"How did it get to this point...Why didn't people fight back"

You could say that Americans have questioned things and prevented them from going further.

Our government had, at one time, passed laws dictating that the media could not print anything negative about the government.

We changed that.

We have thrown out Habeas Corpus and arrested and imprisoned Americans for their possible political beliefs.

We changed that.

We have thrown Japanese-Americans in internment camps for no reason.

We changed that.

I think we ask plenty of questions.

I think spookyville makes a good point. We havent been completely quiet. But those things were a very long time ago too. What have we changed recently? I sincerely cant think of anything major but I'm sure there must be something - last 10-20 years?

If you look at research on it (tons of stuff from 9/11 especially), it's when Americans are distracted by their own contentment or are so hopeless they turn to the powers that be to fix things. Right now - we are not happy (research shows all time lows of satisfaction with governments - not polls). But people are so busy just trying to live day to day, and the government had become too enormous - too much confussion and complexity.

reply to post by liveandlearn


I think it starts with the people. You divide them. You set up social constructs of hating certain groups, dems vs repub, tea party, black people, illegal immigrants, etc. I was just posting about this on another thread. I think it's being purposefully done in order to weaken us and divide us further. Hitler hypnotized a nation into hating Jews, why can't our powers that be do the same? History repeats itself but I want to believe in humanity, and that we can turn the ship around, open our eyes and see what is being done to us.

reply to post by Taissa


The hated group in the USA is White Christians, esp. the Tea Party.

The biggest problem is the News Media belongs to the Banksters and so does Congress.

Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress Dick Durbin's confession ought to be major news, yet it won't be. Why not?

Sen. Dick Durbin, on a local Chicago radio station this week, blurted out an obvious truth about Congress that, despite being blindingly obvious, is rarely spoken: “And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.” The blunt acknowledgment that the same banks that caused the financial crisis “own” the U.S. Congress — according to one of that institution’s most powerful members — demonstrates just how extreme this institutional corruption is.

The ownership of the federal government by banks and other large corporations is effectuated in literally countless ways, none more effective than the endless and increasingly sleazy overlap between government and corporate officials. Here is just one random item this week announcing a couple of standard personnel moves:

Former Barney Frank staffer now top Goldman Sachs lobbyist

Goldman Sachs’ new top lobbyist was recently the top staffer to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., on the House Financial Services Committee chaired by Frank.....

U.S. Congressional Record February 9, 1917

In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, ship building and powder interests and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press in the United States.

“These 12 men worked the problems out by selecting 179 newspapers, and then began, by an elimination process, to retain only those necessary for the purpose of controlling the general policy of the daily press throughout the country….

JP Morgan: Our next big media player?

Now we have the anti-occupy law, signed by almost all of Congress restricting our right to freedom of assembly and petition of grievances. "Anti-Occupy" law ends American's right to protest