OCCUPY WALL STREET

[Jewdy]

I think we will start to heal as a country once we realize that turning to the government to fix our problems is our biggest problem. The government is run by elected officials which means they need votes. The government collects taxes, which is fair and lawful if collected and spent justly. What has been happening for a long time is the elected members of government (local, state and Fed) use your tax dollars to buy votes. You may not think of social programs or tax breaks for certain groups as buying votes but that is what it is. It doesn't even matter if they don't have the revenue they will borrow it.

Most people know that we are on a collision course with a harsh financial reality of forced defense cuts, debt default, the future collapse of social security and many other harsh realities. We can raise taxes some but that can be as much of a problem as it is a fix. Most of the politicians in office now will not be able to do the cutting of the budget necessary to fix the problems and still get reelected, so they wont.

The only real fix to the problem is to elect people who will make the tough decisions that will benefit the country as a whole for the future. These cuts may take away your tax break, government subsidy or your right to sit on your ass for the next 20 years, but as responsible americans we have the obligation to make a responsible decision and get to work on fixing this mess.

[JHern]

Jewdy: Agreed. And I completely understand the Tea Party calls for abolishing the gov't (but I guess they exempt the defense dept?). The catch-22 is, of course, that the government is only effectively a middle-man for the wealthy interests that already control it. Which is why critics of the US gov't call it a plutocracy, rife with crony capitalism and where the regular people have no voice (but money has the strongest legal protections, extended all the way to constitutional freedom of speech).

Sure, we could eliminate or severely cripple the middle-man (the government), but what we're left with is essentially direct control of the country by those same folks who corrupted our gov't in the first place. Anyone who thinks that they will disappear, that their power will be dissipated, that their deleterious effects on the working class will wane, is badly mistaken. The floodgates will simply be opened and our descent into peonage will be made complete. This would represent a backward slide for humanity, as a whole.

So we need a gov't, but not just any gov't...we need a gov't that isn't corrupt, and that will do what's best for the country as a whole, as you suggest. But this is just a true Democratic gov't. Obviously, we don't have that now. The question now, is, how do we get there? That's the hard part. However, there is no question that nothing will happen if we simply sit on our asses and let things continue to go in the direction they've already been headed. The 2 parties have no interest in changing the status quo.

But we the people still have a right to vote. And we CAN vote for anyone we like. The power to take back our gov't is firmly in our hands, but we've been too lazy to take care of it. Democracy is not a spectator affair, it requires the active participation of the people. But we sit back and watch the Washington soap opera, which keeps us distracted and entertained, and sells TV news. Viewers of this soap opera consider themselves well-enough informed to be able to cast a ballot at the polls, but they are dead wrong. 16 out of every 17 elections in the US is won by the better-financed candidate. All that money is spent on TV ads and media campaigns, and therefore is used to control the narrative in the TV media. That's how it works. All of us fat stupid lazy Americans sitting on the sofa and being spoon fed BS by some political campaign or other via the TV, and then maybe peeling our lard asses off the cushions to cast a vote based largely on misinformation and propaganda.

Of course, another reason we don't already vote outside-the-box is that the 2 parties have made people afraid of the "other party" and all the terrible things that would happen if they were to take power. Just look at what happened with other 3rd party candidates. GOP constituents see Ross Perot "stealing" votes from Bush I that helped Clinton get elected, while Dems see Ralph Nader as "stealing" votes from Gore that helped Bush II to triumph in Florida. That the parties have proceeded to become more divisive with time, ramping up the fear and hate, dividing the people against each other, and with disastrous results for their own common interests, tends to further consolidate the power of the 2 main parties. Of course, the real tragedy in all this is that neither party, when it is in control, actually changes much of anything. Nobody in either party has the ability to stand up against the influence of big money, because that money is the lifeline of their party's election infrastructure.

The only thing that will change anything is if most Americans get out in the streets, stand up against both parties, demand change, and demand a real Democracy. That would scare the hell out of the politicians, and they would be shocked into action. One such option is a massive concerted action at the polls, such as a massive write-in campaign. In Spain, they managed to get more votes for a fictitious write-in candidate than for any other candidate, which sent the entire gov't into a tailspin.

How about this: in November 2012, everybody goes to the polls, and we write-in: "We Want Our Democracy Back!" We write this in the space provided, instead of selecting a 2-party candidate (which is a vote for the status quo, no matter which party wins). This would show the gov't that the people have the power, and that they intend to take it back!

[tallpaul]

I would question how valid votes are anymore; if they really ever were.

[JHern]

I would question how valid votes are anymore; if they really ever were.

The CIA was involved with trashing ballots in Afghanistan that didn't support the regime we put in power (which turns out to be a clepto-narco-state apparatus). One wonders what the hell happens with ballots in some of our own states. Of course, we never know if our votes are truly counted. They could easily fool everyone, they've created exactly the right kind of atmosphere in which such behavior could be overlooked...not that it really matters which one wins.

[BrotherDave]

This thread isn't quite filled with the amount of stupidity that the one on DGCR is. Good job DGR.

[Triflusal]

[7ontheline]

Whodat?

[Parks]

I dunno, but they should've used Boehner instead.

[Triflusal]

its a guy getting a spray tan

[AciDBatH666]

[Jewdy]

Wow! I just became a fan of Adam Carolla.