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Posted by AllentownDarkWater on 08-03-2010 at 04:22:
I feel like the US is turning into the Soviet Union
Every day I just feel more and more like my country is slowly drifting more and more away from being "The Land of The Free". Anyone else feel like that?
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Posted by Ebonyswanne on 08-03-2010 at 10:48:
From an outsiders POV... Nope, your still the same old USA as ever before. What makes you think you're becoming more like the old Soviet Union????
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Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up- Pablo Picasso.
Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 08-03-2010 at 16:28:
I would say we've become a nation of whiners and litigants. The only people we ever seem to see on television are the most divisive, close-minded idiots that networks can find; 'The Daily Show' (on Comedy Central) asks the questions the so-called 'news shows' won't ask; and every damn network has decided to chase the 18-40 demographic in the most lowest-common-denominator manner. I cancelled my cable for budget reasons, and the only things I miss are 'Mythbusters' and Turner Classic Movies. (I can get 'The Daily Show' and 'The Closer' on Hulu.com.)
Of course, we did it to ourselves. People demand 100% safety (or satisfaction, or whatever), and when reality intervenes, look for someone to sue, instead of doing something constructive about the situation. When infotainment crept up on us in the 1980s, we didn't fight the right battles, and now we have a culture in which idiots will pull stunts just to get on television, and a stupid celebrity will get more airtime than truly newsworthy events. (Don't you get the impression that, in our world, Galactor would take second place to the latest antics of Britney Spears or whoever else is self-destructing right now?)
And now we have the health care debacle, in which people who wouldn't know socialism if they were handed a definition of it try to scare people into keeping the system we have right now. Pay through the nose for health insurance, then have some company bean-counter deny your claim because you have a 'pre-existing condition' or suggest some other treatment than the one that works. (There's something wrong when they'll pay to amputate your foot from complications caused by diabetes, but not to control your diabetes.) I've actually heard people justify not supporting reform because of someone they know (or heard of) who would take advantage of the system. Really? Screw yourself and millions of hard-working people because of the less than one percent who try to play the system? Remember you said that when you have to take the third job because the insurance company raised its rates again.
We want simple answers, and they don't exist. We try to write regulations to cover every eventuality, and paralyze ourselves with conflicting rules rather than deal with unusual cases as they come. State governments pay for boondoggles while cutting social services and forcing lower-level employees to take unpaid days off. You can bet the governors aren't taking furlough days. (Not too long ago, the local veteran's home was forced to close its domiciliary. Fortunately, the town in which I live was able to step up and provide help for the now-displaced veterans. I don't think the city of Atlanta would have been able to do so. A sub-sub-paragraph in a sub-chapter of a long-forgotten regulation would probably have prevented it -- mostly because nobody could be sure if it applied to this situation.) And our social services people get folks off welfare by lying to them and humiliating them until they stop showing up to ask for help (according to 'Mother Jones' magazine).
We aren't becoming a communist or socialist country. We're just being idiots, pandering to loudmouths and fools who think 'Leave It To Beaver' is an accurate look at life in the 1950s and who don't realize that it was liberals who gave us workplace safety, Social Security, the 40-hour workweek, and other things we all take for granted. (You think Ann Coulter wants to return to the days when a woman couldn't have a bank account or credit card in her own name?)
People are going to get sick of this. And when they do, the 2008 election will look like just another Presidential election. They'll elect whoever promises to make everything better, and God help us if it's the wrong person.
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Posted by AllentownDarkWater on 08-03-2010 at 21:42:
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Well one thing in particular off the top of my head is how I keep seeing certain people who present their opinions like they're facts.
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Posted by clouddancer on 08-03-2010 at 21:55:
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That is the problem when you have "free speech", you have to expect it. The same thing happens all over the world.
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Posted by amethyst on 08-03-2010 at 23:08:
Well said UW!
From where I'm sitting (a reformed Republican with no current party affiliation), we could use just a touch of common sense socialism. Any economic/political system is corruptible. All have strengths and weaknesses. Right now we are experiencing the effects of deregulation gone a muck. With the exception of education where teachers have to teach to specific tests and politicians want teachers paid based on test results as if that is the end all and be all of learning and teaching.
If we had not deregulation the banking, insurance, and other industries in the 80's and 90's many of the problems we are facing now would have been avoided.
Greed has got us where we are now, and fear. Fear of not being the best, fear of other systems being just as viable, fear of anything that reeks communism, socialism, or even noblese oblege (sp?).
Just the opinion of a simple, rural California woman, with a little bit of education brought up at the end of the Cold War. I was born at the height of the Vietnam War and the Nixon Presidency and graduated high school with the collapse of the Berlin wall and the Iran-Contra affair. But then, I think there are a few of us who could make the same claims. Some might agree with me, some might not. Ain't that the beauty of the world.
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Perspective Alters Reality
Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 09-03-2010 at 03:10:
It's always a balancing act, which people forget. Free enterprise can't do it all, nor can government. We have to keep our eyes open, and carefully examine what our leaders propose. Unfortunately, some people are so blinkered by their belief systems that any change from the status quo is immediately seen as a threat. And then things get bogged down.
(The Republicans screwed themselves pretty good, IMO. They catered to the rich a little too much. People who might otherwise have voted for McCain noticed this disconnect with the 'real Americans' that Limbaugh and Co. like to invoke, and either stayed away from the voting booths, or voted against the Republican party. And now the Republicans are acting like kids, digging in their heels and saying 'No' all the time.)
Freedom of speech is always popular, until someone says something you disagree with. Now, the problem is that so few people are willing to actually talk and discuss things. It seems that the only acceptable form of 'debate' these days is for the loudest, most extreme representatives of each side to yell at each other. Which doesn't solve anything, and makes both parties look bad (and I mean parties to the conflict at hand, not just the political parties).
Time to demand to be treated like grown-ups, and suit action to word.
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Posted by amethyst on 09-03-2010 at 03:45:
And let's not forget that all discussions must be PC; because heaven forbid that we disagree or insult someone because our opinions are different from theirs.
My little hometown recently made national news because we recalled the entire school board except for one person who was recently elected to replace a member who resigned in protest over the boards decision making rationale -- they were catering to administration and not listening to the parents and the entire community, but only those who agreed with them. A local realtor and wanna-be-journalist took aim at the pro-recall movement and slammed the main group behind it at every moment; of course his wife was one of the board members being recalled.
As long as the general public is not willing to inform elected officials of what is expected of them; as long as we remain comfortable with status quo; as long as we think that our opinion doesn't matter or that we cannot effect real change, no change will happen.
That is the real threat to human rights and democratic principles. It does not matter whether one's economy is based on capitalism, socialism, communism, or something new; if the people are content to stand for corruption and catering to only one social class we stand to lose more than we will gain.
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Posted by green on 09-03-2010 at 03:47:
My state is currently leading up to an election so I can certainly identify with your description of a debate, UW.
You know, I think I wouldn't be the only one to vote for a party based on how they conducted themselves during an election. I am so tired of the blame game and promises you know are only being made to be broken. If a party were to stick to the issues, kept it clean and fair without pointing the finger at the opposition, if they didn't sound so childish - I would be proud to back them, regardless of their political standings. Instead, on polling day I will slink into my booth, running from people trying to hand me more BS flyers and mark the box depending on which party is in power on the Federal level. (I will vote against them solely so I don't hand them the country and my state at the same time - too much power goes too quickly to their heads!)
What happened to the time when politicians were there to look after the people instead of themselves?
I hate to say it, but the greatest insult we can give our beautiful country is that it's becoming too much like America... Stupid lawsuits, ridiculous laws, power too concentrated among the few.
Our only saving grace is that when the country goes to vote it's all on the same day, and all out electioneering is limited, by law, to a scant 6 weeks. We elect a party, not a person; and if the truth is to be told, the differences between the parties are minor. The leader of that party automatically becomes Prime Minister and they decide who takes up positions of power within the Cabinet. We only have to hope that their selections are based on ability and not on favours owed or friendship...
AllentownDarkWater - you are not the only one that sometimes despairs that their country isn't heading in the right direction. I would dare say that many of us around the world look at ourselves and can only shake our heads at what we see.
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Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook
Posted by Ebonyswanne on 09-03-2010 at 09:27:
Sometimes I think its great being born in a western country...
but then I look at photos of people taken in 3rd world countries and really look into their eyes... They might be poor, have no TV or other luxuries, but something in their eyes tells of a happiness some people spend a lifetime trying to find. Thats when I look at my little house and think... "Its no mansion, but I have food in my cupboard and clothes...I ain't hungry... I'm well off where it counts." I confess to not watching much TV at all...yep I don't even have cable!!! My kids can live with ABC kids, or a DVD.
I can't handle much of DR Phil, Ophrah or other shows like it. Its too depressing after a while.... One of my friends watches them everyday and she ends all depressed about everything, even wondered one day if her husband was thinking she was drab and might start looking for another woman because she didn't have a career, pregnant, and runs after two toddlers at day, after comments made on one of those shows she rang me up in tears... I said. "Tomorrow, don't watch anything! Play with your kids and go for a walk or something..."
I hope I wasn't being to opinionated in all of that!!! But I know what you mean, I've had times when I think Agggrrrhhhhh....when it comes to things that crop up in the media.
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Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up- Pablo Picasso.
Posted by AllentownDarkWater on 13-05-2010 at 05:33:
Well I just found out that in Arizona, they just signed a bill banning ethnic studies in public schools. That is not good.
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Banned
Posted by Madilayn on 13-05-2010 at 05:53:
No - as soon as any government/authority body starts banning things, you move into the realm of censorship and stifle free thinking.
One of the problems is that a lot of people don't think - they belive whatever view is put to them by media or their favourite pollie and/or interest group and use that as gospel.
I was interested to hear Barak Obama's opinion on technology the other day.
True democracy can only work when every person can have a say - and to me the internet allows this to happen. Whether that say is good, bad, indifferent or just plain loopy - they can say it.
If technology allows debate, then it should be encouraged.
What really really peeves me is when polliticians play only on party lines - so whatever their "enemy" says, they immediate bag it - no matter what the merits or benefits of it are.
Sometimes I really believe that if one party says that the sky is blue, the other will deny it just because they feel that they must.
Sometimes, politicians NEED to be bi-partisan in order to do what is best for their country /state /city/ constituents. After all - that's what they're elected to do!
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Posted by Ebonyswanne on 13-05-2010 at 09:31:
If you want to know what sensorship is, watch the TV and see how much of the outside world they show(out of your own country,) and covers and for how long it actually covers it for. Thats why I like SBS, they give real world news in more than a few minutes! (Its the ethnic local channel...)
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Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up- Pablo Picasso.
Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 13-05-2010 at 09:56:
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That's not communism: that's partisan stupidity. The idiots probably cloaked it in nonsense about saving tax dollars or concentrating on the core curriculum, but they were really pandering to the 'We're white people, dammit!' base.
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Posted by gatchamarie on 13-05-2010 at 10:59:
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That's what pisses me off also! Unfortunately, here we have the same trend undertaken by politicians. Parties oppose each other on every line and they do not consider what's better for the country, sometimes. I think this reasoning is so immature ... and to say that we have to depend from these persons' decisions! Sometimes I really think that my kids could do better!
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Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 13-05-2010 at 22:26:
Almost makes one wish for the days of horsewhipping. When 19th Century politicians took canes to each other, you knew damn well they thought they had good reason for their opinions.
In this country, the Republicans react to losing by sitting down, crossing their arms, squinching up their faces, and saying 'No!' to everything. When they aren't trying to scare people or casting blame for their defeat. (There's a reason the tea party movement is so light of skin.)
John Kerry lost a Presidential election, dusted himself off, and went back to work. Yep, we could have had a grown-up for President in 2004.
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