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The only thing you can do is pick one of the two major parties that best represents your interest and work to improve the Party.
Support primary challenges to bad apples in your party and give money to single issue PACs that support your causes.
It's a long slow process.
A long slow process that can be taken care of, largely, at the polls next fall. If the "bad guys" are replaced in enough numbers in the House (both parties) they may well see that they have pushed the load a bit too far. The same thing could happen in the Senate elections, at least enough to tell the "bad guys" (either party) that the same thing could happen two years later.
We have nobody to blame but ourselves (voters) for all this. All the "buying" of votes like just was done by Dirty Harry Reid could be turned against him if the voters stand up and let fly.
Now that won't happen because of the amount of don't give a damn among those voters but it is the only way we can get all of them out of office.
Even the voters can demand a new amendment that calls for term limits which could result in some removal of the perks of office, in the end, but only if we kill the apathy we suffer from now.
I think we may see a new party doing some butt kicking at the next election and that is what it takes to force the major parties into much needed change. Unless the voters act the elite Congress people will continue to think they know what is best for us, at least what is best according to the lobbyists. BTW, what happened to the Obama promise concerning throwing the lobbyists out of the White House.
You can imagine how the rest of the US felt during the past 8 years.
Work to change what you don't like through the proper channels or shut up.
I see that you like what has been happening this month. If not, is there a chance that you would join up with people who don't like it?
I don't dislike Obama nearly as much as the real leftists, Reid and Pelosi, but they want us to think they are giving him what he wants and that we will be so much better off with what they are doing.
As a 77 year oldd, I can't just sit back and watch them take around $50 billion from Medicare to help finance their first step toward singler payer. I won't live long enough to see it go into effect since that won't be sooner than 2013. They collect nearly $200 billion from Medicare and taxes and then begin their program. Also they tax people all that time supposedly saving up money to spend that year.
Have you ever noticed what the Congress has done with the money that has been paid by every worker since the mid-1930s to be shared with retirees after they retire? In case you haven't, they spent all of it and there is nothing left. Can we trust that bunch to collect this money and have some of it left in 2013? I think that only a fool could believe that we can trust them with money.
You know the feeling, you see the mood. Americans are talking, and angry. Fed up with bailouts, handouts, lies at election time, crooks, cronies etc. Yet what can the non-connected American citizen actually do? Vote for one of two pre-selected crooks who promise the moon and deliver what the special interests tell them? Write "your" congre$$man and get a form response or nothing at all? The government is said to be representative, but not representative of the average person. They push through scams like the bailouts, support of the Federal Reserve, health care "reform" that is nothing more than a mandate for everyone to pay into the crooked system, and that ridiculous cap n' tax that will Gore your wallets. Yes there were the "tea parties" but that turned into a joke for the elite. What will actually work to stop the gravy train before it plunges into the ocean?
Nothing.
The Golden Rule is absolute....those with the most gold, rule.
I agree, and that statement by World Citizen caught my eye as well. If I were a Representative, I wouldn't respond positively to being called a nazi/communist/fascist/thug. I wouldn't respond at all.
I'll be honest... I've not gotten an response from any that I wrote to last week.... Democrat or Republican.
I don't care if they send me a form letter response.
If enough individuals take the time to write to them - even if they don't agree with them -- sheer numbers will make a statement.
I'd like them all to remember that it's about the people they represent - not politics.
As a 77 year oldd, I can't just sit back and watch them take around $50 billion from Medicare to help finance their first step toward singler payer. I won't live long enough to see it go into effect since that won't be sooner than 2013. They collect nearly $200 billion from Medicare and taxes and then begin their program. Also they tax people all that time supposedly saving up money to spend that year.
Have you ever noticed what the Congress has done with the money that has been paid by every worker since the mid-1930s to be shared with retirees after they retire? In case you haven't, they spent all of it and there is nothing left. Can we trust that bunch to collect this money and have some of it left in 2013? I think that only a fool could believe that we can trust them with money.
With all due respect -- and I do mean that...
You sound just like a good friend of mine who's your age and who listens to talk radio and reads all the scary stuff in the paper.
I know that the other side has done a great job of scaring the older folks about how this could effect their Medicare coverage.
You are 77 years old. You don't have to worry about losing your Medicare health coverage or your Social Security check.
Keep in mind that the AARP is supporting Health Care reform. They are like a watch dog for retired people.
The world is a very different place for people that aren't ready to retire than it was when you were their age 25 years ago.
You probably were allowed to work until retirement from your employer. You probably had a retirement package from your employer...
Today, people in their 50's are being forced out of jobs and are simply unable to find other jobs with benefits.
These days, employers play all kinds of fun games to keep from providing benefits to employees - like not hiring full time employees. It's a well known fact that employers also prefer to hire younger people who are cheaper to insure.
Individual health insurance for people in their 50's is not affordable.
If it were you -- or your son or daughter in their 50's -- who was facing selling their home just to pay the bills and to try to keep their health insurance... I bet you would feel very differently about what is being discussed right now. Lowering the age for people in their 50's to be able to BUY IN to Medicare so that they can stay insured until they reach the age of 65 is a good idea. It is not a give away... and it's not a precursor to socialized medicine. It's about meeting the needs of a LARGE demographic in our country that are seriously hurting due to the economy and the high cost of health insurance.
You should thank the good Lord for how fortunate you are that your needs are being met -- and just maybe you should acknowledge that you don't have the answers for the future generations.
When you retired, life in the United States was very different than it is today...
Last edited by World Citizen; 12-19-2009 at 06:43 PM..
You sound just like a good friend of mine who's your age and who listens to talk radio and reads all the scary stuff in the paper.
I know that the other side has done a great job of scaring the older folks about how this could effect their Medicare coverage.
You are 77 years old. You don't have to worry about losing your Medicare health coverage or your Social Security check.
Keep in mind that the AARP is supporting Health Care reform. They are like a watch dog for retired people.
The world is a very different place for people that aren't ready to retire than it was when you were their age 25 years ago.
You probably were allowed to work until retirement from your employer. You probably had a retirement package from your employer...
Today, people in their 50's are being forced out of jobs and are simply unable to find other jobs with benefits.
These days, employers play all kinds of fun games to keep from providing benefits to employees - like not hiring full time employees. It's a well known fact that employers also prefer to hire younger people who are cheaper to insure.
Individual health insurance for people in their 50's is not affordable.
If it were you -- or your son or daughter in their 50's -- who was facing selling their home just to pay the bills and to try to keep their health insurance... I bet you would feel very differently about what is being discussed right now. Lowering the age for people in their 50's to be able to BUY IN to Medicare so that they can stay insured until they reach the age of 65 is a good idea. It is not a give away... and it's not a precursor to socialized medicine. It's about meeting the needs of a LARGE demographic in our country that are seriously hurting due to the economy and the high cost of health insurance.
You should thank the good Lord for how fortunate you are that your needs are being met -- and just maybe you should acknowledge that you don't have the answers for the future generations.
When you retired, life in the United States was very different than it is today...
Lets consider what you wrote and apply all of it to my position.
When I was 53 my employer, a school district, found a way to relieve me of my position that I had held for 17 years. Oh yes, there were as many as 5 people in the whole district who had more years in the district than I did. Well now my much younger wife worked for the same district so even though I couldn't get another teaching job (too many years experience (28) and too much college credit (MS + more than 50 more hours) and all the places I applied talked nice but told me that I would cost them too much money. Well I did what most Americans would do and started my own self-employed business and continued to do the same work past 65. I was shut off from my wife's health care on my 65th birthday and shoved to Medicare which I have liked fine. The problem is that when they take $50 billion per year from Medicare it seems to me that some of my benefits there will have to leave. I guess you don't understand that. BTW, my wife is 60 now and will be retiring from the public school system in one more year.
Well, I have been able to draw on my state employers' retirement since I was 57 and have been drawing SS since I was 62. Yep, those were good years but I don't think I could have paid for the number of things I will have to pay for when Medicare loses some of its glitter as it will with the money they want to take out of it. I guess you don't understand that they are taking that money out and not just taking out the corruption in Medicare.
AARP crapped in their drawers when they decided to support this Healthcare bill. I unjoined like so many other thousands. Only fools can't see that the CEO of AARP doesn't give a damn about the membership. They have become an insurance seller and that is why he went the wrong direction.
I fear that you have been taken by the left. Yes Medicare will dwindle each year as they take away all that money. They are paying for too much of that with Medicare money. How in hell do you think that those of us who are already ooooold won't be hurt. When the government gets in control of healthcare bureaucrats will call the shots and we already know that your real value to society will determine care or not. I am old enough right now that I know if this bill had been in effect 5 years ago when I had a heart attack and 6 bypass surgery I wouldn't have got it soon enough. It was an emergency for me since 3 arteries were 95% plugged and three were 85% plugged. I had the attack on Sunday and the emergency surgery was performed on Wednesday morning. I would have been told to lie around until it plugged completely, and only a fool thinks it would have been different.
Yep the world is a very different place today. I was without a job and couldn't get one that allowed me to use my preparation and experience because of my age. Sounds like the same damned thing to me.
I have been lucky to have a much younger wife but what about her. She will only be able to collect my retirement money, her retirement money and if there is any SS left she can get that. Yep, we have some money invested but with what will be left of the value of the dollar after the past year it won't be enough. I hope our sons can keep her supported. Seriously, unless inflation kills her, and it will, she will be very well off economically unless the state goes broke and spends her retirement.
You know the feeling, you see the mood. Americans are talking, and angry. Fed up with bailouts, handouts, lies at election time, crooks, cronies etc. Yet what can the non-connected American citizen actually do?
Getting back to your original question, my suggestion would be not to give up, try not to get too frustrated, exercise patience and realize that the American citizen makes up the countries largest lobby, even if he has been convinced otherwise.
I'm reminded by the following excerpt from an acquaintance.
A famous psychology experiment conducted by Solomon Asch in the 1950s shows how pressure to conform can lead people to ignore even the obvious evidence of their own senses. In it, a subject was placed in a group of people who were really Asch's confederates. They were given the simple task of matching a line to one of three comparison lines of the same length. The size differences in the non-matching lines were big enough to be obvious.
At first, everyone agreed about the right answer, but after a few rounds all the other members of the group picked the wrong line. Surprisingly (or maybe not), most people ended up agreeing with the group at least once in a series of rounds, even though they knew it was the wrong decision.
When left to themselves, subjects erred less than 1 percent of the time. But in the rounds in which group pressure played a role, people erred 36.8 percent of the time. No less than 70 percent of the subjects went along with the group and defied the evidence of their own senses at least some of the time.
The experiment has been repeated many times in many places with pretty similar results.
But here's where it gets interesting. If at least one other person dissented from the group, people were much more likely to stick by their own convictions. As Asch put it, "dissent per se increased independence and moderated the errors that occurred."
Let me restate that: if at least one person goes against the grain and challenges group pressure, this seems to free up other people to do the same.
While I get frustrated myself on occasion by what seems a lack of progress getting various issues addressed, I remind myself that if we looked at in terms of war it might be easier to realize. If a single soldier on the beaches of Normandy said to himself, "If I get up and run and hide, it won't make a bit of difference in this war", and he would most likely be right. One person probably doesn't make a difference, but if everyone on the beach said this, then the world might be a much different place. For some, it might be their role in life to take a bullet so the guy next to him can kill one of his enemy and both would have fulfilled their roles in whatever engagement. Regardless of what ones role may be, the war if just should continue until you prevail.
People will often point to that boy who said, "Why the king has no clothes", but I suspect there were probably 99 boys who said the same thing and were silenced or eliminated before this one boy caught the attention of the crowd and the lightbulb went off. So in the meantime, write your representatives, meet with like minded people and network, protest in any form you can, from holding a candle on the courthouse steps to a teaparty in the capitol, whatever it takes, just don't give up.
You know the feeling, you see the mood. Americans are talking, and angry. Fed up with bailouts, handouts, lies at election time, crooks, cronies etc. Yet what can the non-connected American citizen actually do? Vote for one of two pre-selected crooks who promise the moon and deliver what the special interests tell them? Write "your" congre$$man and get a form response or nothing at all? The government is said to be representative, but not representative of the average person. They push through scams like the bailouts, support of the Federal Reserve, health care "reform" that is nothing more than a mandate for everyone to pay into the crooked system, and that ridiculous cap n' tax that will Gore your wallets. Yes there were the "tea parties" but that turned into a joke for the elite. What will actually work to stop the gravy train before it plunges into the ocean?
Start voting for third party candidates.
If you're a liberal, vote for Green Party or Socialist candidates.
If you're conservative...eh. Who cares about them?
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