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How to fix the US. Real things real citizens can do.
April 22, 2011 at 3:27 pm
So we sit here on forums and blogs bitching about politicians religions and so on. So how do we actually make a difference? I'm 26 at the rate we are going I don't see a nice retirement in my future, I can see my union getting dissolved, I can see prices skyrocket, I can see the US lifestyle going away.
We talk about different voting methods, we talk about imperialism of the US, so many different subjects on US policy. Some of these policy's are downright illegal and just plain wrong.
How do we as citizens of the US actually fix the issues at hand. I can see our politicians have no real interest in fixing anything. I know we can point fingers at R's but the D's can be just as bad. Look at Obama, I was hoping he was going to be the radical progressive that the country needed, instead we have Lybia, and now mandated to buy private insurance, its almost like forcing up to raise insurance companies profits.
Polls are stupid, I don't care if 40% of R's think Obama is a Muslim, its not true so polls are not good indicators of anything. Polls are a good reflection of how uninformed our populace is on some issues. Polls should not be used for anything else, a poll is only as accurate as the person being polled.
Basically how do us as individuals do something to change this country before it is too late. It drives me crazy thinking about this stuff all the time, and people tell me "Oh don't think about it too much and just enjoy your life, you can't change it anyway" well ya if everyone stops thinking about it and does nothing about it of course nothing will change! But I can see basic rights being stripped from me in the near future, not to mention Earth may not be able to sustain this lifestyle forever. We have one serious flaw in our thinking, that growth can be infinite, we have to stop as some point and see that growth is not infinite, and we need to look at sustainability.
"...the illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world."
- Carl Sagan
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RE: How to fix the US. Real things real citizens can do.
April 22, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Me - you - same boat...down to the age even.
I think your quote has the key to the first step.
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RE: How to fix the US. Real things real citizens can do.
April 22, 2011 at 4:57 pm
I america your only solution is to vote democrat and vote for obama
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RE: How to fix the US. Real things real citizens can do.
April 22, 2011 at 4:58 pm
You have no hope, lad, until you get the money out of politics. Our election system needs to be completely revamped.
The Brits allow six weeks but we have a much bigger country so let's make it ten weeks and all public funding. No campaign contributions from fat cats or crooked corporations....or their libertarian lackeys. *
I'm old enough to remember when we were sold a bill of goods about candidates being picked in "smoke-filled" rooms. "Give us primaries" was the cry.
Well, smoke-filled rooms produced viable candidates. Primaries produce extremist assholes. Be careful what you wish for.
* http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...s-lobbying
Quote:The Kochs are fiercely political libertarians and thus believe much of government is wrong and that companies should be freed from the shackles of regulation. They openly fund libertarian organisations and, surely, have every right to promote their political ideology in any (legal) way they can. Just as every other American does.
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RE: How to fix the US. Real things real citizens can do.
April 22, 2011 at 5:07 pm
(April 22, 2011 at 4:57 pm)Ashendant Wrote: I america your only solution is to vote democrat and vote for obama
Yeah that totally worked 3 years ago. Problem solved!
If anything, the solution is to stop voting for those clowns so a real alternative can offer a truly different platform and way of running the country. The Democratic Party has had plenty of chances to make real changes. They are a different chapter of the same shameful band of crooks.
- Meatball
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RE: How to fix the US. Real things real citizens can do.
April 22, 2011 at 6:04 pm
I don't know. I'm of the mind that the best solution is to allow the nation to crash and burn by allowing the plutocrats of this country take over and perhaps the second wave of rulers (after an entirely new revolution) learn from our previous mistakes.
I'm finding it harder and harder to care anymore.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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RE: How to fix the US. Real things real citizens can do.
April 22, 2011 at 8:36 pm
(April 22, 2011 at 5:07 pm)Meatball Wrote: (April 22, 2011 at 4:57 pm)Ashendant Wrote: I america your only solution is to vote democrat and vote for obama
Yeah that totally worked 3 years ago. Problem solved!
If anything, the solution is to stop voting for those clowns so a real alternative can offer a truly different platform and way of running the country. The Democratic Party has had plenty of chances to make real changes. They are a different chapter of the same shameful band of crooks.
Like if you don't vote for the democrat party, others will vote for the replublican, so i think americans should vote for the less of two evils, specially if you get a downgrade...
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RE: How to fix the US. Real things real citizens can do.
April 23, 2011 at 1:06 am
Nice article Min.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
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RE: How to fix the US. Real things real citizens can do.
April 23, 2011 at 1:31 am
Quote:Like if you don't vote for the democrat party, others will vote for the Republican, so I think Americans should vote for the less of two evils, specially if you get a downgrade...
Lesser of two evils? How can you tell? Party politics are corrupt by their nature, as shown graphically by the Obama lame duck presidency, and our own amoral and incompetent incumbent, Lady Macbeth. (Julia Gillard).
Here, I gave up trying. At the last election, I finally decided I'd had enough,so it was "a pox on both your houses!" and I voted for the Greens. (centre-left-ish)
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RE: How to fix the US. Real things real citizens can do.
April 23, 2011 at 5:17 am
The problems of america seem to stem from he religious right.
They seem to be holding back the USA at every turn.
They block progressive policies and seem to distrust intellectuals, when it is intellectuals running things that your country needs.
The best way to counter his is with better education.
There seems to be a large number of americans who seem to have missed education, (not the ones who visit here mainly, you know the ones i mean).
Failing hat flood he TV with really interesting documentaries that explain things properly.
programs like life on earth, wonders of the solar system etc.
And take of those american 'documentaries' that spout bullshit as though its fact.
The number of 'ghost hunting' and 'ufo detectives' shows we get over here on the less reputable channels from aerica gives us a glance into the disinformantion hell you suffer.
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
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