All that is true. Even my upper middle class family live beyond their means off credit, it's pretty sad. We always want MORE MORE MORE. Rampant consumerism is one of the things I am most looking forward to leaving when I go overseas next month.

Still, even those living paycheck to paycheck in a two bedroom apartment are rich compared to a LOT of other places. That's my only point.

I agree with that point, fully, there's far shittier places, though I suppose even in the US I see a lot of homeless (we take pretty good care of them here, they can get three meals a day without being preached to if they want it here; and I think a warm place to sleep - well, I guess pretty good care relatively, obviously more could be done).

In a somewhat positive light, SOPA has been delayed. You can look at it in two ways: It's a success due to gaining more time for reason to be shown, or it's a failure of the system given that a majority of the house were in favor but a few opposing members used tactics to delay and stretch the procedure out until the other side didn't want to fight anymore.

It'll be resumed after the Holiday break.

Stretching it out.

I just read that they (the movie industry) are trying for some re-vote this upcoming wednesday. I guess the Hollywood moguls are really desperate to get this piece of shit thru congress. I guess they hope that the holiday season will distract any one from actually coming out to protest. Let's just hope they fail.

Well, given the dearth of news of widespread abuses of the Patriot Act, either the "abuses" really aren't abuses or news reporters aren't ferreting them out. Or there are so few that it's considered inconsequential (not inconsequential to the individual involved, but instead considered from the grand scheme of things). However, I don't want to get into that because we can find similar examples of abuse in just about any government program, and we could drag this on forever with story after story, but it usually amounts to anecdotal evidence and not signs of massive abuse that warrants immediate and large-scale change. That's not to say, however, that the basic nuts-and-bolts of many government programs, such as the Patriot Act, are fundamentally flawed. And I'll agree that SOPA, PIPA, etc., also have flaws at the roots of the proposed legislation.

But that's not my point.
What a coincidence - that's how more than half of America feels about the Affordable Healthcare for America Act, as it is currently written. Didn't stop Congress from passing that one, either. Pardon me: "Deem and Pass"ing that one with further Reconciliation (standard practice, unfortunately), since it didn't actually make it through the Senate on a straight-up vote. Funny enough, plenty of businesses, unions, and even government entities have gotten waivers from one or more aspects of the Act, and more will do so as we come closer to the date of full implementation.

The relation between the two, and why the Patriot Act differs, is that businesses and unions are major campaign contributors. As businesses will be the ones taking the big financial hit from the proposed copyright acts (as websites are shut down, if that actually happens at all), they will be the ones putting the major pressure on Congress to make changes, just like they are the ones putting the pressure on the federal government to get waivers from the health"care" act, while the individual is almost solely dependent on the upcoming ruling from the Supreme Court with regards to the Constitutionality of the individual mandate. Surely, while groups of individuals may petition against this or that website being shut down 'unfairly', bupkis will happen until business sites are shut down and the site owners subsequently shut off campaign funds. Google passes out an assload of money to Congress and none of the recipients want to lose that cash cow, let alone money from a whole bunch of other contributors. Torrent sites won't have that much influence but once it hits the big boys (Google / youtube. Yahoo, MS, etc.), we'll see changes.

Now, why haven't there been the same changes or rollbacks of Patriot Act measures? Because it doesn't really affect businesses and unions in any way that's causing a loss of income or influence.

Now, I'm not arguing that either copyright bill should pass. I'm only saying that if one does there's a decent chance, given the campaign monies ultimately involved, that the bill would be scaled back or amended for oversight.

You seem to be forgetting that billions of dollars are spent every year between the government and the major corporations that fund it designing 'news', advertisements/propaganda, and entertainment that warps people's minds into believing that they're happy and that voting for a 3rd party is throwing your vote away. Our complacency has been carefully nurtured and grown since we were born

Each and every one of us is bombarded with hundreds of messages a day whether we realize it or not subtly telling us how to act and think. This isn't conspiracy theory, it's basic marketing taught in thousands of schools right here in the USA.

People won't vote in 3rd party non-controlled candidates because the carefully orchestrated web of propaganda by the establishment has brainwashed the majority of Americans since birth that this is not a good thing.

So we keep going back and forth from the democrats to the republicans who are all controlled by the same special interests that fund TV 'news', the radio, magazines, and book publishers and we wonder why things get worse no matter which candidate of 'change' we elect.
You must not go out much. Almost everyone I know is freaked out lately from the barely politically conscious teen son of my cousin to the 80 year old lady I work with and everything in between.

People are scared of losing their jobs
People are scared of losing Social Security
People are scared of Socialized medicine 'death panels'
People are scared of Not having medical insurance
People are scared of Christian fundamentalists
People are scared of Muslim fundamentalists
People are scared of Atheists
People are scared of Communism
People are scared of Socialism
People are scared of Capitalism
People are scared of Anarchy
People are scared of Secret Muslims
People are scared of terrorists
People are scared of the TSA
People are scared of Internet censorship
People are scared of indefinite detention of citizens

I could keep going, but I hear people scared about all the above things depending on what their political and personal lean is every day from men talking in the local coffee shop to the impassioned political rants at work to my family members.

The entire political system is derived from fear. Have you watched a political debate lately? Almost every question is fear-based. Defense. Collapsing economy, death panels, evil socialism, evil Marxism, etc...

I also don't see a major reformation of the US political system any time soon. The situation is not that worse yet and people are very lazy in general. Especially nobody wants to do the dirty work for others. Only if the pressure is high enough, things will eventually change.

However, I was also surprised by the arabian revolution this year or by the german re-union in 1989. Just a bunch (like some million) protesters is sufficient sometimes to start a revolution. The latest example in US history would be the end of the war in vietnam? Why not recall this spirit based upon the widely accepted notion that something is really wrong in the state!

It's probably not yet bad enough and not yet time but when it comes it will come unexpected.

My plan for the fastest breaking out of a suboptimal two party system would be to first go to one party only, i.e. not vote at all for the weakest of the two, the GOP, which has only terrible candidates anyway, in 2012 and then starting a 'Progressive Party' with the aim of reforming the voting system and nothing else. Then when Democrats govern for another term, everybody will be feed up with them too, so the way is free for the 'Progressives' to takes over, change constitution and that's it. Afterwards, republicans and democrats and progressives and whoever else wants can be voted for.

Or it will just go on and on...

Replace "Progressive" with "Libertarian" and it might work. Progressivism, in it's current form in America today, will only lead to a larger federal government, which leads to two-party partisanship and puts us right back to where your plan started.

It has been for a few decades although some things have been improved during certain years.

The national debt is now at $15 trillion and counting, the unemployment rate is still through the roof, and starting or growing a business today is much more difficult than it was years ago. I personally blame "feel good" solutions for much of this since they included government-sponsored enterprises like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (the two entities responsible for the latest financial issue), excess government spending that ends up inducing inflation and causing more harm than good (especially since much of it goes to bureaucracy and rewards for bureaucrats than, let's say, actually fixing or replacing bridges), and excessive regulations that are so complex and so heavy that many businesses have to hire researchers to help them follow (or avoid) the rules and has given larger businesses a clear edge over smaller and potential ones.

A lot of the problem can also be found in the solution: the people. I say that they are both the problem and the solution because government officials don't just appear by themselves. They get elected into power and since many people think throwing more money at a problem can automatically solve it or that if regulations were even slightly loosened, then all Hell would break loose (regardless of the criminal justice laws that we ALREADY HAVE and the fact that businesses would be more subjected to consumer demand and competition), we end up with politicians and bureaucrats who are either incompetent, self-righteous, or corrupt.

At the same time there have been a few improvements other than technology such as people finally realizing that most problems can be traced to the federal government and that we cannot keep living off of borrowed foreign money. There have been those who have recognized that we cannot just keep following "feel good" solutions.

I probably said more than what was needed and I am very late in posting this. Other issues that are ruining America include political correctness and false accusations of bigotry. Political correctness is especially a problem in public schooling where self-esteem is deemed more important than achievement.

Most importantly, people should remember that this was not just a sudden change of events. This is the result of a series of events from the rise of political correctness in the 60s to the modern "feel good" solutions of today.

As for the presidential candidates (almost forgot this one), I would be more than willing to vote for whoever gets nominated to run against Obama since each candidate has something going on for him/her and after all the overly flawed policies of the current administration like Cash For Clunkers and that health bill (employer health mandate, unconstitutional individual mandate, addition of over 100 new gov. bureaucracies and agencies, more redtape for HSA and HRA users, failure to address cost), even Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are better than the current president even though their records worry me along with how Gingrich confused free enterprise with state-sponsored enterprise at the last debate. The fact that Obama appointed a surgeon general who uses the current economic issues as reasons to contradict previous medical waiver approval standards (the reason I can't get into the Army at the moment) also increases my disdain towards the current administration.

That and the poor handling of the Operation Fast and Furious scandal (the one where the ATF gave guns to Mexican drug cartels and then tried to cover it up by blaming legitimate gun dealers).

Hi there,

i think the US started to spirell downwards, when they rebelled against their rightly king in 1775. Nothing good can come out of a rebellion. They should reunite with the UK and rebuild the commonwealth.

Have a nice day

You shut up. Germany helped. To be specific, mercenaries from the severely disorganized region that is now known as Germany helped.

How can America go to shit .... everyone there has perfectly white shiny teeth dont they ? ......... I thought thats all that matters in th US ?

You make the perfect death star staff member. :)

Da da dada da dada

But you know, there are potential rebells everywhere.

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