Greatest country in the world?

Bill Hick's fantastic blog "The Downward Spiral" had me thinking this morning. In one of his latest posts he points out that the OWS movement might be co-opted in DC by political parties. http://billhicksisdead.blogspot.com/2011/12/occupy-movement-may-be-about-to-jump.html

I personally have been watching from the sidelines at these protests when they started in New York city months ago. More than once I've been tempted to lace my boots and join their small encampment down in New Orleans only to have the demands of work and property labor impose their necessary obligations. I could be just making excuses like many others. Meanwhile, I've watched my countrymen tear gassed, pepper sprayed, tazered, beaten, cut, boot stomped, and swept away from their encampments by riot police acting in behest of what Bill Hicks sharply points out - by liberal and Democratic mayors. From what I hear around the proverbial water cooler, more like hanging out in front of the ambulance drinking coffee, it's all good riddance of the hippies, communists, and filth that bum up parks and sidewalks. I see the corporate owned media has mind fucked my coworkers exceptionally well. Why are we so against protests these days?

We often tout that America is the greatest country in the world, but even the slightest understanding of history shows that every freedom we now enjoy came after much protest, blood spillage, and cries from the downtrodden. It took courage, momentum, and action to make blacks equal to whites,

women equal to men,

to give land back to the Indians and to treat them with justice,

to save beautiful unspoiled nature,

to end child labor,

and to provide for the welfare of our neighbors and fellow countrymen.

The worshipped founding fathers created a nation with all these afflictions - slavery, the submission of women, child labor, exploitation of nature, and the decimation of America's native population. Oddly enough, you find all these social constructs also in the christian bible, so maybe the argument that this nation is, or was, christian holds some weight. It took people dying and bravely throwing themselves against police and their government to institute any meaningful reform in this alleged land of the free. Equal freedom, love of your fellow man, and conserving nature doesn't seem to equate well to slavery, the submission of gender, and slash and burn resource management. So knowing how America once was, and which is so oddly glorified with statues and panegyrized writings, how is it now that we vilify these protesters and their judgement of today's capitalism? We live in a self professed capitalistic nation whose alleged values of love, caring, and support for those who are unable is under constant assault by politicians seeking to kill Mexicans, setup electrified fences, strip health care from the poor, old, and disabled, allow the military to arrest its citizens without trial or jury, be subject to execution at the whim of a military commission or the executive order from the president (yes, all of this is true and there are examples already), and the removal of any and all environmental regulations. Yes, can you believe that the above is actually alive and well in the "greatest country" in the world?

Since it doesn't seem that we have the same mass will behind OWS type protests, as say the civil rights protests of the 60's, I'm not at all encouraged that my country man will stop any of the insanity creeping back into our laws, regulations, and policies that was so hardly fought for in decades past. It took countless hangings, cross burning hate, and public humiliation years to be defeated with thousands of marches, the endurement of German Shepard injuries, and skin peeling water cannon attacks. Only after all those bloody protests did blacks finally manage to force the government to write in laws enforcing their natural constitutional rights as human beings! Even now we have to fight our government for the right to marry who we want, to protect our waters from massive oil spills, to permit vegetable gardening, and hundreds of other things that seem obvious to me as being natural rights for us, the animals, and the world we live in. 

The latest example is a recent bill that was proposed that would allow the military to arrest citizens who were deemed terrorists and to hold them indefinitely without charges. Also, an execution could be meeted out by order of a military commission. http://endthelie.com/2011/11/25/s-1253-will-allow-indefinite-military-detention-of-american-civilians-without-charge-or-trial/#axzz1fPJtwval

a) Clarification of Right- Section 949m(b)(2) of title 10, United States Code, is amended--
(1) in subparagraph (C), by inserting before the semicolon the following: `, or a guilty plea was accepted and not withdrawn prior to announcement of the sentence in accordance with section 949i(b) of this title'; and
(2) in subparagraph (D), by inserting `on the sentence' after `vote was taken'.
(b) Pre-trial Agreements- Section 949i of such title is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:
`(c) Pre-trial Agreements- (1) A plea of guilty made by the accused that is accepted by a military judge under subsection (b) and not withdrawn prior to announcement of the sentence may form the basis for an agreement reducing the maximum sentence approved by the convening authority, including the reduction of a sentence of death to a lesser punishment, or that the case will be referred to a military commission under this chapter without seeking the penalty of death. Such an agreement may provide for terms and conditions in addition to a guilty plea by the accused in order to be effective.
`(2) A plea agreement under this subsection may not provide for a sentence of death imposed by a military judge alone. A sentence of death may only be imposed by the unanimous vote of all members of a military commission concurring in the sentence of death as provided in section 949m(b)(2)(D) of this title.'.

Isn't that frightening? That a bill like this would even have enough politicians to support it says much about this greatest country in the world thing. It took a consternated effort to keep it from passing with Senatorial maneuvering by Rand Paul to have it defeated. It won't be the last time that a piece of legislation like this is written, as we're probably only one domestic terrorist attack away from a bill that's even more draconian from actually passing. The Patriot act was the first step of a two part piece of legislation that will police America. This is but one example among a list of bills and laws being suggested or passed, and orchestrated to destroy the protests of the past, and to restore the even more ruthless America of old. The America that openly enslaved people, killed Indians after lying to them, tortured communists, worked kids to death, turned the power off to a family, had people eating dog food, and left old people to die in the street. Is that what we want again? While the bankers and capitalists fly off to some tropical isle and enjoy their decadent opulence at our bailout expense.

If people want a better country they're going in the wrong direction! Protesters changed America. Riots changed America. Being cynical and dismissive while eating turkey never did.