Short answer, yes.

Oh, please, don't give me that. You're the one that suggested that we weren't dealing with corruption. Do I really have to go back and quote your bit about what corruption is?

Tell that to the American Indians and the mountain folk of the Hollers of Appalachia. Those are some impoverished folks, with little reason to believe that it's ever going to get any better. Yes, that's significant, but we're not talking a couple hundred dollars a month, the transfer of wealth is sufficient to cover every single man woman and child in the world with a couple grand in debt.

There has been a transfer of wealth of trillions of dollars to the upper class at a time when folks at the bottom are worried about food, clothing, shelter and heating fuel.

None of that, BTW, gets any better because there are people out there that are more screwed over. If you want things to be better in Cambodia, ultimately, the Cambodians have to do something about that. The US Federal government can and does prosecute people in the US for engaging in corrupt practices over seas.
By and large it's primarily driven by sloth, incompetence and fear. Primarily fear and stubbornness though ultimately. The people who vote against their own interests, unfortunately, frequently know that they're doing it, they just care more about being free than having a good life.

And it's unfortunate because it screws the rest of us over. There have definitely been times over the last few years where I've contemplated essentially going back to Germany. I may not have been born here, but my family never did completely assimilate and in some ways I felt more at home over there than I do at home.

I'm not going to respond to the rest of your post, as I think we've both read each other's views on the subject already. However, this last statement of yours is just plain offensive. Cambodia was doing just fine before your government came and killed between 300,000 to 800,000 civilians in an illegal bombing campaign designed to systematically destroy the nation's infrastructure. That helped spark one of the biggest genocides in history, that your nation did nothing to stop despite being partially responsible for it, and now Cambodia's problems are it's own? It's slightly sickening to know that people really think like that.

Malevolent? No, i think the canditdates are uninformed. I think the whole cause as usual is special intrest, their a bunch of ball washing bastards.

If these bills go into law a bunch of Americans will log on to their computers and say WTF, how did this happen? I can understand why this hasn't made the nightly news, as the same people (if you can call them people) are behind this bill.

I can understand the movie industry wanting to protect their works from piracy, but when it comes to the expense of 99% of the public i say they have gone to far.

I hope beyond all hopes these bills do not pass. That's my two cents.

I thought most representatives agreed that these bills wouldnt pass.

With a two party system open only to multi-millionaires it's hard to see what the difference is beyond the fact that you replace yours every 4-8 years.
“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
Thomas Jefferson

There are a lot of good Jefferson quotes relevant to the current state of America.

But you did belittle US citizens for being upset with it, perhaps you didn't mean to but I can nearly guarantee that's how it came off.

We have pretty severe corruption and in some ways it's worse because the scope is pervasive and the solutions would rippled out to affect the entire world, a large portion of which would not welcome said solutions.
It's certainly a favorite whipping boy, but I'm no longer convinced. I'm convinced, instead, that those with money and power find it fairly easy to manipulate people without either through fear.
Did the PATRIOT act get worked out to become "reasonable" in your mind? It didn't in mine. Hell, most of congress claimed to have regretted passing it, despite extending it yet again.

Letting stuff like this pass is not even close to a sure recipe for getting something reasonable in its place and can cause massive collateral damage while in effect even if it does turn out alright in the end.

I don't buy that even a little. I don't see scared people when I look about, I see bored people and ambivalent people.

Really? Because every political polemic in the last decade has been dominated by fear:
9/11 and The PATRIOT Act "They want to kill us/hate us for our freedoms/no one is safe."
Healthcare reform "Death panels!"
Obama gets elected "It's only a matter of time until they try and force us to become Muslim."

I could go on. The people writing this shit don't believe it but the people warning their neighbors about it and watching Fox certainly do. The apathy you see is the same thing you see with any animal at the bottom of the food chain, until something spooks them, then it's fear. Fear dominates how people react politically. It's the same reason people will tell you you're wasting your vote if you vote third party and often get mad because you'll "let the other guy win." That, likewise, is fear, not laziness.

Both posters are correct about the U$A. Rhetorically: can the US survive another Great Depression? Do we have the nationalism to pull together, tighten our belt and remain a relatively free society or will we go the way of the "USSR." I believe we will be forced into a critical situation in about 4 years when China finishes their modernization and industrialization and starts to call the shots around the world. Rhetorically: so what? Do you care if your paycheck is signed by John Smith or Quan Yick Ng?

The U$A has always been about getting rich (or some level that the individual defines as such.) I was born just after WW2 and was taught by "the system;" get a good education, get a J-O-B, work very hard and long hours and you will get rrrrriiiiicccchhhh! I was fortunate to have educated parents and a business owning grandfather who set me straight.

AN INDEPENDANT INCOME GIVES YOU AN INDEPEDANT MIND!

The 11 children were raised to be entrepreneurs only taking employment when necessary. We were also never out of school (even in my sixties I have to keep up in my field.)

Now for today:
1- Voodoo Economics as foretold by King Bush I. The tax reforms that started in 1982 to promote business (with the pork attached of course) then to Tefra, Tamra basically and all of the other TRAs increased the bottom line and allowed the Int'l Multinational Banks to play games with reserves so as to borrow more money from the Federal Reserve than allowed by the Securities and Exchange Act of 1933. This boom in capital gave us the nineties' prosperity as we rushed headlong over a cliff.

2- King Bush II removed most of the controls the SEA '33 set; and with gov't permission to keep non-performing assets on the books as reserves! In addition he allowed US Currency come in from abroad to purchase a significantly higher percentage of our infrastructure (Farmland, Utilities, Minerals, Auto Industry, etc) and do to us what we have been doing to other US sponsored "Republics" for a Century. NOTE: To other bankers out there I am well aware that this is a simplification.

3- O_Bam_US_All I believe is sincere but doesn't really have a plan.

Osama Bin Ladin gave the facists in our society the excuse to suspend our civil rights. I have to travel with a passport in my own country since I live near the Canadian border and we have roadblocks all over the place from 4 separate agencies.

What can we do?
Start with dismantling the education system - It is exactly what we did to the NIS (Newly Independant States) after the collapse of the USSR. Get back to non-PC RRR and the trades. School year 12 months, Elemetary (state paid) K-6, High (state paid) 7-10; and anything higher will be up to the student or his family. Mandatory Gov't Service at age 16 unless in school until your 30th birthday. Two years military or paramilitary (police, border patrol, enviromental, etc) or Three years of Social Service either local, compartment (state) or Federal. BTW all of that so called foreign aid we gave to the NIS was in the form of managed credits for US products and with political strings attached.

Start thinking about writing your own paycheck! Though I retired recently I never joined SCORE because it also, was chock full of Politics. Over the past few years I have helped others set up over 800 small businesses - forget the SBA unless you can justify the need for 8 digits of investment and it does help to be a minority (whatever that is now defined as) or a woman.

Those who start now will have a head start on those who are as Singing Velvet has said "When they care you will know," and hope to God it isn't a right wing dictatorship that will force us to "care."

Yeah, that's true to some extent. I know fear of socialism and cutting benefits played a part in the health care debate. And I guess one could even say fear keeps us at a two-party system, because people are afraid to weaken one of them.

Still, on a systemic change level, people making themselves heard and forcing change can happen. Actually that is likely what has caused all change in American history. No one is really motivated to do this right now because they're too comfortable. I guess that was more my point... our views merge more than I thought, since you could argue the fear is of losing that comfort and freedom to be ambivalent.

That's pretty much it to me. I think most people are really terribly afraid of losing what little they have, it's what makes them so viscous and petty at times.

I know change can happen, in general, it's just not going to happen in any meaningful way the way things are right now, or at least that's what I fear.

I wouldn't say "what little they have." You're making one of the richest countries in the world sound like Bosnia.

I didn't mean to imply that, I meant to imply that most people live paycheck to paycheck, have little in the way of savings, little or no insurance, and most who even had a retirement just lost 30% of it.

We are one of the richest countries in the world and if you can sucker someone into giving you some credit even those below median income can get themselves some of that stuff for awhile, but to most people it'll be unsustainable because of all that other stuff.