MrMacphisto said:
Jim, I have to disagree with you on one point: the trend was not started by Clinton but by the Red Scare. Clinton is a more modern example of someone who sacrifices freedoms, but the beginning of this governmental behavior began with our fear of Communism. I'm not sure why people are so stupid as to think that sacrificing freedoms somehow equals security, but apparently, it's an easy sell with such an ignorant public. As demonstrated by "Bowling for Columbine" and "Dr. Strangelove," fear is quite a powerful tool for those that would oppress or destroy us. The media maintains its stranglehold on our societal consciousness by means of fear. Somehow, patriotism substitutes any real sense of security among humans, and then the government is free to do as it pleases. Perhaps, Nietzsche was right after all: the majority of people are simply untermenschen destined to be oppressed by the greedy ubermenschen. This trend does not seem alterable in the near future....
It's amazing the things I see in movies and suchlike that reflect exactly what is happening in real life. Like in Star Wars with Palpatine growing up inside the Republic and withering it from inside, our freedoms and liberties are being eroded and strangled by gits like Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Thatcher, Blair and soon to be, Michael Howard. Not from outside by terrorists and mental lunatics like Osama and Saddam.
Also like another movie, Monsters Inc, fear is the fuel that keeps this shit-clogged engine running. You remember how the ickle monsters would get into kids bedrooms, scare them and then bottle the fear for energy? Politicians and their best mates who own the allegedly "independant" media do exactly the same. Massively exaggerate crime figures, terrorists problems and the likelihood of rogue states nuking us within 45 minutes, then use our hysteria (largely induced by them to start with) to slice and dice our freedoms and have us thanking them for doing it.
However, fear not. A venomous snake is at it's most lethal and dangerous when it's been given a death wound and is flailing about spitting poison in all directions; spasming in its death throes. The suffering in the next decade or so is going to be worse than in any time previously in human history; but like the snake, the perpetrators are on their way out. It's the death rattle rattle of a terminally ill animal. So the trend is alterable and it is alterING. Qjakal pointed out in my Part 4 thread about 9/11 that public anger at the lying and mismanagement of the war by Dubya's administration, was making the prosecution of further invasions next to impossible. He was probably/possibly very surprised when I wholeheartedly agreed with him. In all the writings I've done, people tend to assume that I'm 100% doom and gloom, saying that an unbelievably powerful clique is in charge and manipulating us to do whatever they want, with no chance of us ever throwing it off. The opposite is true though. Not only is it coming down, but it's coming down soon and coming down with a resounding crash! I would guess that it'll happen within the next decade, probably the next eight or nine years. The amount of people (and especially the ever growing number of American people) who refuse to "take this shit lying down" is growing by the day. Every peaceful march and protest is a sign of it. Every refusal to swallow the shit humanity has for centuries, signifies the growing of something really special: mankind waking up and challenging the manipulators to put their money where their mouth is. The real war heroes are the ones like those guys and one gal who refused to go to Iraq because they considered the invasion, illegal, unecessary and immoral. They risked a possible death sentence for mutiny, and definate ruination of their careers and 99% of their friendships by doing so, but by God they stood up and did it! Personally I think that's why things are going to be so rough between now and the end of it all. They'll do anything to keep the people frightened and aquiescent to their domination; including organising jet-liners to be flown into prominent buildings. (They needed SOMETHING that'd frighten people enough to agree to the Patriot Act, the most draconian series of laws ever to be passed on American citizens since slavery.)
Contrary to common opinion, it's a wonderful time to be alive!