I will admit that I am not entirely clear on the whole economic bailout thing. Too much that I just don't understand. But, if the government was able to pay off all these mortgages, debts, etc, that caused these companies to go bankrupt in the first place, would that not help the economy by letting them get back on their feet? I know that the money has to come from somewhere, but do the people making millions of dollars a year really need that extra little bit of tax money to survive? Not nearly as much as the lower-class people who got us into this mess in the first place.
My opinion, of course.
And as far as your opening point, I agree completely. We are so blinded by our own "awesomeness" that it seems like most Americans don't even pay attention to the rest of the world, much less acknowledge that there are bigger problems facing smaller nations than our own. It's pretty cliche to blame the media, but it's cliche for a reason. Because it IS their fault.
lol @ "The Fear Button"...I like that
Adam you subtly answered your own question when you say..."that there are times where fear is the most useful of tools when had and controlled." Who controls the FEAR button? Who is to say that them controlling it are any better prepared than them they want to depose?
Humanity, everywhere it has (de)evolved, is not a machine ripe for manipulation. That the swell of masses can be thus manipulated tells more of the manipulator than the lemming crowd.
Lenin, using Marxist theory motivated a bloody revolution that went on to 70 years of terror and death in the old Soviet.
Jesus, using Jewish Torah, motivated a revolution which in the end result is just as bloody, but none the less giving understanding to them who will have it. Understanding that the end result of his teaching should be freedom from fear.
I use the two as contrasting examples of the same result not as a probity of my personal thought.
I do not like, nor ever have, the use of fear to move the crowd. Logic is the right tool. Actions taken in fear are usually the wrong and bloodiest ones. I never supported Bush, nor Chaney's war. Yet when fear came upon the people these two used it to go after their own goals to the detriment of the citizenry of the nation.
If one were to contrast the Iraq invasion and the corresponding deficit rise, one can see the financial price of fear. Logic on the other hand dictated at the time that the threat to America was in the hills of Afghanistan, not the deserts of Iraq. In following the course of the Iraq invasion, supported at the time by the majority of Americans, one can see that Bush has given the victory to bin Laden that the terrorist sought.
That is the ultimate overthrow of American dominance in the world through destruction of the thing that gave us supremacy; our economy. This is the end result of fear perpetrated upon the nation.
Now we can see the historical evidence of the result of fear used as a tool. In the basement level the result is 11(+ -)trillion in debt. 7T of which is directly attributed to the current fear mongering administration.
So now we move to a grass roots organized campaign of fear. In whose hands is this weapon to be held? Who is to strike the match and then keep the fire under control?
Mila 19, by Leon Uris, a fictionalized account of the true WWII Warsaw ghetto uprising by the Jews, or the Czechoslovakian uprising in the 60's are both good examples of what lengths governments go to in suppressing dissent. Both were righteous causes for freedom but they also both caused the organism called government to fear of it's own survival.
Years before the 18th century American revolution ever saw Bunker Hill or the Boston massacre, there was a pin point campaign of spun logic that guided the thoughts of the people towards colonial independence. Have you ever read the Rights of Man by the greatest American pamphleteer and propagandist, Thomas Paine?
Yes that revolution did end in war and blood, there was no hope for it otherwise. BUT the difference is it was not motivated in the revolutionaries by fear, but rather by an over abiding sense of rights and wrongs. Them not inclined to fight, were pulled in by logic not fear.
I feel, feel mind you, an Anarchist bent to your politic. *shrug* At least you have one. More of a political direction than about half the available electorate in this country. I simply do not agree with violence for the sake of violence or violence exacerbated by the use of fear as a tool.
This American government like all governments beyond the tribal level has become a living organism. One which has the same priority as all other organisms; SURVIVAL no matter the cost. People can be replaced, government as organism feels it can not and will kill as many of its own people as necessary to survive. Witness Stalin as an example.
There is a path to revolution in this country of ours, but at the moment I don't see violence as a paving stone in that path. Neither do I see fear as useful. Logic is the road and in my own personal calculations I see where logic has not run in the equation yet.
I am simply a poet in this life. Not a thinker of great thoughts nor a leader of men. I have no desire for either place. But I do know this, I do not want to see an American Tienanmen Square. Not yet anyway.
Now to your post.......when talking revolution, you are on very dangerous ground. However, I agree....something must change.
It really falls upon good old human nature to squeeze out every drop before letting go. Unfortunately, this time, the last drop exploded in our faces.
Darfur..... "Out of site out of mind" "it's not my problem", "I have my own problems"........which one fits you (generic you)? What it takes is more people like you to throw it in our faces. KEEP IT GOING!!
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Thanks,
Mel
To: The Walking Man
Very well said, sir, very well indeed.
I appreciate your honesty, also. I think that you are right, fear is the greatest motivator for that type of revolution. But I pose this question (a question that I do not claim to know the answer to): where is the line between fear that is sparked from hatred and irrationality and fear that is sparked in reaction to the hatred and irrationality in the hands of powerful men?
Fear, as you well said, is the motivation of such talk. And while I will agree that fear is best if unused, I ALSO would urge you to consider that there are times where fear is the most useful of tools when had and controlled. It would then, according to some, not be fear but rather a type of worried foresight. Whether or not this is true or if this is one of the afore mentioned times, I do not know.
I appreciated very much your commentary and I hope to hear from you and dialogue with you in the future.
Adam T. Wamack - A Young Influence
Hey Adam,
Very well said! It is unfortunate, but true: when people were being slaughtered in Rwanda, nobody gave a damn; when people began to be slaughtered and raped in Sudan, nobody gave a damn; when people were being used in scientific-sadistic experiments in Bosnia, nobody gave a damn; when protesters in Tibet were slashed down by the Chinese police, nobody cared because the Olympics couldn't be ruined...
But once there is a financial crisis: whoah, up goes the neighbourhood!
I agree that money is important, for without it we cannot even do charity, nor help whomever we wish...but must we so scandalously pay more attention to it than to human misery?
Excellent article!
Cheers
It is a sad state of affairs when we neglect to aid human suffering in Darfur, but will traumatize ourselves over money.
Cash, dinar's, dineros, euro's and pounds are nothing, of no value to the holder of them in good times or in bad. It is the goods and services that paper buys that has value to the consumer.
The basic tenet of Regeanomic economic theory was let the credit market swell the ability of the average American to consume, and through this consumption the American economy will grow. This is the end game of that three decade theory. Regean did not take greed into his choices for deregulation, nor in his choices to use the economy as the tool for bankrupting the old Soviet. The soviet collapse "proved" the theory of deficit spending.
So the consumer is not blameless in this. The sucker bet of buying more and more on plastic that had no worth behind it lays directly in the lap of the consumer. Madison Ave. is the pimp for this whore called consumerism, Wall Street is the john, never thinking beyond the immediate pleasure. Never being concerned with economic STD's. The American people are the prostitute laying down for what ever the john wants, because Madison Ave. told us..."the good feeling will always be there."
Well eventually the hole always goes dry. Historically we have had these dry holes before. Only the numbers have changed. In 1920's dollars this 700 billion would be a far larger dollar for sure, but as you note it is numbers on a screen. The real wealth is the things represented by those numbers. Buy American properties, what difference does it make? Land and what sits upon it can not be taken to another country. But land can be reapportioned for other uses than the one an owner intended. Say food production for instance.
While I agree with most of your article, I find that your call for revolution in the streets and the use of weaponry to topple this current state of government to be shortsighted at the least, deadly at the most. Fear motivates such talk, mixed with hatred it is irrational.
NO FEAR
Thanks for the comments (from ruebenh)at my blog. 
Hmmm not sure I agree completely. The US economy slowdown does affect the livelihood of many people across the world more than the war in Georgia ever could.
Thx for drop by my blog.
Truly, i don't know the level of dependency that we are in to. During these times it has been as we say here "one hand full of nothing" (or less than that) its not that i'm being pessimistic but these are facts: war as business, unemployment as business, politics as business...
as All Paccino said in "DEVILS ADVOCATE" ---- "We are always in business" and at the end its all numbers decisions...
Whats the correct path??? I dont have the answer for this.
Gallardo
Thanks for stopping by. Yes it is unfortunate that money trumps life or rather loss of it due to war and such when it comes to news. In fact, it's amazing how there was no money around say, to help the education system, give our war veterans benefits, or improve healthcare to those in need of it but don't have insurance.
It's crony capitalism. It's getting attention because the government is now suddenly motivated to bail out their friends. If it was a common person, they wouldn't care.
But it's their friends who own these companies and are getting the "help."
Our priorities are very much out of whack.
Good post. You are so right.
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