TimDanahey's picture

    A Nation of Sheep Will Beget a Government of Wolves

    When one discovers a friend has lied or an associate has stolen, a trust has been violated and the pre-existing bond is broken - often irrevocably.

    Such is the case with our current government versus U.S. citizens allied with people aroud the world.  Each day, new revelations detail how our government has spied on its own citizens, foreign leaders, and allies.  Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian reporter who covers the Edward Snowden story, is rumored to be preparing a story how the U.S. government assigned the CIA to spy to benefit U.S. multi-national corporations on matters not affecting U.S. security,  In essence, spying for fun and profit.  This was made legal during the Clinton administration but it was never made ethical or honorable - nor was it made widely public.

    The U.S. government has lost the moral high ground in the eyes of the world and, even worse, in the hearts of its citizens.  If one cannot believe in a set of basic principles or live under guiding tenets, then the social contract is broken.  Without the social contract, the inherent and unwritten trust two or more parties share is gone and the effortless ability to work together is lost.

    The most dramatic evidence is the Secretary of State's pronouncement that the Syrian government's alleged gassing of its own people is "morally unconscionable".  The outrage is muted as we recall the U.S. government's relative silence regarding Iraqi gassing of Kurd civilians and gassing Iranian combatants in 1984.  The collective urge to retaliate is subdued because we've been deceived with the U.S.S. Maine, the Lusitania, the Gulf of Tonkin, weapons of mass destruction, and similar "Wag the Dog" scenarios.  Every generation has its fallacious call to arms and every generation responds because it lacks the memories of prior generations.  The problem now is there are so many lies that we remember them in a single lifetime.

    The U.S. government has broken its social contract with its people.  We are more likely to look askance at unverified evidence, unsubstantiated statements, and obvious moral double standards.

    As a result, unemployment statistics are doubted, economic data is questioned, freee trade agreements are understood to be a fraud upon the people, the "Clean Water Act" allows more pollution, NSA spying keeps us safe but it is a national secret when we ask "safe from whom?", and "Trade Promotion Authority" subverts our constitutional protections in the face of odious legislation.  All of a sudden, everything they do is just noise.

    So where's the outrage?  It is a deliberate policy to overwhelm the people with issues.  It divides the constituencies or causes people to throw their hands into the air and surrender as if that is a workable solution.  There are so many injustices upon which light must be shined that the light becomes diffused.

    The readers has two choices:  Affect change or roll over and acquiesce. If rolling over is the choice, leave your wallet open next to your prone body.  Someone will be along shortly to relieve you of your cash and ID.  Then they relieve themselves upon your rights and dignity.  Edward R. Murrow famously warned, "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."  If affecting change is the plan, do it and do it now.  Pick two issues and participate.  Just show up.  The only way to fight the money is with voices - lots of them.  Until then, it's just noise. Their noise.

    Comments

    There has been active debate about action in Syria both pro and con.Thee was a general agreement that missiles would not solve the problem. The public made its concerns noted.No missiles were launched and The issue went to our feckless Congress ( my label). Congress critters on break heard from their constituents.Anerica at work.

    Congress will take no action on the NSA.The public sends funds to the ACLU and Electronic Freedom Foundation to support lawsuits. The public in action.

    There are legal challenges and weekly demonstrations against voter suppression. Educators, students and parents voiced objections to PLUSloans.

    Stop and Frisk found Unconstitutional because of lawsuits filed by US citizens.

    Where are these sheep you're talking about?


    If the guiding tenet of one Party is that government has no solution to any problems and should be drown in a bathtub, then the voters for that Party are saying there is no need for a government social contract with the people.

    The wealthy, who invest in government through election funding, then have exclusive access to ensure the government does work for them. The government we have is a symptom, the pathology is with the voters.


    When it comes to the NSA, I don't think the answer is that people are sheepish, particularly on the left.  Heck, if that were the problem, it'd be easy to solve.  We could shame people into outrage.  No, I suspect it's something worse.  Left of center support for NSA programs comes from the technocratic wing of the party -- the believers in effective government.  I see them as being like Obama in that they believe they can control these immense powers, harnessing them for productive ends.  They believe in both their own good intentions and their own competence.  That, rather than the proverbial lemming, is what you're up against.


    Americans can complain like hell about the NSA.

    Yet when the next bomb goes off, from Benghazi to Boston, every police department, city, state or federal agency possible, will be sued for compensation for not protecting the victims.


    Right?  After Boston I was kind of horrified by the sheer amount of public surveillance cameras that the government had access too, much less the huge amount of surveillance around the older Tsarnaev.  But the majority reacted by asking why in the heck the government didn't do more in advance to stop it.

    That's not herdlike thought, though.  It's a policy preference.


    Boston seemed to indicate that our law enforcement anti-terror apparatus is by no means efficient or competent, or that it can digest and analyze the most relevant information in their possession (they couldn't even identify the older brother in marathon photos even though the FBI had interviewed him about 1 1/2 years previously).

    They need all the germane video and data they can get when a crime is committed.  A point can be reached though where the useful data is hidden in a huge sea of extraneous often error filled data, decreasing the chance of finding the 'actionable' stuff.

    No matter what algorithms you use, having it all may mean having nothing, important material  is diluted into nonexistence. NSA certainly seems to have arrived at that point.


    The reader has two choices, to agree with you and be labeled a virtual genius and those who do not agree with you, which makes them sheeple.  That's not a weak argument at all! Because isn't it obvious you have all the answers.  It must be grand to have all the answers.

    So here is the thing Tim, I just don't think there are any good answers to the problem of chemical weapons use in Syria. You're convinced you  have the answer, while I am convinced all the answers are bad ones, but that doesn't necessarily stop one from acting.  Maybe you just want the least worst option.  

    You've even drawn the line, a red line some would say, which is quite ironic, to say the least, but to quote you directly again, "the reader", (me) "has two choices", black or white, with me or against me, to be a sheeple or not to be a sheeple, but we can never ever believe in the gray, the place where there are no answers, just choices, and action or inaction, each resulting in consequences, some good some bad.


    "the reader", (me) "has two choices", black or white

    More like: sin or redemption, heaven or hell. Reads just like a Sunday sermon,  including the ending: Go and sin no more. Even made me wonder whether Mr. Danahey might have had seminary training, but then preaching is the stuff of most talk radio, is it not?

    What I don't agree with in the content is the vague underlying suggestion with Murrow reference et. al. that things were better in some good old days somewhere. They were most definitely not. The elites until very recent history managed to keep nearly everything from the "sheeple" that they didn't want them to see until the history books came out. Even Saint Murrow participated in government propaganda at the end of his life. We can know so much more now, the good, the bad and the ugly. And yes, if we want to, we can even see the grey that only "the elites" used to be allowed to see.


    Good point AA, this does read much like a sermon and talk show radio hosts do act like they are the righteous, I hate talk radio though, and don't listen to it, like most regular people. I just don't have the time to be over-the-top angry over every issue.

    It just bugs me that people like Mr. Danahey seem to believe that too many people are just dumb sheeple, because they don't buy his answer to this particular problem. Such hubris! And I agree with you, we can know so much more now, why is it people like Mr. Danahey seem to be fighting against that? 


    He asks where is the outrage while totally ignoring the fact the people and organizations are fighting back against government and corporate overreach fast food workers put their jobs on the line to combat a system that requires them to live off of food stamps while corporation profits swell. This goes on, but we are all sheeple.


    I thought it sounded like a sermon as well except its call to action was way too vague:

    If affecting change is the plan, do it and do it now.  Pick two issues and participate.  Just show up.  The only way to fight the money is with voices - lots of them.  Until then, it's just noise. Their noise.

    IOW, do something, do anything and make a lot of noise while doing it?

     


    I trust that the folks at this site will now begin to show their outrage, at something, and begin to speak up! What a bunch of sheeple. Forget two issues, just pick one issue---now, where was I?

    I'll have to put this piece in the category of a Dennis Rodman rant, along with the suggestion that Tim might benefit from the Murrow-ish quote yesterday from Ambassador Rodman:

    "People write what they hear. But they don't see what they write."  No kidding.


    I stopped reading at "Glenn Greenwald".


    A Glenn Greenwald blockbusting Revelation that Americans, Americans in our own government, could be controlled by corporations seeking more money, would lead me to say:

    "I am shocked,....shocked, that the government could be used by corporations to increase profits".


    I am late on this blog.

    It just brought to mind the 60's and I would sit at a table in the student union.

    Just ugly tables and cheap chairs and something called a microwave and a strange coffee machine and...

    Once a week this big guy would wander down the aisles screaming:

    SHEEP, SHEEP, SHEEP

    hahahahah

    All I ever wished to do was finish my readings for the day before I went to work.


    Funny 

    Did the guy  go on to write go on to write a "sheepish" column on dagblog?


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