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What can we do? The Helpless American...
Disrupter
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Ive been a member of these forums for quite a long time, but in my stay here I have not once posted my own thread, so bare with me if its a bit rocky. Skip the spoiler if you dont care about the motivations behind this post. Consider it back story...
The problem is this: The system is set up for career politicians to worry more about what will get them elected, then what will help our country thrive. In fact, it is such a disaster that it actively encourages one party to sabotage another and try to hurt our country to regain power.
I feel helpless, I have two options, either shut down and go on media black out for a year or two. Or try to actually do something.
For a moment, im considering option two. I figure, if the tea-baggers can gather and organize in enough force to have an impact on the national narrative, why can’t we? Hell, there were ‘im with co-co’ rallies for Conan the other night.
But as much as I can sit back and blame our leaders, they are not the only problem. One thing I loved about Obama’s campaign was a focus on it being our responsibility to really make the change we want. Its why I hated those “yes we did” bumper stickers, because, no, we did not, not yet and not by a long shot.
So rather then just gather, and just wave signs, and just protest- what if we actively sought to do good? To find ways of helping our communities, our states, our country? What if we did it in the name of our message, to show our frustration that the people we elected, the people responsible for the fate of our nation, would see us suffer to stay or regain power?
That’s my idea. My alternative to giving up. Is it stupid? Is it something we can try to do? Are there people already doing this? Are there other ideas, better methods to perhaps beginning to invoke the change we actually wanted?
I dont want to feel so helpless...
Following last night’s election, and really the build up to it, I have felt increasingly depressed and helpless about the state of my country. I remember as a child, there was this patriotic sense of pride. Perhaps it was an ego, perhaps it was foolish to think America's stay at the top would last forever, but I did not expect to feel how I do now in a mere 8 years.
With Obama's election, I felt hope for the first time. It was after all, what his campaign ran on. He tapped into this desire for us to take the reigns of our nation and lead it to a place we could respect. In one short year of his Presidency, I feel deflated, and defeated.
Is it Obama’s failing? I honestly believe, partially, yes. But I believe it is more the media onslaught, the vocal minority screaming loudly, drowning out the sanity in the rest of the country. It’s a still very influential Republican party which would rather the nation burn so they can stand in the ashes and claim “we told you so!” as we elect them back in to power.
I am not smart enough to say what my leaders could have done differently. Would putting restrictions on the bail out to prevent bonuses really have acted counter productive to the goals in mind? Does this defecit spending really hurt us as much as the media claims? Is there no other way to solve these issues then to throw money at them? I honestly don’t know. And the Republicans are too busy trying to bring the whole place down to really inform me.
Im a Democrat, but the thing is, Im not rooting for my sports team here. Im not hoping Obama wins the superbowl again in 2012. There is a lot more at stake here then our team winning.
With Obama's election, I felt hope for the first time. It was after all, what his campaign ran on. He tapped into this desire for us to take the reigns of our nation and lead it to a place we could respect. In one short year of his Presidency, I feel deflated, and defeated.
Is it Obama’s failing? I honestly believe, partially, yes. But I believe it is more the media onslaught, the vocal minority screaming loudly, drowning out the sanity in the rest of the country. It’s a still very influential Republican party which would rather the nation burn so they can stand in the ashes and claim “we told you so!” as we elect them back in to power.
I am not smart enough to say what my leaders could have done differently. Would putting restrictions on the bail out to prevent bonuses really have acted counter productive to the goals in mind? Does this defecit spending really hurt us as much as the media claims? Is there no other way to solve these issues then to throw money at them? I honestly don’t know. And the Republicans are too busy trying to bring the whole place down to really inform me.
Im a Democrat, but the thing is, Im not rooting for my sports team here. Im not hoping Obama wins the superbowl again in 2012. There is a lot more at stake here then our team winning.
The problem is this: The system is set up for career politicians to worry more about what will get them elected, then what will help our country thrive. In fact, it is such a disaster that it actively encourages one party to sabotage another and try to hurt our country to regain power.
I feel helpless, I have two options, either shut down and go on media black out for a year or two. Or try to actually do something.
For a moment, im considering option two. I figure, if the tea-baggers can gather and organize in enough force to have an impact on the national narrative, why can’t we? Hell, there were ‘im with co-co’ rallies for Conan the other night.
But as much as I can sit back and blame our leaders, they are not the only problem. One thing I loved about Obama’s campaign was a focus on it being our responsibility to really make the change we want. Its why I hated those “yes we did” bumper stickers, because, no, we did not, not yet and not by a long shot.
So rather then just gather, and just wave signs, and just protest- what if we actively sought to do good? To find ways of helping our communities, our states, our country? What if we did it in the name of our message, to show our frustration that the people we elected, the people responsible for the fate of our nation, would see us suffer to stay or regain power?
That’s my idea. My alternative to giving up. Is it stupid? Is it something we can try to do? Are there people already doing this? Are there other ideas, better methods to perhaps beginning to invoke the change we actually wanted?
I dont want to feel so helpless...
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kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
If you believe in something, volunteer for your candidates. Write your congresscritters. Be vocal in your support and actually have good reasons for supporting things.
Throwing in the towel and feeling hopeless because you won't always win doesn't do anything but make it easier for people opposing you to win more.
I believe Mr. Beale's final messages have more value to them in our current situation then his first.
The second speech is indeed a good diagnosis of the current situation. I just think the latter half of the first is better for energising someone to action.
I'm not saying we should set fire to the whole thing. I'm just saying that a few controlled burns could go a long way.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Our first game is now available for free on Google Play: Frontier: Isle of the Seven Gods
Face it, supporting waterboarding is now a rite of passage for one party while the other doesn't feel enough public support to do anything about it.
Nothing has any meaning anymore in America. I suggest no longer extending the protections and mutual terms of modern democracies to landsmen who only treat you as landsmen when it suits them. It will be violent but at least the decision will not be forced on you.
Good only exists in the conflict between good and evil. Evil seeks to ignore that whole bothersome nonsense and does what it wants, laughing at your Queenbury rules.
Just begin aiming under the belt - you won't forsake anything except your own pretensions.
I think he is saying to beat the GOP we must become the GOP.
Unfortunately, there's a price to be paid for trying to be the party of reasonable adults.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
When were you a kid with all this patriotism? Back when there was McCarthyism turning neighbors against each other? In the 70's when "Love it or Leave it" was prevalent? In the 80's when the Moral Majority was freaking out about abortion and trying to force the nuclear-family model down everyone's throat?
people have always disagreed about what direction this country needs to go, it's just that now every burp of every politician is played four hundred times on the news until someone else burps or sleeps with a hooker.
Not really a republican or democrat anymore. In my time, I have been both. And both sides are fucktards. Yeah...if you blindly support your party as "Good" and the other party as "Evil", you sir...are retarded.
Republicans don't condone abortion. They have a legitimate concern, democrats disagree. Does that make either side evil? No. Does it make for passionate debates? yes. It only becomes evil when people start doing stupid fanatical things like killing aboriton doctors or aborting children without the mothers concent. What's my stance on abortion? I don't care anymore...as it has turned into a purly political tool to herd the sheepish voters on both sides of the debate.
Dems have been "aiming under the belt" since before Clinton. Republicans have been doing it since before Bush Sr. It is part of the game.
So...before you start quoting "good" and "evil", look at your perspective, and consider the perspective of those who do not think as you do. Most people, regardless of being Red or Blue, are good. (although we all have our little querks)
QFT
You can't win against a criminal by not-committing-crimes at him until he stops. You sic the police at him to force him into prison by force. If the police is corrupt, you can not stand idly there either, but will have to hurt some people. If the politicians responsible to keep track of the police are corrupt and for some reason are hiding their book-keeping, you put them under 24 hour watch and monitor all their doings - something is wrong.
The same principle here - we don't defeat evil in our societies by being benevolent at it - we use force, violence and hatred against it.
We can set up as many rules as we want - first person to break them wins. When the theocrats launched a fatwa against Rushdie, they won in an instant because we belong to a system and philosophy where we can't react properly to that sort of thing.
No one appreciate you for being that party. I sure don't. Probably because you can't actually help people or aren't allowed to.
Unintentional irony is delicious!
then, if you arent totally corrupt and selfish by that time, use that money to influence the political process for the better.
so true. Just after the 2008 election, I kept hearing from the republicans something almost identical to "the only way to beat the democrats is to use thier chicago bully politic stratagies .... .... and why the fuck did we put a loser canidate like McCain on the campaign trail?"
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Well, that, and there's us on the internet analyzing the sausage until we have an absolute certainty that it's as disgusting as we have been told. Hell, that's the real problem, excess cynicism. If we were still dropping our regular dose of hope Coakley would have won 80-20.
Also, why has Obama failed? Yes, it was one hell of a campaign, but he wasn't going to ride in on his unicorn and save the world in one month. Give him some damn time.
All we need is a redesigned brain stem.
In all seriousness I think that somehow weakening the part of our brain that controls fear and rage while increasing our natural ability for complex thinking would have some kind of political implications.
Beating the GOP 100% of the time should not be the definition of success. Improving the the quality of life of Americans while remaining economically competitive would be a good definition of success. If you think that's only possible if Republicans are removed from the picture, then there is something wrong with you.
I've felt that the US political system was fundamentally broken long before this MA race.
Really the MA race doesn't even enter into it. Looking at it objectively, Brown's election is not particularly remarkable. Coakley's campaign was stunningly incompetent.
Ah, dreams.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/01/bayh-warns-catastrophe-if-dems-ignore-massachusetts-senate-race-lessons.html
Are you going to alter the brains of the independants and moderates along with the republicans? Or are you going to send all us independants to the gas chamber to allow your "one way of thinking" utopia?
I didn't say a thing about party affiliation. All I said is that we should be afraid less and think more.
I'm really sick of demonizing the left in this country. History shows immensely that social liberty advances, regardless of politics. Economic leftism is another story, but conservative economics has worked so well for us in the past decade.
republicans are just as paranoid and afraid as democrats. Good luck with 'being afraid less' as fear is one of the two major ways polititions get people to the polls. on a side note, fear is the #1 way to get people to read the news.
from random news anchor:
"Your child may be in danger from being raped by a clown in the middle of the night....... ... find out how at 10:00!"
OMG it's been A YEAR! It should all be fixed by now!
Kind of like the recession/meltdown. Everyone started talking about how this could take three or four years to fix and then a week later they're WHY IS THE ECONOMY STILL FUCKED?!
This is the value newspapers held. There was a little time to take a breath and let things develop while people wrote the story and (hopefully) fact-checked and got two sources. You didn't hear a story at breakfast and then sit there reading every rumor and falsehood on the internet at work all day.
Go back and look at threads and stories on 9/11 as the day was unfolding. How many planes did you read about? Two, five, seven? What about bombs and DC being attacked? It's the same way with all the news lately, people rush to tweet or blog and then it comes out hours or days later that Cheney didn't kill a guy, he's just peppered or whatever.
I do not think you have apprehended my point, which was a half-facetious musing that genetic/neurological intervention into the way our brains would could make us a naturally less fearful people. And that this would be better for the political system.
AH! Superscience. I get it now, sorry. Can we also alter a gene so every woman will be as beautiful as Jessica Alba?