Are Americans a Broken People?

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
Posted on December 11, 2009, Printed on December 16, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/144529/

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States?

Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?

What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?

Can anything be done to turn this around?

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them?

Yes. It is called the "abuse syndrome." How do abusive pimps, spouses, bosses, corporations, and governments stay in control? They shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims' faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker. So the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.

Does knowing the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in these abuse syndromes?

No. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing; it can feel shameful -- and there is nothing more painful than shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.

Has such a demoralization happened in the U.S.?

In the United States, 47 million people are without health insurance, and many millions more are underinsured or a job layoff away from losing their coverage. But despite the current sellout by their elected officials to the insurance industry, there is no outpouring of millions of U.S. citizens on the streets of Washington, D.C., protesting this betrayal.

Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry, yet only a handful of U.S. citizens have protested these circumstances.

Remember the 2000 U.S. presidential election? That's the one in which Al Gore received 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. That's also the one that the Florida Supreme Court's order for a recount of the disputed Florida vote was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a politicized 5-4 decision, of which dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens remarked: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." Yet, even this provoked few demonstrators.

When people become broken, they cannot act on truths of injustice. Furthermore, when people have become broken, more truths about how they have been victimized can lead to shame about how they have allowed it. And shame, like fear, is one more way we become even more psychologically broken.

U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons that people cannot leave their abusive spouses: They feel helpless to effect change. The more we don't act, the weaker we get. And ultimately to deal with the painful humiliation over inaction in the face of an oppressor, we move to shut-down mode and use escape strategies such as depression, substance abuse, and other diversions, which further keep us from acting. This is the vicious cycle of all abuse syndromes.

Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?

Maybe.

Shortly before the 2000 U.S. presidential election, millions of Americans saw a clip of George W. Bush joking to a wealthy group of people, "What a crowd tonight: the haves and the haves-more. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base." Yet, even with these kind of inflammatory remarks, the tens of millions of U.S. citizens who had come to despise Bush and his arrogance remained passive in the face of the 2000 non-democratic presidential elections.

Perhaps the "political genius" of the Bush-Cheney regime was in their full realization that Americans were so broken that the regime could get away with damn near anything. And the more people did nothing about the boot slamming on their faces, the weaker people became.

What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?

The U.S. government-corporate partnership has used its share of guns and terror to break Native Americans, labor union organizers, and other dissidents and activists. But today, most U.S. citizens are broken by financial fears. There is potential legal debt if we speak out against a powerful authority, and all kinds of other debt if we do not comply on the job. Young people are broken by college-loan debts and fear of having no health insurance.

The U.S. population is increasingly broken by the social isolation created by corporate-governmental policies. A 2006 American Sociological Review study ("Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades") reported that, in 2004, 25 percent of Americans did not have a single confidant. (In 1985, 10 percent of Americans reported not having a single confidant.) Sociologist Robert Putnam, in his 2000 book, Bowling Alone, describes how social connectedness is disappearing in virtually every aspect of U.S. life. For example, there has been a significant decrease in face-to-face contact with neighbors and friends due to suburbanization, commuting, electronic entertainment, time and money pressures and other variables created by governmental-corporate policies. And union activities and other formal or informal ways that people give each other the support necessary to resist oppression have also decreased.

We are also broken by a corporate-government partnership that has rendered most of us out of control when it comes to the basic necessities of life, including our food supply. And we, like many other people in the world, are broken by socializing institutions that alienate us from our basic humanity. A few examples:

Schools and Universities: Do most schools teach young people to be action-oriented -- or to be passive? Do most schools teach young people that they can affect their surroundings -- or not to bother? Do schools provide examples of democratic institutions -- or examples of authoritarian ones?

A long list of school critics from Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, John Holt, Paul Goodman, Jonathan Kozol, Alfie Kohn, Ivan Illich, and John Taylor Gatto have pointed out that a school is nothing less than a miniature society: what young people experience in schools is the chief means of creating our future society. Schools are routinely places where kids -- through fear -- learn to comply to authorities for whom they often have no respect, and to regurgitate material they often find meaningless. These are great ways of breaking someone.

Today, U.S. colleges and universities have increasingly become places where young people are merely acquiring degree credentials -- badges of compliance for corporate employers -- in exchange for learning to accept bureaucratic domination and enslaving debt.

Mental Health Institutions: Aldous Huxley predicted today's pharmaceutical societyl "t seems to me perfectly in the cards," he said, "that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude."

Today, increasing numbers of people in the U.S. who do not comply with authority are being diagnosed with mental illnesses and medicated with psychiatric drugs that make them less pained about their boredom, resentments, and other negative emotions, thus rendering them more compliant and manageable.

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is an increasingly popular diagnosis for children and teenagers. The official symptoms of ODD include, "often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules," and "often argues with adults." An even more common reaction to oppressive authorities than the overt defiance of ODD is some type of passive defiance -- for example, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Studies show that virtually all children diagnosed with ADHD will pay attention to activities that they actually enjoy or that they have chosen. In other words, when ADHD-labeled kids are having a good time and in control, the "disease" goes away.

When human beings feel too terrified and broken to actively protest, they may stage a "passive-aggressive revolution" by simply getting depressed, staying drunk, and not doing anything -- this is one reason why the Soviet empire crumbled. However, the diseasing/medicalizing of rebellion and drug "treatments" have weakened the power of even this passive-aggressive revolution.

Television: In his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), Jerry Mander (after reviewing totalitarian critics such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Jacques Ellul, and Ivan Illich) compiled a list of the "Eight Ideal Conditions for the Flowering of Autocracy."

Mander claimed that television helps create all eight conditions for breaking a population. Television, he explained, (1) occupies people so that they don't know themselves -- and what a human being is; (2) separates people from one another; (3) creates sensory deprivation; (4) occupies the mind and fills the brain with prearranged experience and thought; (5) encourages drug use to dampen dissatisfaction (while TV itself produces a drug-like effect, this was compounded in 1997 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration relaxing the rules of prescription-drug advertising); (6) centralizes knowledge and information; (7) eliminates or "museumize" other cultures to eliminate comparisons; and (8) redefines happiness and the meaning of life.

Commericalism of Damn Near Everything: While spirituality, music, and cinema can be revolutionary forces, the gross commercialization of all of these has deadened their capacity to energize rebellion. So now, damn near everything – not just organized religion -- has become "opiates of the masses."

The primary societal role of U.S. citizens is no longer that of "citizen" but that of "consumer." While citizens know that buying and selling within community strengthens that community and that this strengthens democracy, consumers care only about the best deal. While citizens understand that dependency on an impersonal creditor is a kind of slavery, consumers get excited with credit cards that offer a temporarily low APR.

Consumerism breaks people by devaluing human connectedness, socializing self-absorption, obliterating self-reliance, alienating people from normal human emotional reactions, and by selling the idea that purchased products -- not themselves and their community -- are their salvation.

Can anything be done to turn this around?

When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about their oppressive humiliations don't set them free. What sets them free is morale.

What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of courageous behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more pain, and more shut down.

The last people I would turn to for help in remobilizing a demoralized population are mental health professionals -- at least those who have not rebelled against their professional socialization. Much of the craft of relighting the pilot light requires talents that mental health professionals simply are not selected for nor are they trained in. Specifically, the talents required are a fearlessness around image, spontaneity, and definitely anti-authoritarianism. But these are not the traits that medical schools or graduate schools select for or encourage.

Mental health professionals' focus on symptoms and feelings often create patients who take themselves and their moods far too seriously. In contrast, people talented in the craft of maintaining morale resist this kind of self-absorption. For example, in the question-and-answer session that followed a Noam Chomsky talk (reported in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002), a somewhat demoralized man in the audience asked Chomsky if he too ever went through a phase of hopelessness. Chomsky responded, "Yeah, every evening . . ."

If you want to feel hopeless, there are a lot of things you could feel hopeless about. If you want to sort of work out objectively what's the chance that the human species will survive for another century, probably not very high. But I mean, what's the point? . . . First of all, those predictions don't mean anything -- they're more just a reflection of your mood or your personality than anything else. And if you act on that assumption, then you're guaranteeing that'll happen. If you act on the assumption that things can change, well, maybe they will. Okay, the only rational choice, given those alternatives, is to forget pessimism."

A major component of the craft of maintaining morale is not taking the advertised reality too seriously. In the early 1960s, when the overwhelming majority in the U.S. supported military intervention in Vietnam, Chomsky was one of a minority of U.S. citizens actively opposing it. Looking back at this era, Chomsky reflected, "When I got involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement, it seemed to me impossible that we would ever have any effect. . . So looking back, I think my evaluation of the 'hope' was much too pessimistic: it was based on a complete misunderstanding. I was sort of believing what I read."

An elitist assumption is that people don't change because they are either ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist "helpers" think they have done something useful by informing overweight people that they are obese and that they must reduce their caloric intake and increase exercise. An elitist who has never been broken by his or her circumstances does not know that people who have become demoralized do not need analyses and pontifications. Rather the immobilized need a shot of morale.

Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and his latest book is Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007). His Web site is http://www.brucelevine.net
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/144529/

[Coyote]

A masterful and insightful, accurate list of the symptoms, with a bit of cause thrown in. But in the end run, what the fuck advice does he give? "Think positively!"

That puts eggs on the plate, fer sure.

[Darth Wong]

Is it really true that people are passive because they are demoralized? I would argue that they are passive because they are selfish by nature, and a solid majority of people are still quite comfortable and happy. They have food in their bellies, gas in their tanks, a roof over their heads, etc. Sure, there are other people out there who are suffering, but we've become too selfish to actually care about that.

If anything, I would argue that the problem is widespread self-absorption, not a lack of morale. People aren't storming Washington DC to protest the lack of true health care reform not because they're demoralized, but because they think they're personally going to be OK, and they don't really give a shit about anyone else. The huge gap between rhetoric and action is not so much a deficit of action as it is a surplus of rhetoric, relative to the way people actually feel.

The reason religion gets people so motivated is that it's personal: these people honestly fear some kind of divine retribution for breaking religious rules, so it's a twisted form of self-interest in the end. I really don't think it's more complicated than that.

[Coyote]

That, and going to Church and praying for poor people, maybe dropping a fiver in the plate or giving them Junior's old coat he outgrew, makes them feel like they've done enough. "Check the box, now I'm off to Macy's."

[aerius]

Is it really true that people are passive because they are demoralized? I would argue that they are passive because they are selfish by nature, and a solid majority of people are still quite comfortable and happy. They have food in their bellies, gas in their tanks, a roof over their heads, etc. Sure, there are other people out there who are suffering, but we've become too selfish to actually care about that.

I've joked about it a few times, but as long as people have "Dancing with the Stars", NFL Football and reality TV, they ain't gonna rise up and riot. The riots won't start until enough people are so broke that they can't pay their cable & internet bills anymore and get cut off from the boob tube. Yeah yeah it's too bad my neighbour got evicted and his sister got cancer and died because her HMO wouldn't cover it, but what about them Saints! They're going undefeated all the way to the Superbowl! Fuck yeah!

[Darth Wong]

Is it really true that people are passive because they are demoralized? I would argue that they are passive because they are selfish by nature, and a solid majority of people are still quite comfortable and happy. They have food in their bellies, gas in their tanks, a roof over their heads, etc. Sure, there are other people out there who are suffering, but we've become too selfish to actually care about that.

I've joked about it a few times, but as long as people have "Dancing with the Stars", NFL Football and reality TV, they ain't gonna rise up and riot. The riots won't start until enough people are so broke that they can't pay their cable & internet bills anymore and get cut off from the boob tube. Yeah yeah it's too bad my neighbour got evicted and his sister got cancer and died because her HMO wouldn't cover it, but what about them Saints! They're going undefeated all the way to the Superbowl! Fuck yeah!

My thoughts exactly. As long as it's Somebody Else's Problem, nobody's really going to get riled up about it. People like Glenn Beck are good at riling people up by convincing them that they're about to be personally impacted by some horrible fate, aided in no small part by the fact that his target demographic is as stupid and uneducated as he himself is. If you can't trick people like that, then it's much harder to get them riled up about some particular issue.

[Simplicius]

If the US population, on the whole, was truly demoralized, then why do we see jingoistic hyper-patriotism where we should expect to see resignation?

I think the author is mistaken in that the thrust of 'Establishment' propaganda in the US hasn't been to break the collective will to resist, but rather to paint the status quo as good and right so the public accepts it eagerly. This has certainly been what the right wing has done as it returned to power, and it was part of the motivation for liberal policies prior to that as well. In each case the object was to shield the ruling party from critique and/or voter defection: from the center leftward in the first case, and to pull the rug out from under the Radical Left in the latter.

[Drooling Iguana]

Personally, I think a big part of the problem is patriotism. The idea that America is the Greatest Country in the World has become so unshakable that people have begun working under the assumption that if a problem is so great that the United States hasn't already solved it, then it must be by its very nature unsolvable and thus not worth bothering with.

People are unwilling to accept that there are fundamental parts of how the United States operates that need to be fixed, and would rather attribute its failings to inherent deficiencies in humanity.

[Coyote]

Personally, I don't see "American exceptionalism" as patriotic; I see it as nationalistic. Patriotism's troubled cousin that refuses to take his meds because he's "fine".

The jingiostic/nationalistic "hyperpatriotism" (if you will) is, I believe, the gasping cry of defiance made by a people who refuse to realize that there are some serious fucking problems eroding the foundations.

[Knife]

Personally, I don't see "American exceptionalism" as patriotic; I see it as nationalistic. Patriotism's troubled cousin that refuses to take his meds because he's "fine".

The jingiostic/nationalistic "hyperpatriotism" (if you will) is, I believe, the gasping cry of defiance made by a people who refuse to realize that there are some serious fucking problems eroding the foundations.

Indeed, which might play into the 'demoralized' bit of the article. Most people who espouse the 'American Exceptionalism' haven't done anything for it, or contributed to it, and see it more as a birthright. Patriots on the other hand tend to get involved and can and will run head long into the brick wall of the Exceptionalism people and get demoralized.

[Darth Wong]

In other words, the patriot says "I want to help make my country the greatest country in the world", while the jingoist says "My country is the greatest country in the world".

[The Grim Squeaker]

In other words, the patriot says "I want to help make my country the greatest country in the world", while the jingoist says "My country is the greatest country in the world".

And the nationalist: "I will MAKE my nation the greatest in the world".

[Liberty]

Personally, I think a big part of the problem is patriotism. The idea that America is the Greatest Country in the World has become so unshakable that people have begun working under the assumption that if a problem is so great that the United States hasn't already solved it, then it must be by its very nature unsolvable and thus not worth bothering with.

People are unwilling to accept that there are fundamental parts of how the United States operates that need to be fixed, and would rather attribute its failings to inherent deficiencies in humanity.

I think there is a LOT to be said for this. Call patriotism, nationalism, or American Exceptionalism, the idea that America is somehow unique, special, and perfect is widespread and extremely problematic. I was robbed of this opinion when I took history classes on the Middle East, the Soviet Union, and modern Europe. This idea of an exceptional America makes people unwilling to try anything different. America is the greatest - so why change it? Our health care system is the best in the world, don't you know?! Why would we want to be socialist?! And why shouldn't we invade the Middle East - we're the most democratic, most free country in history! They should thank us for invading them!

Seriously, what the hell. America is just another country in a world of many countries, and yes, it has its good points, but it also has its bad points.

Part of this actually stems from the Puritans, and from the saturation of religion in America. Winthrop's City on a Hill speech. In other words, this view of America as special and chosen by God is four hundred years old! No wonder it's so hard to break.

[Fleet Admiral JD]

Is it really true that people are passive because they are demoralized? I would argue that they are passive because they are selfish by nature, and a solid majority of people are still quite comfortable and happy. They have food in their bellies, gas in their tanks, a roof over their heads, etc. Sure, there are other people out there who are suffering, but we've become too selfish to actually care about that.

I've joked about it a few times, but as long as people have "Dancing with the Stars", NFL Football and reality TV, they ain't gonna rise up and riot. The riots won't start until enough people are so broke that they can't pay their cable & internet bills anymore and get cut off from the boob tube. Yeah yeah it's too bad my neighbour got evicted and his sister got cancer and died because her HMO wouldn't cover it, but what about them Saints! They're going undefeated all the way to the Superbowl! Fuck yeah!

My thoughts exactly. As long as it's Somebody Else's Problem, nobody's really going to get riled up about it. People like Glenn Beck are good at riling people up by convincing them that they're about to be personally impacted by some horrible fate, aided in no small part by the fact that his target demographic is as stupid and uneducated as he himself is. If you can't trick people like that, then it's much harder to get them riled up about some particular issue.

Even then, the difficulty comes with organizing the people, and you run into a bog-standard collective action problem. Impoverished people, especially if they're recently impoverished, have no idea how to organize to better themselves. I say especially the recently impoverished because they're used to having things like the internet, or a mobile phone to communicate. A group of people without homes or resources are more worried about pure survival. For anything major to happen it seems to me like we'd need a large segment of the population to be homeless and living below what used to be standard.

[Big Phil]

I hear complaints along a similar line all the time - I always wonder, compared to what? If the argument is that Americans are "broken," "demoralized," "nationalistic," or "self-absorbed," then against what standard is that being judged?

[Stark]

In particular, is this just self-obsessed whining? Is 'broken' secret code for 'suddenly not really special' or 'offended to be confronted by reality'? If the American people is really feeling this way, is this because they are broken and oppressed, or simply because they don't buy the Magical America stuff anymore?

[Simon_Jester]

In particular, is this just self-obsessed whining? Is 'broken' secret code for 'suddenly not really special' or 'offended to be confronted by reality'? If the American people is really feeling this way, is this because they are broken and oppressed, or simply because they don't buy the Magical America stuff anymore?

If we didn't buy the Magical America stuff, we'd no longer have an excuse for expecting our problems to get better according to the plan:

-We do nothing.
-A miracle occurs!
-All will be well!

It's the fallacy that America is uniquely awesome and fated to remain so that allows this kind of insanity to survive at all. Americans have forgotten how to accept in their bones that their country could actually fall apart, could become a genuine hellhole, over a span of no more than a few decades. And that it can make a difference whether their government acts foolishly, whether their elected leaders are too weak to carry out the policies they were elected for promising, and so on.

We saw a very temporary breach in this wall of stupidity during the 2008 election, when large numbers of Americans actually did organize in response to what they saw as genuine problems with their country and tried to do something to fix them. It didn't work, and the organization seems to have vanished into a haze of complacency, but it was there for a little while.

So there's still some sanity buried underneath somewhere, but it's going to take more bombardment by reality to fully uncover it.

[Serafine666]

I think one element that figures into the lack of people taking to the streets in protest and causing the major cities to burn is that the ruling power has gradually convinced the people that it would do no good. A hundred million people could take to the streets; would this cause a single decision made by the US Supreme Court to be reversed? People write letters and call their representatives incessantly... yet the representative only seems to hear the whispers of the people who fronted his campaign cash. Repeated polls can show a large majority for or against something but the representatives bravely declare that they will not be palsied by the will of their constituents. If the polls from the UHC supporters are right, the Senate has just summarily ignored the will of the majority; if the polls from those that oppose UHC are right, the Senate is set to ignore the will of the majority in favor of "doing the right thing." These things are no secret to most people and so most people see the problems but they stay home in a resigned state of "even if I speak up, they won't listen." The appearance of things is that the masses of people can only make the government obey them if the government is unsure of itself and not entirely committed to its chosen course; if the ruling party is determined, however, nothing seems able to deter them. I don't think this is a sign of being broken, of being complacent, of being indifferent... but simply lacking faith in the mild solution that isn't working and recoiling at the prospect of the severe solution that may work.

[Junghalli]

I think the author is mistaken in that the thrust of 'Establishment' propaganda in the US hasn't been to break the collective will to resist, but rather to paint the status quo as good and right so the public accepts it eagerly.

Not only accepts it eagerly but is actually willing to fight hard for the very people and policies that are screwing them. Just look at those anti-UHC guys at the town hall meetings; I bet most of them would actually objectively benefit by the very reforms they're so terrified of and determined to stop. In a way it would be less depressing if it really was just a matter of everybody feeling dejected and defeated. The truth is actually more depressing; large slices of the population are enthusiastically fighting for the very forces that screw us and actively oppose reform.

Hmm, to continue the abuse victim analogy from the article, you could say we don't just have to deal with people being defeated, we have to deal with abuse victims who the abusers have conned into genuinely believing their own rationalizations.

And I think Darth Wong probably has a good point too. You aren't seeing riots in the streets because the simple fact is most people don't personally have it bad enough that they really feel motivated to do that.

[Darth Wong]

We've seen some of that even here on the forum, with certain individuals saying "Hey yeah, I feel kind of bad for the people who have no coverage, but I'm personally covered". For that matter, Master of Ossus once downplayed the economic downturn by saying that he didn't see its effects in his own personal observations, ie- "it doesn't affect me or anyone I know, so it's overblown". It's partly due to the compartmentalization of our society. Even if we don't literally live in gated communities, we tend to live in a fairly close analogue to one, because of class isolation.

[Shroom Man 777]

Doesn't the availability of the internets and mass media counter this, if only slightly (microscopically)? If it weren't for the internet and the mass media, we would never hear the plight of much maligned people - from poor bankrupted shmucks in America, to Third Worlders from places like Iraq who get atrocities done to them (sometimes by Americans, no less) - and that kinda raises awareness, doesn't it?

The fact that Americans chose to elect Obama, for all that's worth, kind of showed that on some level people are aware enough of their problems to do something, anything, even if it's just voting or something.

[Darth Wong]

Doesn't the availability of the internets and mass media counter this, if only slightly (microscopically)? If it weren't for the internet and the mass media, we would never hear the plight of much maligned people - from poor bankrupted shmucks in America, to Third Worlders from places like Iraq who get atrocities done to them (sometimes by Americans, no less) - and that kinda raises awareness, doesn't it?

No, I think people are quite capable of having completely different standards for face-to-face interaction and Internet news. Hell, people have totally different standards for callousness and rudeness the moment they get into a car, and that's only putting other people 20 feet away through tempered glass.

The fact that Americans chose to elect Obama, for all that's worth, kind of showed that on some level people are aware enough of their problems to do something, anything, even if it's just voting or something.

Either that or they just voted for Obama because they were sick of Bush and the Republitard Redneck Orthodoxy. Even today, that is the biggest thing the Democrats have going for them.

[raptor3x]

Hell, people have totally different standards for callousness and rudeness the moment they get into a car, and that's only putting other people 20 feet away through tempered glass.

I could never understand why this is, but it's spot on. I know at least three people who are incredibly considerate outside of a car, but put them behind a wheel and they immediately turn into self-centered assholes.

[Shroom Man 777]

The fact that Americans chose to elect Obama, for all that's worth, kind of showed that on some level people are aware enough of their problems to do something, anything, even if it's just voting or something.

Either that or they just voted for Obama because they were sick of Bush and the Republitard Redneck Orthodoxy. Even today, that is the biggest thing the Democrats have going for them.

At least it shows that they, the American people, aren't really as "broken" or "demoralized" as the abused victims the article portrays them to be, since the Republitard Redneck Orthodoxy is pretty much the abusive pimp-spouse in this situation and even then, the victimized American people still managed to tell them to take a hike by electing a guy who's platform was hope and change. Thank goodness they had enough morale to manage that.

[Darth Wong]

You know, it occurs to me that the author's assumption that Americans are "demoralized" is oddly self-serving. It presumes that most Americans agree with the author but are just too weak to make their voices heard. It does not make any allowances for the idea that Americans are genuinely complacent, or easily persuaded by bad logic, or more selfish than he would like to think.