Politics: The newest spectator sport

Seems to me like a lot of people around here are content with watching the political drama play out on TV and in the media instead of actually getting up and doing something about it themselves. Why make a huge fuss in the real world when we can just watch it play out on TV and crusade about it on social media?

"The government is going to fix itself! All these leaks and emails and memos go to show that things are changing!" But really they're not, the same people are still in power and the same BS is continuing to happen behind our backs. Banks getting pardoned for crimes against the economy and the American people, political factions growing ever more radicalized, the propaganda pushing media having the highest ratings ever, never-ending wars, lobbyists continuing to buy and influence the laws created by our representatives, etc.

While we crusade on social media and comb through the evidence handed to us by the very same people we claim to not trust, nothing is truly being done. Change does not happen from the top down, it happens from the bottom up and we seem to have fallen into a trap of being content with the government somehow fixing itself while we pour our energy into things they have put in the spotlight for us to obsess over.

While we are looking at all these scandals and the political intrigue on TV the ones who are not on TV continue to rob us blind behind our backs. Some people seem to think a revolution is happening when in reality we are doing the same things we've always done, a bunch complaining without much of anything being accomplished. While we bicker over memos and text messages and emails the ones truly in control are going unnoticed. These actors on stage are there to entertain you, not make you start a revolution. They are there to lull you into a false sense of security and an illusion that things are changing when they're really not.

Politics seems to be a spectator sport these days with little to nothing actually being done on the ground level. We're more worried about proving the other side wrong than actually fixing things. Revolution starts with the common people, not the ones up on stage playing their parts, yet they have fooled a lot of people into believing that.

My advice: put your mental energy toward things that you actually have control over and that will directly benefit you and those close to you, not this theatre being performed by those in Washington for no other purpose than to divide and distract us. They want us obsessing over the drama and scandal, the more we focus on the play happening on stage the less we notice those behind the curtains pulling strings.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1


You have been infiltrated by Putin's propaganda sabotage of democracy. It is a common internet psychological syndrome. Putin has made you distrust democracy. Those who dish the dirt on all our mistakes weaponize our own mistakes against us to undermine our confidence in our societies and our systems, yet they are much worse. That is what I have been trying to say with using Christ's plank in the eye metaphor. That is what they are doing. They tell you of this splinter in your eye that is making you blind, but they have a huge plank in theirs that makes them even blinder.

You do not understand democracy any more. There is no other healthier way of seven billion people living on this little space rock and not anihilating each other.

Is Putin's way better? Is China's way better. Is YOUR way better? Do you even have a way or a solution? Do you have the answer? You are being as big a spectator as those you criticize.

I am using my vote. I am keeping close tabs and making the best of the very limited choices I have at election time, but at least there is a choice.

We have a situation of the strong, the weak, the criminal and the innocent, the moral and the immoral, all the differences under the Sun having to maintain some basic cohesion. How can we do that unless we have some kind of model?

It is not a spectator sport because we all are included and we have to to commit to an action every so often, many actions if we want to be politically active, which any of us can be if we want to.

I get offended because I disagree with the label you put people under. Are we idiots because we want order and a fair way of handling power in society without the law of the brutes and of the jungle? Politics is civilization.

Look at the word carefully. It comes from polite, police, policy. It is about order and distribution, control of us all. Without it we are just brute rabble with no direction or social/collective aims.

We are humans who are born defective. We need politics to keep us in check. Democracy works. We have the best and the most free societies on the earth. What does that tell you? We have the best quality of life and we are the richest. It tells me we are the most successful.

You are caught in a kind of Groundhog Day, many of you. You are stuck with something Putin has planted, a kind of distrust of your own institutions which he meant you to have. Communism did it before him. He is just continuing from the KGB days. He is undermining the societies he competes with. He is just one enemy. Islamic extremism is another. We have many.

The West has enemies. You must learn to see them and to be able to counteract them. Our system is by no means perfect, but we limp along and keep feeding the geat unwashed. Resources are always tight and limited. The world can't afford seven billion billionaires. It can't afford even the few we do have really, but we limp along until we get even better at managing power.

I understand what you are saying.
However, knowing that the 3 letter agencies monitor everything including the internet chatter, you would probably have a better chance at changing the opinion of the geek monitoring this forum than standing out in front of the white house with a picket sign.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Yet here you are on your own little crusade, except you've managed to stretch your only talking point into a nice little thread. I believe at the very least, the things you mention ARE on everybody's radar. I keep this possibility in the back of my mind for sure, and I'm sure everyone else does too. But the problem is you always present this with such conviction as if you have some inside knowledge or are somehow more enlightened than the rest of us. Is it possible? Sure, but it is only speculation on your part which then makes you no different than those you are trying to criticize.


Have a good day Enlightened1.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Both Liberals and conserva tives now want a civil war.......

At this point, the hate is so extreme (softball practice assassination attempt) that even with clear proof that team-Clinton/Obama used illegal means to spy on political rivals, then blame others for it, that short of electroshock-therapy on the brainwashed believers in CNN, the new American cold civil war will end when no Democrats are left standing.

Correct - I said Democrats because every time their representatives talk, they incite hatred and violence toward all Americans who do not share their fantasy-prone deluded logic. Pelosi, Schumer et all are the problem and always have been - if that triggers folks then tell someone who G.A.F, because the truth does indeed hurt.

I see it differently. It's the first time I've seen the internet living up to it's potential.

Folk are researching and SLAUGHTERING the deep state propaganda with logic and dot connecting and the tide seems to be turning for once.

You should bring some research to the table instead of repeating yourself endlessly. That you don't speaks volumes about your opinions.

I also suggest a mirror because seems to me you are doing what you accuse others of doing as regards social media.

The old saw is true: The pen is mightier than the sword. So are memes it seems.

a reply to: Revolution9

I don't watch or read media or listen to politicians, much less foreign ones. If you knew me then you'd know that ATS is pretty much the only media I take in. If I'm not on here I'm either working or out hiking and taking part in nature. I don't have cable nor do I visit media sites other than ATS and very occasionally Facebook to check up on people back home.

Putin has no kind of influence on me but I see they've got you believing in the narrative and automatically assume "Russia!".

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

I never claimed to be doing anything more than anyone else. I simply live my life and comment on here about what a sham all of it is. At least I own up to not doing anything, some seem to think they're doing something while sitting behind their keyboard, I have no such delusions.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Thanks from the brow beating. Built anything to replace the current political apparatus with?

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Well like The GUT said, maybe you should back up your claims with some substance instead of just repeating the same talking point in every thread and expecting us to take your word for it. We get it, you believe this entire charade is one big psy-op to keep us distracted so TPTB can quietly run the show behind closed doors. I mean you could be right and I wouldn't even be surprised, but repeating it over and over and over is getting a little redundant.

or.. present it as a theory instead of a fact and maybe people will entertain it a little more.

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

Who doesn't repeat themselves over and over on here nowadays? And who doesn't represent their opinion as fact these days? I believe my opinion is a fact which is why I present it the way I do, as does pretty much everyone else on these boards.

a reply to: JinMI

I'm not a political scientist but obviously the one we have in place right now isn't working all that well. It's basically a corporatocracy in the guise of a democracy. Corporations decide our laws, not our representatives.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

That is a massive logical fallacy. As is standing on the sidelines slinging mud and thinking you are clean.

Hell, by now even your horse is muddy!

a reply to: JinMI

Who says I'm clean? I certainly never said that.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1There ya' go. Proof positive that Democrats are pure as the driven snow.

a reply to: madenusa

Identity politics is fun isn't it? Must be seeing as how many people play it around here.

The politicians are just Circus illusions...A tidal wave of voices. All of which use sound bites as their opinion
This is all talk and no results. they can control the masses this way.
A debate that will rage on forever with hardly any change happening.

a reply to: Sublimecraft

the new American cold civil war will end when no Democrats are left standing.

And with this statement you have shown the extreme opposite of the spectrum that you yourself lie on. Extremism is extremism no matter what side you claim to be on and both are just a destructive as the other.

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
a reply to: madenusa

Identity politics is fun isn't it? Must be seeing as how many people play it around here.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I agree with you, get to know your enemy ....what's fun is watching the masses argue over a donkey and a elephant like a idol, symbolize there pride in government with a cartoon that has been around since the 19th century.
They have opinion makers and leaders on each side, supplying a few critical flashpoint incidents to create argument.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Seems to me you yourself are fairly preoccupied with politics and what others are doing. I am not sure why you put so much effort into telling others how they are doing it wrong if you don't care.

You seem like a hypocrite to be honest.