America is no longer FREE

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OpenGambit said:
I am very disappointed with the Obama administration thus far. He didn't take advantage of the time when he had the most political capital, democractic house and senate. And now he has to deal with crap like "reaffirming the motto".

Its not all his fault or anything but he just hasn't been able to impose his will on anyone, its very sad.

I hope he does veto it tho.
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American Presidents never really accomplish much, in their first term. They spend the first 6 months getting their feet under them, then have to do station keeping duty for the next year and a half, working deals even with members of their own party. If they're lucky, they don't end up with a House and Senate that's opposed to them. IF they survive a second election, that's when they can start working on their legacy. After all with a two-term limit, they don't have to worry about getting elected again.

Unfortunately Obama was handed the keys to a burning house with a negative equity mortgage. He now faces a bunch of wingnuts on the Social Right, who have been pretty successful at putting everything squarely at his feet, so we'll never likely get to see how he would behave in a second term. The Tea Party lunatics will more than likely own everything, after the next elections.
 
I agree in general with that, but the point really is that he was elected on the basis that he would be different. So yes my disppointment is still justified.

"We are who we have been waiting for?" He hasn't changed a thing.
 
One note on the Tea Party movement.. It's an astroturf created by marketing agencies with the money "donated" by the Koch brothers (84% owners of one of the biggest corporations on the planet). They mobilized the poor class to fight the middle class while thinking that they're fighting the rich. The biggest scam in history. Even with the knowledge out there, it's still a powerful movement.
 
FiReSTaRT said:
One note on the Tea Party movement.. It's an astroturf created by marketing agencies with the money "donated" by the Koch brothers (84% owners of one of the biggest corporations on the planet). They mobilized the poor class to fight the middle class while thinking that they're fighting the rich. The biggest scam in history. Even with the knowledge out there, it's still a powerful movement.
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Not all that different from the Occupy Movement, on the Left. Most of us voters sit somewhere around the middle of the road, both here and in the US, but the real fringe whackos are the ones who run 'media relations.'
 
Rob MacLennan said:
Not all that different from the Occupy Movement, on the Left. Most of us voters sit somewhere around the middle of the road, both here and in the US, but the real fringe whackos are the ones who run 'media relations.'
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One is a bunch of fringe whackos mobilizing a bunch of centrist people through their own efforts. The other involves billionaires hiring a marketing consulting firm to do the mobilization. That's the difference between grassroots and astroturf.
 
FiReSTaRT said:
One is a bunch of fringe whackos mobilizing a bunch of centrist people through their own efforts. The other involves billionaires hiring a marketing consulting firm to do the mobilization. That's the difference between grassroots and astroturf.
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A sock puppet is a sock puppet. Follow the money. You might see something very different when you're done.
 
Rob MacLennan said:
A sock puppet is a sock puppet. Follow the money. You might see something very different when you're done.
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One doesn't involve hiring a firm specializing in persuading people to act against their own interests, backed by quite a few billions of dollars while pretending to be a spontaneous gathering of working class Americans :cool:
 
FiReSTaRT said:
One doesn't involve hiring a firm specializing in persuading people to act against their own interests, backed by quite a few billions of dollars while pretending to be a spontaneous gathering of working class Americans :cool:
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No, it involves unions, that are worth billions of dollars, and a 1% member who made his money on consumerism.
 
Rob MacLennan said:
No, it involves unions, that are worth billions of dollars, and a 1% member who made his money on consumerism.
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Put all the unions on the continent together and they still couldn't come close to competing with the Koch empire.
 
FiReSTaRT said:
Put all the unions on the continent together and they still couldn't come close to competing with the Koch empire.
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You underestimate people. and overestimate the power of money
 
menacingone said:
There's a sucker born every day
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Freestyle72 said:
LOL funniest thing I have read ever.
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By all means, feel free to explain how the Arab spring, Tiananmen square, the civil rights movement, the end of apartheid, and other grassroots movements are borne from a bunch of billionaires playing puppeteer with the masses.

There are many ideals in this world that people value more than money, people bleed and die for those ideals.
Part of living in a democracy and supporting it as a legitimate government requires a degree of respect for the atonomy and free will of indivduals, if you can't do that, there are a lot of other countries that don't where you will fit right in.
 
What about the British India Company? We already have examples from history of corporations ruling entire countries and manipulating public policy in order to squeeze more money out of those people and their land. Then there's the was in Iraq.. Huge waste of taxpayer dollars and lives in order to make money for a small oligarchy. In the US, corporate interests already trump citizens' interests. You can be kicked off your land for private enterprise projects like building a motel due to the changes in their eminent domain laws. Our entire society is geared towards making a small group of very powerful people even more powerful and I'm accused of overestimating the power of money? Big money is our new aristocracy and most of us are rabidly defending their servitude to them. It takes a lot of power to engineer that sort of a mind-****.
 
FiReSTaRT said:
What about the British India Company? We already have examples from history of corporations ruling entire countries and manipulating public policy in order to squeeze more money out of those people and their land. Then there's the was in Iraq.. Huge waste of taxpayer dollars and lives in order to make money for a small oligarchy. In the US, corporate interests already trump citizens' interests. You can be kicked off your land for private enterprise projects like building a motel due to the changes in their eminent domain laws. Our entire society is geared towards making a small group of very powerful people even more powerful and I'm accused of overestimating the power of money? Big money is our new aristocracy and most of us are rabidly defending their servitude to them. It takes a lot of power to engineer that sort of a mind-****.
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Or the Hudson's Bay Company? Throwbacks from a day, when The Monarchy held ultimate sway. Today large groups of individuals actually have power, through the vote. In practise they don't, but only because they don't believe it, and so don't exercise it.
 
Rob MacLennan said:
Or the Hudson's Bay Company? Throwbacks from a day, when The Monarchy held ultimate sway. Today large groups of individuals actually have power, through the vote. In practise they don't, but only because they don't believe it, and so don't exercise it.
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One of the examples I have cited is very recent and ongoing. I also cited an example of the current aristocracy using their power to mobilize large groups of people for their own goals, thus not only diluting the pool of people true grassroots movements can choose from, but also creating an opposing force. There are differences between theory and reality.
 
Rob MacLennan said:
Or the Hudson's Bay Company? Throwbacks from a day, when The Monarchy held ultimate sway. Today large groups of individuals actually have power, through the vote. In practise they don't, but only because they don't believe it, and so don't exercise it.
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I keep seeing this. Voting doesn't do anything. Look around at all the crap laws and poor governance. Doing things gets things done... seems self-evident.

And by the way, if the government ACTUALLY WANTED DEMOCRACY, FAIRNESS AND CONSUMER INPUT it has the Internet. Some dude named Paul put up this web site where people from all over the world can talk to one another as a hobby, but apparently the government can't even run a simple poll. Think about it.
 
Shaman said:
I keep seeing this. Voting doesn't do anything. Look around at all the crap laws and poor governance. Doing things gets things done... seems self-evident.

And by the way, if the government ACTUALLY WANTED DEMOCRACY, FAIRNESS AND CONSUMER INPUT it has the Internet. Some dude named Paul put up this web site where people from all over the world can talk to one another as a hobby, but apparently the government can't even run a simple poll. Think about it.
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All of that exists because we permit it to exist, largely due to the myth that voting does nothing.

There is no such thing as a simple poll, when done correctly.
 
... and thus, no improvements will be made. Which was my point.

Because, voting does nothing.
 
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