With the help of a DI reader who wishes to remain anonymous, I have created the following Declaration for modern Americans to wake up from their delusions. I'd recommend that all adults and school children put their hands over their hearts in the morning and say the following instead of pledging allegiance to the powers-that-be (but see here for an alternate form of the Pledge).
Here's one way that deregulation has worked in Texas:
Large corporations that operate payday lenders, many of them based in Texas, have been steady contributors to Perry's political campaigns over the last decade, donating upwards of $200,000, according to Texas campaign finance disclosure statements. In 2004, Perry appointed William J. White, a senior executive of one of the nation's largest payday lending corporations, Cash America International, to a seat on the Texas Finance Commission, which is tasked in part with protecting the state's consumers. Two years ago, the governor elevated White to the chairmanship of that body.
Glenn Greenwald points out that Americans are commonly persuaded and controlled through the use of vague terms. One example is the word "terrorism," which tends to be applied only where the person committing violence is a Muslim and not when non-Muslims commit comparable acts. A "militant" has come to mean any person who dies when an American weapon explodes. "Class warfare" and "Civil liberties" are other commonly used vague terms that are actually used as "tools for misleading political arguments." Another such vague term is "rule of law," which originally referred to the idea that "we are all equally bound to a common set of rules, regardless of power position, or prestige." It originally meant that "nobody is above the law or below the law." Citing the work of Thomas Carruthers, Greenwald noted that the biggest challenge is to prevent elites from living above the rule of law. The founding fathers, who personally "loved inequality," agreed that a central requirement for the new country is that everyone would comport with the law; without this requirement, they agreed that the country would not be "legitimate and just." Greenwald explained that with regard to "rule of law," things aren't working out so well in modern day America. The biggest problem is that "we no longer believe in the principle itself." With regard to journalists (see below), they now tend to be situated as insiders rather than outsider watchdogs who, in less dysfunctional times, embraced the motto: "Afflict the powerful, comfort the powerless." Greenwald has been out and about, promoting his new book, With Liberty and Justice for Some. For many additional videos of his talks, see here.
Consider the joy shown by Americans celebrating the Fourth of July. 
If the Fourth is such a happy time, shouldn’t we now be equally furious that the government has been rigged to ignore the needs and wants of the People? Over the past few years, I've heard dozens of educated middle class Americans admit that Congress has ben bought―federal corruption at the highest levels is now accepted as unquestionable truth.
More recently, I’ve run into more than a few people who have become frustrated with the Occupy movement. For instance, last week I heard this from an acquaintance, who was speaking of the protesters:
Acquaintance: “They should get a job. What the hell are they expecting to accomplish out there?”
Me: Isn’t it a huge problem that all three branches of our federal government make decisions to accommodate large corporations, often ignoring the needs of ordinary citizens? Isn’t that worth protesting.
Acquaintance: “Still, the protesters are stupid.”
Me: What is your solution? Ordinary people are barred from participating in a government that is supposedly to be run by ordinary people. Further, the news media is largely under the control of these same interests―they are too often serving as stenographers for the corporations that pull the strings of the federal Government. [Fourth of July flag photo]
Acquaintance: [Silence].
Along the same lines, here’s an excerpt from an email I recently received from a DI reader:About your note regarding ways to support the Occupy movement... yes, you are right to encourage people to talk about what is going on, but don't you think that it is time for those who are actually doing the "occupying" to go home and do their homework. It seems pretty apparent that it is mostly the late teen to early 20 year olds that are involved and that they don't seem to have any really intelligent, well thought out ideas or goals. The media and general public are already bored with the story, and the whole thing will have been an exercise in futility unless they move on in a dignified way. Their goal should be to have an effect on the 2012 election which is a full year away. They should go home and get organized and become better informed in order to form a voting block that will further their agenda (that is if they can come to a consensus as to what that agenda is).
In short, this reader wants the Occupiers to return home to do the same thing that millions of people have been doing for the past decade, i.e., doing nothing likely to invoke change. [More . . . ]What kind of idea is this: Let's send $40 billion in paper cash to Iraq on military airplanes and then quickly lose track of how it is being used. What do you think of this idea? Here's the beginning of this surreal story, as reported by Common Dreams.
“Wait, one person?” Shays asked. “One person received $40 billion?” Asked what he thinks about that, Shays said, “It just blows you away.” The enormous undertaking of moving the billions began in the heavily guarded Federal Reserve compound on 100 Orchard Street in East Rutherford, NJ. There, carefully screened employees loaded pallets of cash into tractor-trailers for their journey down I-95 toward Washington, DC. The money came from an account held at the New York Fed called the “Development Fund for Iraq” which was made up of billions of dollars in Saddam Hussein’s financial assets that had been frozen under various US and global sanctions regimes. They weren’t taxpayer dollars, but the US government was responsible for making sure they got where they were going. A typical pallet held 640 bundles, which the handlers called “bricks,” with a thousand bills in each bundle. Each pallet weighed 1,500 pounds, and they were separated by color. Gold seals were used for $100 bills, brown seals held $50 bills, purple seals $20, and so on.