30 Years of Decline Fascinatingly Explained (& The Rise of P&N)

[bradly1101]

Due to this article's length (and attention spans being what they are), I know many won't read it, but its importance and relevance are undeniable, and it is so well and egagingly written. Just wow.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41826022

An excerpt:

"My infatuation had started long before, with Westerns, cop shows, superhero comic strips, and movies such as West Side Story and Grease. Gotham exerted more of a pull than London. My 16-year-old self could quote more presidents than prime ministers. Like so many new arrivals, like so many of my compatriots, I felt an instant sense of belonging, a fealty borne of familiarity.

Eighties America lived up to its billing, from the multi-lane freeways to the cavernous fridges, from the drive-in movie theatres to the drive-through burger joints. I loved the bigness, the boldness, the brashness. Coming from a country where too many people were reconciled to their fate from too early an age, the animating force of the American Dream was not just seductive but unshackling.

Upward mobility was not a given amongst my schoolmates. The absence of resentment was also striking: the belief success was something to emulate rather than envy. The sight of a Cadillac induced different feelings than the sight of a Rolls Royce.

It was 1984. Los Angeles was hosting the Olympics. The Soviet boycott meant US athletes dominated the medals table more so than usual. McDonald's had a scratch-card promotion, planned presumably before Eastern bloc countries decided to keep their distance, offering Big Macs, Cokes and fries if Americans won gold, silver or bronze in selected events. So for weeks I feasted on free fast food, a calorific accompaniment to chants of "USA! USA!""

 

[shortylickens]

The 80's had one thing in common with the 50's: We were dangerously obsessed with our own awesomeness and completely ignored most of our serious social issues.
Things got worse. And its all our fault.

 

[Moonbeam]

The 80's had one thing in common with the 50's: We were dangerously obsessed with our own awesomeness and completely ignored most of our serious social issues.
Things got worse. And its all our fault.

We are sleeping programmed machines. We are not to blame for anything. The feeling that we are is all part of self hate and a belief in lies like the one you just told.

 

[Moonbeam]

We are sleeping programmed machines. We are not to blame for anything. The feeling that we are is all part of self hate and a belief in lies like the one you just told.

He's not responsible for believing that lie, my dear self as your self well knows.

 

[bradly1101]

We are sleeping programmed machines. We are not to blame for anything. The feeling that we are is all part of self hate and a belief in lies like the one you just told.

Self hate or self reflection? We should live unexamined lives? Isn't that how we got into so many messes? The truth will set you free. Hate is a path to a living hell.

 

[skull]

I believe this self hate is manifested by religion which also locks people into their machine like state. The all powerful all knowing right and wrong there is only only one side to things. If you just stick to the right side you'll be granted eternal salvation but everyone is a sinner you must hate the sinner in you but you can ignore it if you can just scream louder that the other guy is a bigger sinner.

 

[Moonbeam]

Self hate or self reflection? We should live unexamined lives? Isn't that how we got into so many messes? The truth will set you free. Hate is a path to a living hell.

It like all meaningful truth evolves paradox. Who we are, the I or the ego we imagine ourselves to be is a product of programming. It's purpose is to deceive ourselves, to imagine we are something like what skull in the post 6 just said, an entity that conforms to some good thing we substitute for self respect. It is there to prevent a constant state of misery and suffering we felt as children when we were told we don't measure up. It was our savior then and our sickness now. It is our illusion that we are well and as such will not permit real self reflection. It's purpose is to make us better and better at being sick. This ego can die, but never at it's own hand. A program designed to stay away from bad feelings won't allow one to experience them without some sort of external intervention. For some there is just too much dammed up that breaks our sometimes as an intense need for understanding, sometimes as a death wish that comes close to succeeding, etc. I call such things grace and as such they are rather beyond my understanding. I know the downtrodden and the meek have less in the way of ego to lose and it is easier for them than the strong successful and proud. But even there, real world success is a refutation of self worthlessness and is of value when other factors fall in place.

 

[Moonbeam]

I believe this self hate is manifested by religion which also locks people into their machine like state. The all powerful all knowing right and wrong there is only only one side to things. If you just stick to the right side you'll be granted eternal salvation but everyone is a sinner you must hate the sinner in you but you can ignore it if you can just scream louder that the other guy is a bigger sinner.

The purpose of religion is to create an inner state into which grace becomes a possibility and as such, a potentially real path to truth, it is something that ego is quick to destroy. The Jews brought the path of law, conformity to real good living, to destroy the selfishness of the ego, but the law and obedience to the law became corrupted, as if obedience itself were the answer. So Jesus brought the message that obedience is useless without internal forgiveness. This also was corrupted by the notion that forgiveness can be accomplished by external ceremony and not an internal reorientation of the self, Islam teaches surrender of the ego to God's Will, that He not you are at cause in everything. A machine that knows it is a machine without real intention can't be good or evil or responsible for anything. Only God is when the ego is not. In the East there are also many other ways. The body of the fakir or the martial arts master can awaken into being. The worshiper of ideals of perfection, the lover, can merge with them where the lover and the beloved are one, the yoga can enter perfect being by the ending of thought. Sometimes somebody gets blasted to heaven just by taking a pill. It can happen also to folk who learn what they really feel in psychotherapy. This is sometimes called the hero's journey and is well documented in myth according to Joseph Campbell, I think it is. There is a saying that nobody was ever in trouble who went straight ahead.

 

[J.Wilkins]

Due to this article's length (and attention spans being what they are), I know many won't read it, but its importance and relevance are undeniable, and it is so well and egagingly written. Just wow.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41826022

An excerpt:

"My infatuation had started long before, with Westerns, cop shows, superhero comic strips, and movies such as West Side Story and Grease. Gotham exerted more of a pull than London. My 16-year-old self could quote more presidents than prime ministers. Like so many new arrivals, like so many of my compatriots, I felt an instant sense of belonging, a fealty borne of familiarity.

Eighties America lived up to its billing, from the multi-lane freeways to the cavernous fridges, from the drive-in movie theatres to the drive-through burger joints. I loved the bigness, the boldness, the brashness. Coming from a country where too many people were reconciled to their fate from too early an age, the animating force of the American Dream was not just seductive but unshackling.

Upward mobility was not a given amongst my schoolmates. The absence of resentment was also striking: the belief success was something to emulate rather than envy. The sight of a Cadillac induced different feelings than the sight of a Rolls Royce.

It was 1984. Los Angeles was hosting the Olympics. The Soviet boycott meant US athletes dominated the medals table more so than usual. McDonald's had a scratch-card promotion, planned presumably before Eastern bloc countries decided to keep their distance, offering Big Macs, Cokes and fries if Americans won gold, silver or bronze in selected events. So for weeks I feasted on free fast food, a calorific accompaniment to chants of "USA! USA!""

I actually don't remember most of the 80's. I remember the 70's like it was yesterday (and yesterday as if it was the 60's) but the coke filled dream that was the 1980's was just buying new cars and apartments. Somehow I came out on top of it all but that can't have been because of any good decisions. I was apparently at the Olympics... But I could not tell you one single thing about it.

 

[J.Wilkins]

The purpose of religion is to create an inner state into which grace becomes a possibility and as such, a potentially real path to truth, it is something that ego is quick to destroy. The Jews brought the path of law, conformity to real good living, to destroy the selfishness of the ego, but the law and obedience to the law became corrupted, as if obedience itself were the answer. So Jesus brought the message that obedience is useless without internal forgiveness. This also was corrupted by the notion that forgiveness can be accomplished by external ceremony and not an internal reorientation of the self, Islam teaches surrender of the ego to God's Will, that He not you are at cause in everything. A machine that knows it is a machine without real intention can't be good or evil or responsible for anything. Only God is when the ego is not. In the East there are also many other ways. The body of the fakir or the martial arts master can awaken into being. The worshiper of ideals of perfection, the lover, can merge with them where the lover and the beloved are one, the yoga can enter perfect being by the ending of thought. Sometimes somebody gets blasted to heaven just by taking a pill. It can happen also to folk who learn what they really feel in psychotherapy. This is sometimes called the hero's journey and is well documented in myth according to Joseph Campbell, I think it is. There is a saying that nobody was ever in trouble who went straight ahead.

No, the purpose of religion is to have masters of that religion tell you how to do their bidding, this has been true since the dawn of time.

Well that and you give them money.

 

[theeedude]

The main thing that happened in the 80s is US won the cold war, so the business elites were no longer afraid of a socialist revolution, and decided to discard the niceties they resorted to during the cold war to keep support for the capitalist system, and went for pure profit maximization. Which we are now seeing. The best system is a capitalist system that's afraid of a socialist revolution, and thus is self regulating. Once the fear was gone, so was the self regulation.

 

[J.Wilkins]

The main thing that happened in the 80s is US won the cold war.

You're in the wrong decade.

 

[theeedude]

You're in the wrong decade.

By 80's, especially after Chernobyl, it was obvious that USSR was a failed country, and communism was no longer a threat to the US.

 

[J.Wilkins]

By 80's, especially after Chernobyl, it was obvious that USSR was a failed country, and communism was no longer a threat to the US.

Still the wrong decade for the end of the cold war. In reality there was of course no threat, that was something that the US and allies as well as the SU used to keep the subjects scared and reliant on whatever they wanted to push as their propaganda.

Why do you think the people accepted the rule of a president that was clearly without any kind of higher brain function without question and full of praise? Why do you think we praised Thatcher and even more importantly, why do you think the SU population praised Bresjnev? They saved us from doom, or so they would have us believe.

Wait... did the cold war just begin again in the US and Russia... *sneaky*

 

[bradly1101]

It like all meaningful truth evolves paradox. Who we are, the I or the ego we imagine ourselves to be is a product of programming. It's purpose is to deceive ourselves, to imagine we are something like what skull in the post 6 just said, an entity that conforms to some good thing we substitute for self respect. It is there to prevent a constant state of misery and suffering we felt as children when we were told we don't measure up. It was our savior then and our sickness now. It is our illusion that we are well and as such will not permit real self reflection. It's purpose is to make us better and better at being sick. This ego can die, but never at it's own hand. A program designed to stay away from bad feelings won't allow one to experience them without some sort of external intervention. For some there is just too much dammed up that breaks our sometimes as an intense need for understanding, sometimes as a death wish that comes close to succeeding, etc. I call such things grace and as such they are rather beyond my understanding. I know the downtrodden and the meek have less in the way of ego to lose and it is easier for them than the strong successful and proud. But even there, real world success is a refutation of self worthlessness and is of value when other factors fall in place.

Agreed.

In the face of so many perceived threats, our instincts dictate self preservation. Its human, and how we think we need to survive, yet reflects the frailty of our ego induced lives. There is a more sophisticated tool-set, and some are waking up to the reality that our true nature is not in our thoughts but in the space around them; what connects us all, and where we are innocently born from and die into. Our egos have put ourselves and our home in so much peril, yet (again as you have said) we can't see the proverbial forest. We live in a world where pride and greed are considered attributes. We have a long way to go, and I'm optimistic, but also realistic.

 

[bradly1101]

I believe this self hate is manifested by religion which also locks people into their machine like state. The all powerful all knowing right and wrong there is only only one side to things. If you just stick to the right side you'll be granted eternal salvation but everyone is a sinner you must hate the sinner in you but you can ignore it if you can just scream louder that the other guy is a bigger sinner.

Also creating God in our image (not the other way around) has imbued Him and religion in general with all the amazing generosity and all the unspeakable evil of humanity.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

More musings from the hate America crowd. yawn

 

[Thebobo]

Cold war was for all intent and purposes was over in 1987 when Gorbachev announced Perestroika. People give Reagan the credit for ending the cold war which I believe is bullshit, without Gorbachev the CW would of lasted a lot longer.

"On 3 December 1989, Gorbachev and Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush, declared the Cold War over at the Malta Summit;[279] a year later, the two former rivals were partners in the Gulf War against Iraq.[280]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War

 

[Thebobo]

More musings from the hate America crowd. yawn

I know you are but what am I

 

[bradly1101]

The main thing that happened in the 80s is US won the cold war, so the business elites were no longer afraid of a socialist revolution, and decided to discard the niceties they resorted to during the cold war to keep support for the capitalist system, and went for pure profit maximization. Which we are now seeing. The best system is a capitalist system that's afraid of a socialist revolution, and thus is self regulating. Once the fear was gone, so was the self regulation.

Pure greed was always waiting in the wings.

 

[bradly1101]

Wait... did the cold war just begin again in the US and Russia..

77% of Russians want the Soviet Union back. It must have been better there for them. We can take that (and so much else) as justification for the resurgence of all the new fear. Although our otherwise fearful leader wants us to fear Russia less (with his and his family's financial ties).

 

[bradly1101]

More musings from the hate America crowd. yawn

Loving America was what the whole article was about. Loving America doesn't mean you have to be an ostrich, quite the opposite.

 

[bradly1101]

No, the purpose of religion is to have masters of that religion tell you how to do their bidding, this has been true since the dawn of time.

Well that and you give them money.

Religion fulfills many purposes, some are even generous and humble.

 

[Moonbeam]

No, the purpose of religion is to have masters of that religion tell you how to do their bidding, this has been true since the dawn of time.

Well that and you give them money.

You must be right because I just had a vision where I can enslave the minds of all men simply by dying on a cross somewhere. It's brilliant, like your certainty. I think I can understand why the concept of modesty could freak you out.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

You're fucked up in the head.

I know you are but what am I