The Green Day song “American Idiot” resonates with the flickr photo stream my friend Lance started. The complete lyrics can be found here. By the way I don’t want to be an American Idiot!
The demise of our democracy will not be terrorist, Chinese buy-out of oil companies or the French but instead our own insatiable desire to live in a near cationic state induced by rampant consumerism. It is depressing to think that perhaps a majority of Americans have reached an apoplectic state or nirvana in which there is nothing else than the self and the pursuit of self gratification.
I myself am panged with the need to commit feelings to action but the need to continue to ‘survive’ in the oppressive rat race of buy, buy and buy keeps me chained with the manacles of inaction.
Perhaps this blog and my own more keen interest in progressive and socialist thought is a step to my own personal radicalization. But how does one cast off the shackles of peer pressure to conform to the ideals of the perceived Middle America and embrace the liberty and freedom of the neo-socialist (whatever that is).