We Baby Boomers remember this story with great delight...and the younger set has seen it on those old Twilight Zone reruns...but it certainly spot-on as to what's happening in our nation today with all the propaganda flying around from everywhere:

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Streets

by Marty Kaplan

The power has gone out in a typical American town. Wait -- it's not just the electricity. The phones don't work, either. Portable radios are dead. Cars won't start.

But then lawn mowers and cars and lights inexplicably start and stop on their own. What's going on? A meteor? Sunspots? Or are there, as Tommy's comic book suggests, aliens among us, preparing for a takeover? Suspicion poisons the air. Neighbor turns on neighbor. A scapegoat is blamed. A shot is fired. Panic, madness, riot.

And while the humans behave monstrously, the real monsters watch from a nearby hilltop, working a little gizmo that messes with the power on Maple Street, and marveling how easy it is to manipulate these earthlings into destroying themselves.

In what is arguably the best Twilight Zone episode ever, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," Rod Serling wrote a suburban Lord of the Flies, a parable about the fragility of civilization, paranoia and the susceptibility of nice folks to manipulation.

Watching it when it first aired, in the depths of the nuclear arms race, people thought it was meant to ward off a witch-hunt for Reds under the bed. Today, watching what's been going on in Madison, Wisconsin, as well as in Washington, D.C., I can't help thinking that the real monsters are chortling at their success in pitting neighbor against neighbor, and I can't help marveling at their genius for distraction and unaccountability.

The monsters aren't Wisconsin's public employees whose right to collective bargaining has helped their families lead middle-class lives, and who have repeatedly declared their willingness to return to the table and negotiate a shared sacrifice. The monsters are on Wall Street, where state pension funds were sunk into toxic sub-prime mortgage-backed securities. The monsters are on K Street, where lobbyists are fighting financial industry oversight. The monsters are the politicians who are using Wisconsin's deficit as a pretext to demonize public employees and bust their unions.

Seems true to me.

Many times in past years I have repeatedly told people that one day we will all be controlled by some strange beams from somewhere to make out brains function like no other. It appears all this has been directed to the Republicans, and those lousy Republicans Governors. Who knows where all this will end and how effect it will determine our future.

THE WAR AGAINST THE REPUBLIC: THE BATTLE OF MADISON

However you look at it, calling the Wisconsin struggle a "labor dispute" is like calling the Battle of Normandy "a fight over a beach." There's a war on, one that's best understand by using an Latin expression popular among prosecutors: Cui bono? Who benefits? Gov. Scott Walker's union-busting budget contains buried goodies for somebody, including possibly the Koch Brothers who paid to have it drafted. More importantly, it's another step toward replacing the American dream of prosperity for all with imperial visions of massive wealth for the few.

The heavily-financed army behind Scott Walker has as its ambition the death of the American Republic. If that sounds like rhetorical overkill, then it's worth remembering the words of someone who watched a republic fall. "The enemy is within the gates," said Cicero. "It is with our own opulence, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend."

MORE AT THE LINK


WAKE UP, PEOPLE...THIS IS WHAT THE REPUBS HAD IN MIND ALL ALONG WITH THE 2010 WIN...IT'S A CONSPIRACY ON A GRAND SCALE AND IT'S BEING PLAYED OUT STATE BY STATE...SO FAR, AND IT WILL ONLY GROW WORSE IF THE GOVERNOR IN WISCONSIN WINS...HE AND THE KOCH BROTHERS.

ANOTHER RESPONSE AT THE SMIRKING CHIMP:

Hello Madison, remember Paris?

History tells us that the Nobility in 18th century France had kept on stretching the limited resources of the middle class and poor, way past the point of sustainability. While they frittered away their pampered lives with luxury at Louis' artifical paradise Versailles, the WORKING people of France kept suffering, kept dying from exhaustion at 35, kept watching 1 of every three of their children die in infancy from malnutrition, until one day, the CORK POPPED. Ala Cairo, Ala Trioply. We know the outcome. I don't see a public movement of people singing "We sure got fooled again!" but rather, for every one of us supporting the assalated brethern of our Union neighbors, you have a tea-party IDIOT screaming about how they are sick of people making a decent living wage in a world economy.
I'm afraid it's going to take Revolution II in this country to actually stop the rich's takeover of our nation. I'm totally convinced that will be the only thing that will cleanse this wicked nation, as much as I would like to avoid it. A long, prolonged period of violence, poverty and misery is coming, and sooner or later, the cork is going to POP.
The reason I feel this way is I watched a lazy, controlled nation vote the SAME CORPORATE LACKEYS that got them in this mess RIGHT back into power, because Limbaugh and Hannity said it was all the Democrats/Unions/Free Speech/Obama's fault.
PROVE ME WRONG, AMERICA. I'm afraid it's a sure bet. Like the French Poet Jean Marin spoke of the revolution in France shortly before the Bastille:

"Until they are enlightened, the people will never revolt.
Until they revolt, they will never be enlightened..."

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/rj- ... of-madison

***"Until they are enlightened, the people will never revolt.
Until they revolt, they will never be enlightened..."

"EMPOWERMENT," will satisfy both your statements above. When the people of this country, start to realize, that THEY ARE NOT ALONE, then, and only then, will they seek other forms of information. Either from each other, or other forms of information, other than the brain dead at Faux. From there, WE WILL SEE CHANGE!!

With a repressive government, followed by a repressive media, it just ain't gonna happen!!

There's really no reason for a coward or a dumb ass to change, if they are not required to think!!

...please remember, I still live in Indiana!!

...I see this shit first hand everyday!!