More Shoes!

There was an article on AlterNet on the topic of world outrage vs. American reaction a week or so ago.I thought this quote was interesting: “Mark Ames, author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion — From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine and Beyond, argues that Americans have been beaten down to a degree that they’re now a pacified population, largely willing to accept any economic outrage its elites impose on them.”We need to get more pissed off.

A video posted at the “evil” OpenLeft gives clues to the problem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU8Z-Olvv30&eurl=http://www.openleft.com/&feature=player_embeddedThe problem is that Obama and co are stuck with hands tied behind their backs – having personal interest in the financial sector (and Geitner himself being one such – plucked from the ranks of those we’re supposed to be railing against), it’s hard to know who to throw shoes at. The best we can do is “HOPE” that we’ve given Obama enough independence to make stuff work on our behalf at least some of the time. Failing that, I guess there’s nothing to do but upchuck everyone in government till we get genuinely people-placed officials.QT

Bob – all of my comments get eaten if I post a link. I thought there was a two link limit, but even that doesn’t work for me… QT

@ Kat:I disagree, to a point. Plenty of people I know (and the “n” value is not statistically significant, I know,) are mad, pissed, even……but don’t know what to do with it. I’d like to see more direction and organization that everyone can use (especially since I don’t think the anger here is necessarily a partisan issue, it’s more of a populist one.)The question is what, exactly to do, and how, I think.

I hear what you are saying, trustno1, and I understand to an extent. But I don’t think that we have reached a shoe-throwing level of pissedoffness (not a word, I know) yet. I think that if we had, there would be daily protests in front of Wall Street and Morgan Stanley/Bank of America/Citigroup/JP Morgan Chase (etc, etc) headquarters. It may be the psychology of our culture that prevents us from doing this, I don’t know. But I think we haven’t reached the depth of anger that others around the globe have reached. Or perhaps we have and are just terrified to express it.

Kat,Use Pissedoffity, to describe the level of, or state of being pissed off. There’s nothing wrong with new words. “Shovelready” is already a compound, and in my opinion, is a far dumber word.Regarding the article, it’s only a matter of time before one of these guys gets mobbed, as in, dragged outside and beaten by an angry mob.We can easily see that the mood in America is dangerous. I mentioned that a while ago in a post I wrote. If this stimulus doesn’t work, and America collapses into a depression like the thirties, all hell will break loose. Our government cannot count on Americans being as docile as they were then.Here’s where I tell you to go buy that handgun and rifle, and load up on ammo. If things break worse, you might be glad you have them.

Points taken, Kat.I think we are getting closer to the point where you see actions like PPP described above. A few more corporate jets, maybe.People are angry, but not enough to express their pissedoffness via physical violence. I expect to see and hear more about protests, though, because the conservative media loves them a good “human interest” story.

I think it’s simpler than that, Kat. People are pissed, but can’t afford to take the time off work to go protest….if they have work. If not, they can’t afford shoes to throw.Moreover, this country doesn’t have a “take to the streets” mentality or history. Someone else will do it why we go about our busy, busy lives, struggling to make things work. Those things happening on Wall St and in DC aren’t as immediate in our attention as the price of milk & getting little Susie to her soccer practice on time.Besides, only dirty hippies protest.

Off topic…SUBWAY did not drop Phelps! Time to buy a 5-dollar, 5-dollar foot long!

I believe that assessment is true, Kat.The U.S. population is now one big herd of sheeple that the corporations fuck at will.Sad state of affairs.It’s shite being American.

It doesn’t matter what the present mindset is, when enough people are out of work and getting desperate, you will see them taking it to the streets, and not necessarily in a peaceful manner. The cool thing is they can’t call out the National Guard to quell the riots because they are stuck over in Iraq.