Not the America we Want but the America we deserve?
If someone were to ask the question “Why is it this way in America?”, I say the answer is people….
People thinking their liberty can be obtained only by taking it away from someone else.
People supporting a state that requires ethnic groups to carry citizenship “permits” but excludes such requirements for concealed handguns.
People complaining about government subsidies for the poor but are silent about subsidies for corporations.
People protesting and if questioned, they cannot explain what they are protesting about.
People unwilling to listen to both sides of an issue and will seek out information that only supports their bias.
People that claim to care about America but will allow it to be dismantled and destroyed
for what is underneath it.
People that think contentment is the same as consumption.
People that pursue rewards in life by denying it to others.
People emphasizing the history of minor detail in order to destroy the major accomplishments.
People that claim morality and are willing to kill to prove it.
People that know what is true but are silent when lies are spread.
About Post Author
Carol Bell
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You hit a few nails fair and square on the head, but none more than this:
People unwilling to listen to both sides of an issue and will seek out out information that only supports their bias.
People have their agenda and their hardcore beliefs and are immovable. They will never change, they have to be outnumbered.
But if it is impossible to turn “Them” into “Us” with the issues if they are IN office and the money needed to get into office will only allow “Them” to be elected, isn’t that game over?
Is that the state of American politics right now? The only things elections do is determine who gets to divide up the power?
Krell,
I tend to waver between cynicism and hope. Kevin Phillips wrote that lobbyists are too entrenched and our decline as a nation cannot be stopped. I don’t want to believe that, and in my less cynical moments believe that the American people will act somewhat concertedly for the good of the many-but I believe unfortunately it will take things getting markedly worse before that can happen. I’d had hopes our current financial cataclysm combined with two failed wars and disastrous healthcare would be the catalyst but sadly that doesn’t seem to be the case. Now I’m dropping into a little cynicism again!
I used to be a bus driver….this is possibly a worry…It may be a boon that I am here and not there…;-)
The two parties and their big fundraisers run politics. About the only way to stop the party chosen is for a millionairs to run against him/her and finance the campaign. Sadly Jerry, in most cases then only way to get the corporate money guy out is with a rich guy. I do love the irony though. A rich guy saving us from corporate political thuggery.
I’m with Jerry in the respect that we can vote them out, but then again can we? It is tough enough getting three people to agree on one thing, so how hard would it be to get three million? It is all about the money. The money is the engine, the shark, and the politicians are the remora that accompany it. Did you ever try to dislodge a remora from a moving shark? I don’t recommend it.
I love that analogy!
Until we have campaign fiance reform (and about a bazillion other kinds as well) I don’t see it happening.
“If some one were to ask the question “Why is it this way in America?”, I say the answer is people.…”
And I’d say you’re blaming the victims…
America is the way it is because of the political and economic system, the dominant, hegemonic discourses which prevail through the institutions–social, business, military, political–which are so embedded as to be effectively eternal.
It’s like blaming the sleeping passengers for a bus-crash…
Are the sleeping passengers voters? That would be an appropriate analogy.
Woody, somebody has to be driving the bus. They cannot all be victims. I can see your point about the entrenchment of power, but I disagree that it cannot be changed.
I may be pulling the wool over my own eyes, but I cannot agree with your cynicism.
We get what we deserve. That is what I have always said about our politicians. After all, we are the ones who vote them in. We can also vote them out!