, it is guaranteed to crash, just like Rome, and for probably the same reasons.

    There are lots of people here (and all over the world) that still make sense, but the Powers don't want to hear them because it will interfere with their plans. The fact that their plans can't continue indefinitely doesn't really occur to them, I don't think.

    Australia has psychotic politicians running things who are every bit as bad and every bit as greedy and self-serving as here in the U.S. And so does Japan, Greece, Korea, Italy, Iran, Romania and every other country. They are people who revel in power and think they are not only above the laws of the land, but also immune to the laws of economics AND the laws of physics.

    Every other country has bought into this fake reality show, every single one. No one stood up to America and said, "NO!" Australia certainly didn't, did it? The people in control felt that there was more to gain (personally) than there was to lose (country-wise). Politicians only think in terms of length of office. If they do have a stray thought that says to them that what they're doing won't work for long, they squash it down with the thought that it only has to work long enough for THEIR term to play out, the the next person who gets their job can figure out how to deal with the ensuing problems.

    America is in very, very bad financial shape. We have 50 states, and 46 of them are broke or will be in a very few months. You know where this federal government is-- where is YOURS, financially?

    In 2008, Seychelles, Belarus, Pakistan, Iceland, Ukraine were on the edge of financial collapse and were looking for help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Since then there's Greece, Japan, Portugal, and Spain, and since spring there have been rumors of Italy and Ireland and all the countries on the Euro teetering on the edge.

    If/when countries start to default on their financial obligations, they take other countries with them. The debt held by the banking system of many countries is close to, or greater than the gross domestic product (GDP) of that country. Two+ years ago, Germany's bank assets were 80% of their GDP; Britain's Barclay assets were 100% of Britain's GDP; Scotland's Royal Bank, 140%; Switzerland's UBS, 450%. Do you think they're better off now, or worse?

    And if Hungary defaults on its loans, Austria's banks would collapse, and if Austria's do, Germany's may well follow. If Pakistan and S. Korea go down, what happens then?

    All our countries are linked together with both debts and exceedingly poor judgment, so if a few of the small countries start collapsing, we're all going down. There won't be anyone on top of the pile to sneer with glee. Certainly not Australia.

    Sue
     
  18. milifestyle

    milifestyle New Member

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    The same as in Australia where Education is the creation of Tax Payers of the future... period! If one falls outside the ability to be a tax payer they become a product of the system.

    When it comes to disabled kids, although Inclusion is put out there as an option for education it is done so with strong advice that Special Education Facilities are a better option... the option for inclusion MUST be put on the table to avoid discrimination claims.

    Why? Its a 2 part answer...

    One - The system tries to keep the focus of mainstream school on the creation of tomorrows Tax payers, nothing that interferes in this Nation building necessity is given priority in this system...

    Two - Disabled kids are no longer educated on their needs but taught to become the people that carers and aids are taught to teach and care for. PODD for example is a speech program using cartoon pictures that is taught to Disabled kids and Carers are taught to communicate with it as well... its not necessarily the best form of communication for the child but it is duplicatable across both spectrum's - the child and the carer...

    Kids are no longer taught to be Individuals but another cog in the system to maintain its smooth running... if something interferes with this its ejected from the system or laws are used to force the individuals and parents rights...

    Unfortunately the old cliche "Only In America" now includes Australia...
     
  19. springtide

    springtide Junior Member

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    Speaking of times long past - didn' cesar keep the ppl occupied with games, intrigue and gladiators to keep their minds off what he was up to? - this time the senators are being paid off so no chance of any change this time round.
     
  20. Chief Cloudpiler

    Chief Cloudpiler Junior Member

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    Thank you for that Fernando. What the hell? Do people really think that the U.K., or China, or Sweden, or France, or anywhere..................Sorry. I sort of lost myself in the humus of my soggy mind there trying to find a country that is not equally responsible for the train wreck we call a planet as any other. Is it possible that all human history is to be forgotten because one big country is about to go through horrible and unthinkable misery. Does anybody think that their lot is going to be better because the Late Great U. S. of A. has gone down in a blaze inglory? The world economy was devastated when the U.K. fell from the desirable position that the U.S. inherited. It was equally devasted when the England inherited the coveted position from the Netherlands. And so it goes backward for as long as our culture remembers.

    Reveling in the misery of another just doesn't sound like the kind of response that will build an agrarian utopia. It conveniently forgets that the Ugly American can in fact be just as effectively trying to create a sustainable future as the Ugly Australian, or Ugly African, or Ugly English, or Ugly ................zzzzzzzzzzzzz
     

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