[LeonDion]

Oh yeah, I forgot to say...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dmtu', 'W')e the people own the airwaves of this country, Not CBS or FOX or CNN.

[Leanan]

Real city folk don't drive anywhere. They don't own cars. There's no place to park them, anyway. I worked in NYC for over a year, and used public transportation the whole time. My sister lived in Boston for four years, and never owned a car. In fact, her $1,400/month apartment didn't even have any parking.

We spent our teen years in a one-horse town in rural area, though, where we had to drive (or be driven) twenty miles just to go to school. I drove 30 miles each way to my first (non-farm) summer job, at a fast food joint.

City folk who move to the suburbs usually get an unpleasant shock, when they realize they have to drive their kids everywhere. In the city, everything's in walking distance.

[LeonDion]

Here's an interesting article interesting article at Online Journal:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')merican revolution, now!
Eliminate the one party system with two faces

By John Stanton
Online Journal Contributing Writer

July 23, 2005—To all but the most critically astute American minds, a precious few it must be said, the USA is the most dynamic country to appear in recorded history.

In the American mind, all problems, foreign or domestic, are, the faithful say, solvable with another election cycle, a court decision, a high profile resignation or, perhaps, another war on something (drugs), someone, some country (North Korea), or some mythical army of millions (terrorists). America's bounty is endless, they say, the US Constitution unchangeable, and the US military, led by archangels and their legions of fighting angels, undefeatable. There are infinite sums of money and limitless ingenuity to throw at whatever difficulty may come the American way and, besides, Americans trust in an omnipresent God, so how in God's name could God abandon those who trust so blindly? All of this propaganda is peddled to Americans, beginning in utero and ending on a slab in the morgue, by America's myth-making machinery in religious institutions and the media. The engine for that machinery is the individual and collective ideological and monetary wealth of Wall Street.

The powerful of the country run a minimum security, open air labor camp called the Unites States of America in which the wardens are the Republicans and Democrats located in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the US government, along with their governments-in-waiting at think tanks around the country. The hideous and anticompetitive one-party system with two faces is an abomination, a monster disguised as an American politician, or maybe even a general or CEO, who claims to be the leader of the free world.

The fact is that 21st Century Americans are little more than laborers, captives and, like all prisoners throughout recorded history, are fearful, afraid to challenge the system in any serious way, anxiously waiting on the next meal and a decent night's sleep before the alarm signals another wretched day in the hive. The routine is safe and predictable but results in a form of imprisonment for the vast majority of Americans.

[snipped] Go here for the entire piece.

[threadbear]

Great posts on this thread this morning. Thanks so much!

[Bas]

Very interesting rant/reasoning, LeonDion. I must say it consisted of speculation for a big part, but it was speculation within the boundaries of reason.

Bas

[Bas]

Anyway, I see China turn into a kind of European socialist democracy sooner than it doing this "troyan horse" thing. People are getting more educated in china, have more access to info nowadays and they want the same rights as we have in the west as they become more aware.

Also, a wageboom will occur sooner or later in China and the revaluation of yuan recently is the first in a long series that we will see in the coming years.

[LeonDion]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', 'V')ery interesting rant/reasoning, LeonDion. I must say it consisted of speculation for a big part, but it was speculation within the boundaries of reason.

[MacG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('LeonDion', ' ')Yep. People haven't grown up yet and realized that all are capable of being corrupted. That was a major theme .....

[dmtu]

Why is it that MacG and Bas seem to know more about the U.S. system than 70% of it's own citizens? I'm not claiming to be a political scientist by any means but when people from foriegn countries know more about American politics and or history it kind of shocks me. Being member of this site has enlightened me on many aspects of other countries but I would be hard pressed to make the same type of conclusions about countries in Europe.

[honeylocust]

The American Republic conducted wars of aggression to genocide the Native Americans and seize their land and resources in the beginning. And America has pursued numerous imperial actions between now and then. So in some ways America has always been a two headed beast-one Imperial, the other a Republic. But nowadays, the Republic part is DOA.

[Bas]

....that's rather cliche, honeylocust.....sorry

And DMTU, thanks for the compliment man! I was actually already seriously thinking of going back to university to study Americanistics, I'm fascinated by your country!

[marko]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', 'I') was actually already seriously thinking of going back to university to study Americanistics, I'm fascinated by your country!

[TheSupplyGuy]

I agree with dmtu and lol marko.
I could never really analyze European politics and history(well I could, but it would be a mess).
I know European history(and I also get to take Western Civ next year) and i understand the parliamentary system, but I could never really deduce actions and events.

EDIT: For that matter, very rarely can I understand why politicians in this country act the way they do, though I understand our system VERY well.

[Bas]

No it's not that...at all... that actually makes me really sad...no, it's so much which interests me, it's too much too list...And I do have loads of criticism on the way American society is organised, a little on the attitude too sometimes.

But it's really interesting how Americans are affected in their thinking by PO, i think the Europeans are affected much less.

The biggest doomers on this board are Americans. And this is one of the few boards where not the half of the American posters get totally pissed when America is critisised, actually they are doing it themselves. And they do a good job too, totally clear reasoning most of the time and so well formulated too!!! (much better than i could formulate it)

Anyway, on most other boards on the net, the American neocons overshout everybody else and launch massive personal attacks when you say something like "the two party state", kinda sucks.

Bas

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', '.')...that's rather cliche, honeylocust.....sorry

And DMTU, thanks for the compliment man! I was actually already seriously thinking of going back to university to study Americanistics, I'm fascinated by your country!

[marko]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', 'T')he biggest doomers on this board are Americans. And this is one of the few boards where not the half of the American posters get totally pissed when America is critisised, actually they are doing it themselves. And they do a good job too, totally clear reasoning most of the time and so well formulated too!!! (much better than i could formulate it)

[savethehumans]

Bush FINALLY made it to the Boy Scout Jamboree on the 3rd try. There were heat exhaustion precautions this time (maybe they figured out that 100s of Boy Scouts in the infirmary wasn't good PR for the organization).

Anyway, in the course of Bush's speech, this came up:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s the sun set, Bush told the crowd that the first man he often sees every morning, chief of staff Andy Card, is a former Scout from Massachusetts; Vice President Dick Cheney was a Boy Scout in Wyoming; and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was an Eagle Scout in Illinois.

[NevadaGhosts]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he American Civil Liberties Union raised objections yesterday to a little-noticed provision of the latest version of the USA Patriot Act bill, arguing that it would give the Secret Service wider latitude to charge protesters accused of disrupting major events including political conventions and the Olympics.

[basil_hayden]

Well they're not called the SS for nothing.

Doesn't it seem we're trying to make all the right moves, but it's going all wrong, as in the example above with the presidential control of the National Guard? The changes are being made for obvious reasons, yet they wil not have the desired effect, in fact just the opposite.

[NevadaGhosts]

Here's an interesting article about Patriot Act 2:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')...The second Patriot Act is a mirror image of powers that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves. Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot Act reorganizes the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command. The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship.'