“Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one’s self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.”

The actions of many if not most, elected members of today's US Congress in the words they utter in public and the actions that are not in line with those words they take behind closed doors, brings this quote in full force right into 21st century American life.

Absolutely! I'm guilty of that train of thought! Not any more!

The whole "Democratic process" is a complete farce. Today's quotes are demonstrative of this. Voting is a complete waste of time as it makes no difference in the big picture. Whether you vote red or blue...the joke is on you...

Is ignorance of the voter still considered "bliss?"

. . . "all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." (Declaration of Independence)

Sounds like why so many sheeple don't know or care if the president usurper, the fraud and foreigner, is a natural born citizen as our Constitution requires. www.davidbenariel.org

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." (Thomas Jefferson)

The people who really control things are in the kitchen stealing the silver while Americans are in the living room arguing whether democrats are worse than republicans.

Michael Rivero says well what we manage to keep unsaid... (Waffler's absence is conspicuous -- the quote is about him)

Archer, really funny about Waffler, I was contemplating writing the exact same thing.

There is too much cowardice - we need to sharpen our pitch forks. We are comfortable with our fast food, Faux News, Rush Dimbaugh, Glen Beck, and alike, and don't want our apple cart spilt. The big problem I see down the road is very simple, it's called self preservation, and in the current climate of increased government over 50% of all employed will be on the government payroll and that is when things start to get messy - very messy. My dear princess Diana said it best "The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all".

I have stood up to corruption all of my life where ever I have found it and now especially the intellectual corruption I have found on these pages. RBESRQ inadvertently states much truth. Fast Food is not a government invention, Faux News is created by nuts like Rush and Beck and not by government etcetera. Early in the Watergate News cycle I had identified Nixon for the creep that he was so don't point at me when about being a blind follower.

INDEED, I have reached the same conclusion, and it disturbs me almost every day. *I* am not doing enough, and I suspect that I am being a coward.

(Switching to the other side of the coin a little bit) Often politicians' tails* get half stuck by closing doors while leaving closed-door meeting rooms, then they cannot go much further away from that door. At the end of the day, they cannot keep their promises to the common people, even if they really wanted to, because there are promises to group people to keep. Not keeping the promises to group people entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. They choose to do nothing and surrender their self-image of standing for principles. Blessed are those politicians who have no tail and blessed are the people who vote for them! *figure of speech in a language other than English that means words of promise and serious commitment

Conspiracy theory, the establishment, etc. will always be with us mostly because there is a small element of truth to the story. The other theme that gets less investigation is the ego driven, adulation starved people who migrate to government "service" employed, appointed, and elected. I've been there, done that, and it is practical and workable at the city level, because the whole thing is local. When you move to the state and national level, everything changes and not for the better. Rather than repeat all the rants on Congress, let me suggest Edmund S. Morgan's "Inventing the People." The book lays out this process better than anything else I have encountered on the subject.

You are a blind follower Waffler. No doubt about it. Interesting quote.

Secret societies are great because if they exist they can not defend themselves about the propaganda against them and remain secret and if they do not exist then there also will be not defense. So either way it makes good fun for theorists because there is no way to ever prove any of the endless streams of crap they say.

There are two types of individuals who do not know what their govenment is doing. Those who do not know because they lack the curiosity to ask, and those that do not know, because they lack the courage to ask.