2009-12-04 Are Americans Too Broken for the Truth to Set Us Free

2009-12-04 Bruce E. Levine Counterpunch \America\citizen disempowerment\abuse syndrome http://www.counterpunch.org/levine12042009.html Are Americans Too Broken for the Truth to Set Us Free? Are Americans Too Broken for the Truth to Set Us Free  Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States? Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further? What forces have created a demoralized, passive, disCouraged U.S. population? Can anything be done to turn this around? Article answers each of these questions as follows, but at greater length:
 * Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not “set them free” but instead further demoralize them? YES.
 * Has such a demoralization happened in the U.S.? U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons that people cannot leave their abusive spouses. They feel helpless to effect change. ...
 * Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further? Maybe.
 * What forces have created a demoralized, passive, disCouraged U.S. population? The U.S. government-corporate partnership has used its share of guns and terror to break Native Americans, labor union organizers, and other dissidents and activists. But today, most U.S. citizens are broken by financial fears. ... We are also broken by a corporate-government partnership that has rendered most of us out of control when it comes to the basic necessities of life, including our food supply. And we, like many other people in the world, are broken by socializing institutions that alienate us from our basic humanity. Examples given:
 * Schools and Universities
 * Mental Health Institutions
 * Television
 * Commericalism of Damn Near Everything
 * Can anything be done to turn this around? ...the immobilized need a shot of morale.

&ldquo;Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States?&rdquo;   