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It's all about the ruling elite vs. the non elite.
The OP is correct, Liberal, Conservative, Democrat, and Republican is a sham.
Also, notice how the media loves to stress the differences and create tensions among Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Atheist, Black, White, Asian etc. which are all distractions so no one looks at who is really controlling this planet.
There are only two solutions, pray and let others know about the conspiracy.
It's all about the ruling elite vs. the non elite.
The OP is correct, Liberal, Conservative, Democrat, and Republican is a sham.
Also, notice how the media loves to stress the differences and create tensions among Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Atheist, Black, White, Asian etc. which are all distractions so no one looks at who is really controlling this planet.
There are only two solutions, pray and let others know about the conspiracy.
Actually, there are more. But prayer and dialogue are always welcome.
"I am an optimist. I really believe that we are capable of course-correcting. I did not really contemplate the possibility that we will remain deaf to the sound of the alarm, and not change our direction. In the end, we have solutions available to us. We just need to deploy them. And that's why even though I'm suggesting a whole stream of government solutions, I end the book with what we can do—what individuals can do right now—even if our political system remains as dysfunctional and incapable of optimal solutions as it has been.
Many conservatives are aware that the heart of America, the foundation not just of our prosperity but of our political stability, is the middle class—and that if the middle class crumbles and the upward mobility that's been so central to the American dream is gone, we then become a very different country. We really do become a third-world country, defined by extremes—the very rich and the poor. The rich live behind gates with guards to prevent their kids from kidnapping, and then there are the rest. Who wants to live in a country like that?
You can talk to many conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic recognize that that is a fundamental danger. And a lot of my very conservative friends, who sleep with a copy of Atlas Shrugged by their bed, recognize that capitalism cannot survive if there are basically no consequences for taking excessive risks. When instead of going bankrupt, instead of the sort of creative destruction that capitalism talks about, you find yourself being bailed out by the taxpayers with—trillions of dollars in zero-percent credit, provided by the Fed, on an ongoing basis.
My optimism is grounded in history. If you look at every major reform from the Emancipation Proclamation to the 19th Amendment to civil rights legislation, just before they happened they looked impossible. My favorite story of how movements are built is Martin Luther King, Jr. meeting with Lyndon Johnson in January 1965 asking for the Voting Rights Act, and the President saying, "We don't have the votes." Which is what they always say. Because you never have the votes until you have the votes. If you're going to challenge the status quo, you never have the votes. So what happened is that King went out to the people, and the Selma March came, and lo and behold, just months later, we had the votes. "
Yes, the banking bill could have been amended to make it more effective. And the Democrats were the ones with the amendments that would have done so!
Again the GOP voted 100% not even to debate the bill. Previously they had argued the bill was too harsh on these financial mobsters.
they said the same thing about the Health care "reform" bill, that first they needed to have a bill to make admendments to and then they could make it more liberal but in order to get it passed they had to appease the independents and more conservative dems. and what did they do? they went and passed in on reconciliation with only 50 votes.
what changes did they make to it and couldn't they have made it more liberal in the first place if they were going to pass it on reconciliation?
where's the anger amongst liberals and progressives about that? nobody even remembers that they passed it on reconciliation. They planned all along to use reconciliation.
behind closed doors they're all laughing at us, how stupid we are, how forgetfull and vapid we are.
"The conclusion that I reached after writing this book and traveling around the country is that there is an intersection between the political and the personal," she said. "I call it 'hope 2.0.' If 'hope' was, 'we're going to elect Barack Obama, we're going to elect Democrats and then we can sit back and they're going to fix everything,' 'hope 2.0' is the recognition that democracy is not a spectator sport. We need to be involved, we need to be vigilant, and we also need to take steps in our own communities which are independent of government."
"It is not as if this threat to democracy has gone unnoticed. Many citizens and organizations have been outraged about the rising power of affluent special interests. They have been working to address this issue of unequal power and have been pursuing several different approaches. These reform efforts fall into three broad categories. The first is to lessen the economic inequality in the private sphere that is being translated to political inequality in the public sphere. The second is to attempt to erect institutional barriers that prevent private power for being easily converted to political advantage. A third approach is to reform the voting process itself so that it becomes more democratic and more empowering to average voters. Let’s look briefly at each of these alternatives.
Publicly financed campaigns are the best way to short-circuit the influence of private money in elections. They ensure that candidates are being responsive to their constituents, not to the special interest money they need to win office. And this system is not that expensive. It is estimated that all political campaigns in the United States could be publicly financed for about $10 from every citizen – a small price to pay to reclaim the democratic nature of elections.
Public financing not only has the advantage of lessening the political advantages that affluent interests have in elections, it also reduces their leverage in the lobbying process. Politicians who are less dependent on special interest money are also less likely to feel that they have to pay more attention to special interest lobbies. As one Maine lawmaker put it: “As a Clean Elections legislator, I find myself being lobbied a lot less than traditional candidates. It is a lot easier if someone’s trying to pressure you to say, ‘I owe my allegiance to the taxpayers of the State of Main, and not to any special interest group.
In short, adopting proportional representation elections in the United States would help to equalize the current imbalances of power in our political system. All groups – regardless of their numbers or financial resources – would have their fair share of seats in our legislatures and a better chance in influence public policy decisions. And the more accurately we represent all citizens in the governmental process, the better the chance for the passage of more broadly egalitarian policies that are in the public interest.’”
"Arianna appeared on "The Tonight Show" Friday night to discuss her new book, "Third World America," as well as the rise of the tea party during the current election cycle. Arianna argues that the middle class has been abandoned by politicians and devastated by 30 years of neglect by both parties, but it's not too late to turn things around."
It's all about the ruling elite vs. the non elite.
The OP is correct, Liberal, Conservative, Democrat, and Republican is a sham.
Also, notice how the media loves to stress the differences and create tensions among Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Atheist, Black, White, Asian etc. which are all distractions so no one looks at who is really controlling this planet.
There are only two solutions, pray and let others know about the conspiracy.
bella, this is something people of all persuasions should be able to agree on.
"We're not going to overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court decision any time soon, allowing unlimited sums to be spent on soft money. But at least we can drastically reduce the self-interested money that goes directly to candidates.
So far in this election cycle, House and Senate candidates have raised $1.2 billion dollars, and the money arms-race only grows. Under the proposed Act, a candidate who raised small donations from at least 1,500 small donors contributing no more than $100 each for a total of at least $50,000 could get matching money, at a 4-to-1 ratio.
As much as $3 million in public financing would be available -- enough to be competitive on most House races. The money wouldn't come from tax dollars, but from a special levy on the auctioning of broadcast spectrum, something that belongs to the citizens of the United States."
"To defuse anger in the tea party and across the electorate, President Obama and his administration must first acknowledge it, argues Arianna."
At least must people agree on one thing. We ain't too happy with our representatives.
"We'll find out in 43 days, as poll after poll shows that both national parties are deeply unpopular with an electorate looking for something new and different. Democrats have suffered from being the majority party for the past 20 months - in control of political Washington and expected to do more by voters who elected President Obama to change the culture in the nation's capital. But Republicans are not offering much that will earn them credit in the eyes of most voters, either.
In an Associated Press poll released last week, 38 percent of respondents approved of the job Democrats in Congress are doing, while 60 percent disapproved - not exactly where any party wants to be this close to an election. The ratings for Republicans in Congress, however, were even worse, with 31 percent approving and 68 percent disapproving. A New York Times/CBS News survey released last week also showed congressional Democrats' approval rating at a measly 30 percent, while congressional Republicans' sat at a ghastly 20 percent."
Last edited by kovert; 09-20-2010 at 09:24 PM..
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