Re: Fundi i ëndrres amerikane ??
Ja nje artikull interesant dhe domethenes.....
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Unemployed in Dreamland
by Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire
Sept. 10, 2004
I'm unemployed in Dreamland. I call America Dreamland because most of the people here are fast asleep. Or they are sleep walking. Or they are living in an alternate reality. Or if they do understand the dangers we face as nation, they are in denial. Sure, a few million of us -- some of us even march against the war -- are tuned in to what's happening but we are so marginalized by the corporate media our outrage and actions (signing that petition to get Nader on the ballot in your state) are less than useless.
In fact, our actions are futile, maybe even dangerous to our personal safety -- for if history is any indication, when Bush is "re-elected" his minions (Ashcroft, the FBI, the Ministry of Homeland Security, even the CIA, recently empowered on the domestic scene) will go after those who disagree in any significant way with bureaucratic zeal. Look no further than the 60s and COINTELPRO. For an extreme example, look at Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Like I said, I'm unemployed. I worked at a university. I built distance education web sites and instructed teachers how to use technology in the classroom. But this year Bush cut funding for the program and the lights went out. Bush is spending trillions of dollars and very little of it makes its way to education. Most of it is sent to the Pentagon so they can blow things up and make life on earth a living hell for a whole lot of Iraqis and Afghans and other "rogue" peoples.
Every day I get on the web and check Monster and CareerBuilder. Nada, or very little, for a person with my "skillset," as they say.
Of course, it is worse, far worse, for the guy who worked in a factory. His job was shipped to Mexico or China a long time ago.
A few years ago people with my skill and experience were in high demand -- mostly because a few rich people figured the internet was the next big thing and if they "invested" in it they would make a whole lot of money -- but when that didn't pan out they jumped ship and there was something called the "Internet Bubble" and it burst, sending a lot of us into the street. Now designers and programmers in India are doing our jobs at one quarter or less of the pay. In short order the Indians will lose their jobs and everything will be crated up and sent to China where people work for one quarter or less of the Indian wage. This is called "free trade," or neoliberalism. I call it organized theft and forced impoverishment for much of the world.
I read something the other day about poor people in America. How so many of them vote for and support Bush and the Republicans. For me this is completely nonsensical, since the Republicans are all for the walmartization of the American workforce -- low wages, no unions, a disassembling of what social programs remain. But there you have it. Poor people steeped in a reactionary social and political milieu and the end result is they will vote for their own impoverishment and emasculation. Only a sleepwalker -- or somebody brainwashed since birth -- would support their own misery.
But the middle class supports this insanity as well, even if they are not (as of yet) as bad off as the poor directly below them. Millions of us, unemployed and apparently unemployable, are headed in that general direction, and sooner before later. How many Americans say they will vote for Bush? About fifty percent of those asked, if we are to believe the corporate media. Kerry pays kudos to the American worker, but he is a corporate shill -- a flaming neolib and skull and bones elitist just like Bush -- so to believe anything he says demonstrates a large degree of somnolence, or sleepy ignorance, on the part of the American people.
P. T. Barnum allegedly said there's a sucker born every minute (actually it was a banker named David Hannum who came up with the phrase), whereas I believe there is an idiot born every minute. Far too many Americans are idiots. Passive TV watching has replaced intelligent thought (as a pertinent aside, CNN reports that Democrats watch The Billionaire and Republicans watch something called I Hate My Job, deflecting their mindless and vague dissatisfaction into numb and completely non-productive escapism).
More than fifty years ago an Austrian psychologist trained by Sigmund Freud named Wilhelm Reich wrote a slender book entitled Listen, Little Man. In the book, Reich said the Little Man (most of us) is enthralled by his or her subservience to dictators, fascists, and tyrants. "You give impotent people with evil intentions the power to represent you," wrote Reich. "Only too late do you realize that again and again you are being defrauded. You must come to realize that you make your little men your own oppressors, and that you made martyrs out of your truly great men." Reich chalked this up to sexual repression, a not uncommon conclusion for a Freudian. However I believe the malady runs far deeper and is connected to flaws in the human spirit. People admire fascists, or rather a lot of people do, and want to be a master over slaves. If you doubt this, look no further than corporate America, the preferred business model, where fascist hierarchy is the order of the day. History is replete with further examples.
Unfortunately, we will be defrauded (again) come November. It's inevitable. Admittedly, Ralph Nader is a far from ideal presidential candidate, but at least he talks about the corrosion and moral vacuum of corporate America. Nader talks the truth -- we are in the wake of a New Corporate Feudalism -- but it is a dismal message most of us either don't want to hear or resent hearing, even the first few syllables. As Sting sang in the Dire Straits song, "I Want My MTV," not a reality check. Problem here is people don't hate their servitude to this increasingly barbaric consumerist-imperial-empire arrangement. Instead, they want to be boss and build a house on the proverbial hill. Pathetically, they are in for a rude awakening.
In the meantime, I will write my own Grapes of Wrath.