What's wrong with this country?

I became a member of ATS because I felt that there was something wrong with what the government was doing to our lives. For along time now, I have watched the country eat up our taxes and grow so wasteful. With all of that money coming in, how in the hell can we, as a country, be (by some estimates) 10 trillion in debt?
Our representatives at both the state and federal level are seemingly incapable of genuine leadership. They are in Washington to just “be” there. Ask yourself this. What has the government done lately or ever to enhance you life?? Send you a stimulus check so you can spend it to boost a failing economy? Big “F”ing deal. A very tiny Band-Aid for a gaping wound. It seem that the government just keeps taking and taking. What do we get out of it? The privilege of living here while our freedoms keep going away?
Then we have the candidates vying for power like a pack of mad dogs, salivating to get to the Promised Land, the city lined with gold.
Anyone notice that not one of them is talking about the issues that really matter to us, the common folk. Will I have Social Security? Will medical care and prescription drugs ever become affordable? Are taxes going to get even worse? Will I be able to keep filling the gas tank at the current prices and still enjoy my lifestyle? Will my 401k still be there when I need it since it’s all really just a computer generated number for now? How many more of my freedoms are going to disappear in the coming years? No one is talking about this stuff and it the stuff that keeps me up at night.
Then, buy the time it all gets down to election time; it seems that the really good players are priced out of it because of the fat cats and their incredible money making machines. Did anyone really get to vote for the candidate they wanted or were you forced to accept Obama and /or Hilary because you knew that your guy didn’t have the cash to keep up with them. The fat cats get them elected and then favors are owed and paid back in spades. Money, money, money. When did it become necessary to take in 25 to 30 million a month to win an election? When the hell is this going to stop? I’ll tell you my friends. Never. The system is designed to help keep those with power, in power.
Our supposed “free” press is no longer the tool for controlling the government that it was intended to be. Does anyone really believe the news the whole truth, to the best of their knowledge anymore? All that a scandal ridden Washington player has to do now is apologize, shed a tear on CNN and he or she practically given an award for being so honest for coming clean about the whole thing. Apology has become policy.
Our elected leaders, using sanctions and the military, have pissed off most of the world to the point the even our allies don’t really like us anymore. More young men and women are fighting and dying every day while the old men do the talking and policy making. The usual status quos are in play. Am I the only one who thinks that the US has become the biggest bully the world has ever seen, foreign and domestic.
Can anyone really tell me what we are still doing in Iraq? The mighty US military machine, bogged down in an area the size of Texas? For going on…what…eight years now. I read all of the theories on ATS and no one seems to have a good answer for this question. World war two was fought and won in five and they didn’t have the tools we have today. One would think they would change the ROE’s and let the soldiers do there jobs.
Don’t tell me it’s just about the damn oil, that’s too shallow. Still looking for the mystery WMD’s? Well that lie was told and bought buy us along time ago. Now the same thing is starting to shape up that way for Iran and North Korea. I trust you all heard about the North Korea national emergency, right?

I think it time to get lied to some more, friends. It is, after all, an election year.
I’m sure that this way of thinking puts me on some list and I’ll be slated for one of the prison camps if they can catch me.
Chow friends, and yeah, I’ll try to stop being such a pessimist.

Well first of all Wolf...why don't you do something to make enough money so you wont have to rely on social security. Second, what if you lived in Africa and had to go without food for days on end and then get violated by roving bands of muslim jan ja weed militia who gave you aids and then killed your mother after violating her. Stop your whining and count your blessings.

Your opinion is your own as is mine. I have a great job and invest heavily for the future, as do most of us. But that future everyone plans for is now very different than it was five years ago.
The Africa thing, well unless you live there and that was a relative, don’t even start with that crap.
This country is in serious trouble and there is no fix in sight.
As for counting my blessings, I do. Every day

You have a nice evening, TH30N3

Originally posted by wolf241e
Anyone notice that not one of them is talking about the issues that really matter to us, the common folk.

Wolf, I agree that the country is in pretty bad shape. We are spending $5000 per second in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our current leaders don't give a rat's hiney about us. And things are looking pretty foul.

But I do hear the candidates talking about things that matter to me. What are you listening to? The "news"? Because that's just media. They're going to talk about the drama and what gets viewers. To see what the candidates are talking about you have to search it out. Fortunately, we have the Internet to aid us in that.

I don't blame you for being pessimistic. But there is hope.

i understand what you are saying. i am sorry that you are subjected to the same mind numbing "it could be worse" response that some of us have been subjected to on other threads.

as i said on another thread, ppl seem to mistake distress of our ever growing critical situation as ungratefulness for what we have. it blows my mind that ppl have the mentality that as long as we are comfortable right now, we should be thankful while they rape us of our essential rights and keep quiet about the atrocities we see going on around us; namely the one that is happening over in iraq in the name of the country we reside in.

the illusions they feed the population seem to be as great as the illusion of the sun. make ppl see what you want them to see and keep them believing this is what they want to see and you can keep the important truths (such as the power that each one of us holds) from being known, thus they will be actually be grateful despite the control you exert into their lives.

have to admit, these "ppl above us" know how to play their cards.

Originally posted by wolf241e

I have watched the country eat up our taxes and grow so wasteful. With all of that money coming in, how in the hell can we, as a country, be (by some estimates) 10 trillion in debt?

There's good debt and bad debt. If an individual can be 500,000 in debt (lets say a doctor who bought a 300k home + schooling bills) and be paying on it - is it bad debt?

Now what is 500k to an individual? Alot. What is 10 trillion to a government? Not quite so much. I don't condone a lot of spending that our government does. But to say we're in a bad situation because we're in debt has always rubbed me raw.

Will my 401k still be there when I need it

If you do nothing to touch it - what could possibly happen to it? Its your money, invested. Your employer can't touch it, unless you allow them (borrow against it, etc)

No one is talking about this stuff and it the stuff that keeps me up at night.

with all due respect - people are talking about this stuff adnauseum. I wont rehatch old arguments, because they end up going nowhere but south - really fast.

Did anyone really get to vote for the candidate they wanted or were you forced to accept Obama and /or Hilary because you knew that your guy didn’t have the cash to keep up with them.

If you vote for anyone you dont want to vote for - then you do this to yourself. you can write-in candidates. Just because the democratic party (an organization) chose their public nominee to be obama, and the republican party (an organization) chose McSame - i mean McCain - :shk: to be their noiminee does not mean they are your only choices.

Our supposed “free” press is no longer the tool for controlling the government that it was intended to be.

I never recall, in my lifetime anyways, the media being any different than it is today. its a lot more on a big scale, but still just as pointless and biased as i ever remember it.

World war two was fought and won in five and they didn’t have the tools we have today.

If we were fighting...say....the soverign country of Pakistan, we could declare victory. We are fighting an IDEA (radical islama. aka. terrorism) we are not fighting a person. WW2 died with the atomic bomb and the suicide of Adolf Hitler

Don’t tell me it’s just about the damn oil, that’s too shallow.

It is about the oil. Those in opposition to a free and liberty way of life know that oil is our achilles heel. If we dont have it, we choke ourselves. Protecting the oil is an unavoidable sideeffect of middle eastern intervention.

All around, if i may be honest, i think a lot of the problems that are described in your post are created by the media in order to fester in the fear so people will be glued to their TV sets and letting the ratings pour in.

Ratings = money
Money = power

all men in power want? More power.

You wait and see. It'll calm down. So far, in the past....5 years, we've dealt with

Avian Bird Flu
Chicken pox returns! .... ?
The war in iraq
"new" planned attack
"new" planned attack
"new" planned attack
"new" planned attack
"new" planned attack
"new" planned attack
"new" planned attack
"new" planned attack
"new" planned attack
"new" planned attack
"new" planned attack
"new" planned attack

A 'crashing' economy. This, IMO, is based soley off the crashing housing market, which was caused by nothing more than idiots lending money to degenerates who couldnt pay for it in the first place.

Credit companies work like this

"you want money? SURE!" they make their money off of you, not by your monthly payments, but by the fact that when you are late on your first payment (and they have ways of 'delaying it' ive been there) then they jack your interest sky high, and charge you a late fee. Thats where their cash cow is.

All they did was over-exert themselves on this one. But - like all things living and breathing - the economy will fix its self. As long as mankind has a thirst for wealth and power - our ecnomy will never again collapse.

Just my opinion, though.

reply to post by TH3ON3


So are we down to judging American conditions by Darfour standards? Should the people of Darfour be eminently grateful that at least it's not a bunch of parasitic space aliens laying eggs in their stomach?

reply to post by wolf241e

You bring up excellent points in your post, wolf241e. I would also like to hear more from both candidates on the issue of national debt. I would like to hear from both that if elected they would get back to being fiscally responsible. Let's hope that this comes up in the coming months before the election.

I feel the same way, but I think the one way to straighten things out in Washington is that we must hold our elected officials accountable for the current state of the union. The problem is that many other congressman don't want to because a. it would be embarrassing to impeach a president we elected twice b. if we admit the Iraq war was a blunder other countries may hold us liable for it and we may have to pay reparations (which we already are) or c. it would look like retaliation for impeaching Clinton, and they don't want to continue a cycle of impeaching the opposing party's candidate.

I think it is imperative that we do what is necessary at whatever cost to hold them accountable so to be a detriment in the future and keep it from happening again. That is what we must do.

I think we compromise our visions too much. It's time to slowly wean off the gov't tit spewing black partially hydroginated death oil.

The government is a lie. Bring it down. Bring it down. I don't care if McDonald's and Verison don't work ever again. I don't care that I even have to find my own food.

I feel trapped by this machinery and this # food and these #ing corn syrup concoctions of death, and I know what to do, but nobody wants to come with. They all wanna stay indoors and ignore my plight, and make #ty excuses every time (which so far has been EVERY TIME) the government completely does the opposite of what it promises. Even our great civil war, sure it freed the black, but we are still dealing with racism and equal rights today. Nobody knows why blacks and women get paid less than white men, but it's still around. All these opinions and information and logos and slogans and corporate bull# we are just being BOMBARDED with, EVEN HERE... it's just very mind numbing, very mundane, very much NOT what is in the hearts of most people until they give up on their dreams for an unfair compromise which we get brainwashed into thinking is completely fair and just so great because the government says "We have freedom. Look at them. They have death. Be happy and proud.", and then the clucking turkey comes on ATS and delivers the exact statement I would expect someone who follows the official mentality would have said. Good job for being predictable, TH3ON3. I mean... are you serious with that comment even at this late in the game? Where do you live? The Hilton residence? Are you completely blind to the plight of the world because of your "stuff"?

Bad news... all of your stuff is temporary and replaceable, a lot more temporary than a spiritually gutted civilization. We're not talking about politics or the economy or the fact that I'm not that Iraqi baby born with severely under and mis-developed facial features because of the USA's penchant for bombing the Hell out of civilians with depleted uranium.

I'm not glad that I'm not that little Iraqi. I am that little Iraqi if I can feel his little pains. I am anyone I can have empathy for.... and all of this is not worth the guilt and the apathy and the suppression of free will that this charade requires. I want the world war to end. The war never ends. It just relocates for a while, wherever it benefits power and greed.

God isn't dead. He's just sleeping.

Wake me up from this nightmare, please! All of you out there....why is it so hard to not be a selfish prick? Why does life have to be about money? Why can't it be about what you love, and having fun, and finding meaning? This has no meaning. This society has lost its purpose to itself. We're nothing more than biological robots now. Your crap and your money that you bought your crap with will be gone eventually, so # it man.... why are you crazy mother#ers buying into this lie? It's completely insane.

This society is completely insane in the most paranoid schizophrenic way....

nobody knows who they are anymore.

How can you know who you are when your true self is missing?

How can anyone even argue with me? You're all insane, I mean a lot of you are. You're getting better slowly, so I still have hope that the sleeping giant in our minds will wake up and brush the dust of his thinking cap.

I'm just waiting for more people like Wolf here.

Great post, man. You're on your way.

I'm getting a bit excited. I've noticed so many of these posts lately... and it's TRUE! It's not a nut theory to ask questions like "What is the moral significance of blowing the Hell out of brown people in the MidEast?"
"Why is money supposed to make life better, but it almost always makes it worse unless you're a well to do guy who got a chance at a 'good education'?" We're not all so lucky.

Maybe we are lucky, though. I'd rather know that I am infinite then cling to a High Definition Screen and some pieces of paper and metal that someone else brainwashes me into thinking has some sort of intrinsic value.

I dunno. (Your) real world seems pretty fake, and miserably so, to me.

I'd like to elect myself as president.

Okay.... taxes, GONE. Energy crisis - electromagnetic, hydrogen, water power, solar wind, all combined SOLVED - War... OVER FOR GOOD.

The education system would be my top priority.

Everybody will now be encouraged from an early age to find out what THEY want to learn about, and have specialized tutoring session customized just for their needs and interests. If they wanna learn about dinosaurs... teach them all about dinosaurs. They wanna be an astronaut, teach em about space and physics. We'll need a lot more astronauts here soon anyway. Some elementary math, basic science/geology, and everything else is their choice because it would be completely personalized and completely at their own pace. There would be no grades, just reviews of overall goals, and a confidence level... and it would be almost completely their will guiding their intellectual development. As one requirement, though, all student will be required to have certain moral tasks, like helping others, strengthening their understanding of care and compassion, and generally discouraging hurtful behavior by educating kids right away WHY it hurts you to hurt others, why it benefits yourself as much as everyone else if you have compassion.
Along with that... I guess another thing I'd try to add to a "free will" education program is encouraging parents to participate in teaching and understanding, and just empowering students to ALWAYS think for themselves. If they don't feel something is morally right, don't do it, no matter what authority tells you.

Get the world young by the baby balls (that sounds... wrong, but you get what I mean)... that's the PTB's most important strategy, and so it will be mine, as well. Get them young, before everyone fills their minds with other people's views.... fill their minds with their own views, so that indoctrination of future generations becomes harder... and so that this "new paradigm" in human thinking can flourish, instead of constantly being eradicated.

I don't guarantee a world full of responsibility and peace to be completely devoid of negative forces, but at least we can give positive values more of a balance against the force of the darkness, ya know?

Not eradication of evil... just leveling the playing field, so some real beauty can have a chance to live.


[edit on 29-6-2008 by dunwichwitch]

reply to post by dunwichwitch


i feel ya in this post!! you have spoken some things VERY WELL w/ your emotions through the words.

and you hit home on something i have felt VERY strongly about. i, too, am fine w/ being responsible for my own food. ya work for it and grow it, ya eat. ya don't do the work for it, you don't eat. in a lot of ways, i think the trading of services would serve us much better than the $$ system. such as i grow a garden of veggies and trade what i don't need for another service someone can offer who can't grow their own veggies.

we have the ability to have everything we want w/out submitting to these lies and the control that is tightening around us more and more each day. it is just a matter of more ppl understanding this and getting angry w/ the overall rape of humanity and the earths supplies rather than their own agendas.



[edit on 29-6-2008 by justamomma]

All around, if i may be honest, i think a lot of the problems that are described in your post are created by the media in order to fester in the fear so people will be glued to their TV sets and letting the ratings pour in.

Ratings = money
Money = power



That's a great point that you bring up, Andrew. I think that the media does have direct influence over people's state of mind.
They drive home subtle points time after time until you swear that what you where thinking the whole time.
Then McDonald's comes on the tube to try and tell you how cool it is to eat that crud.

reply to post by dunwichwitch

Well allrightythen. No built up aggravation here.

Though I agree with what you say, the way you say it is just as important as the message itself. Instead of being so angry and condescending maybe you should try to express yourself in a way that doesn't turn others off. Just a little advice, and I wish you luck in your journey to that goal.

reply to post by dunwichwitch


Good evening there, dunwichwitch.

Thanks for looking and replying. I'm so glad that at least someone thinks kinda the same way i do.

Loved the clucking turkey thing!

You also bring very good thoughts to this discussion. My thanks to you and to all who have replied.

It just felt good to get the feeling out there to you all.

Sorry it sounded like rantings of a guy off his meds.

Originally posted by Hal9000
reply to post by dunwichwitch

 

Well allrightythen. No built up aggravation here.

Though I agree with what you say, the way you say it is just as important as the message itself. Instead of being so angry and condescending maybe you should try to express yourself in a way that doesn't turn others off. Just a little advice, and I wish you luck in your journey to that goal.

personally, i think MORE ppl SHOULD be angry at what is going on around us. if you are not angry, i view that as you care more about your own personal agenda than you do that of humanity's as a whole.

until more ppl feel this passionate about it, we are not likely to see the change we need, but rather we will keep heading into this abyss of lies and illusions. get angry!! get mad!! just make sure that you are angry for the whole of humanity rather than just your own personal situation. everyone deserves the right to what this life offers..... not just a handful of ppl. it, imho, should be "you get out of it what you put into it" and it just isn't that way if you really dive into the facts w/out your personal blinders on.

reply to post by Hal9000


Good evening HAL9000.

I hear what you’re saying about holding the elected officials accountable for their actions. I dare say that is a fantasy in the current judicial system. Even at the federal level.

I agree that we have no hope of a Bush impeachment. Too much damage, as you said. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it. We can’t dump Bush because it would LOOK bad, be bad for the country as a whole. How do hold these guys accountable, when the politics of “looking bad” come into the picture? I wish we still lived in a world where right and wrong still meant something to the people who make the rules up as they go.

I’m just frustrated because I feel powerless to affect any real change

Originally posted by wolf241e
reply to post by Hal9000

 

I’m just frustrated because I feel powerless to affect any real change

you have the power. sheesh! quit listening to the psychobabble crap! you have the power to say "NO! THIS IS NOT OKAY!". ya have to say it in your heart before it is to be made of any effect though. when ya get it in your heart, soon, you start seeing little ways of making a change that before, didn't seem to. when more and more ppl start making these changes that appear to be small and ineffective, suddenly the effectiveness will begin to grow. stop feeding into the BS that what you do can't make an impact and start believing that it WILL make an impact.

optimistic? hell yes!! i want you to be too! i am grounded in reality though and realize that you all may not ever be optimistic enough. oh well, at least i will be "headed out" w/ a clear conscience that i did everything w/in my power!

[edit on 29-6-2008 by justamomma]

Originally posted by TH3ON3
Well first of all Wolf...why don't you do something to make enough money so you wont have to rely on social security. Second, what if you lived in Africa and had to go without food for days on end and then get violated by roving bands of muslim jan ja weed militia who gave you aids and then killed your mother after violating her. Stop your whining and count your blessings.

Counting ones blessings is extremely important. But we MUST not lay down in such a wonderful country and watch it being taken away. WE have a responsibility to this place we call home, we have to take responsibility where so many aren't.

For too long we have let ourselves sink deeper and deeper into a system which cares nothing for us. We have every right to complain about things, we live here, this is our responsibility. Many will not sit idly by while those blessings we count are being stripped away, raped from us.

Stop dwelling on the negatve things in the USA or it will just keep getting you all down. Of course I have something different than about 2/3 of the posters, so I guess it does also have to do with outlook on life, what we were conditioned to think in our formative years.

I like to look at the best things and focus on them, maybe somehow contribute in spreading the good things around, and then suddenly the bad things don't seem so much of a burden. Sorry if I was a bit crass in my first post, but again life could be a lot lot worse...So try and recall think of the best times you've had in your life and smile, and count yourself lucky you could even muster one smile thinking about such.

10 to 12 billion 'a month'. While our infrastructure curls up like a potato bug in the sun. Bridges falling is an interesting analogy.
This country, government, has been bought and sold to the highest bidder.

Originally posted by justamomma
personally, i think MORE ppl SHOULD be angry at what is going on around us. if you are not angry, i view that as you care more about your own personal agenda than you do that of humanity's as a whole.

This is where you are wrong. Your anger is blinding you in to thinking I have a different agenda than the author of the post I commented on. I wish for the same things that they do, but I am smart enough to know that anger and violence is not the answer. Isn't that is what got us where we are right now?

If you believe that is the answer to the problems we face then you have already lost, and frankly are no better. Use your head, and see that things will not happen overnight and be willing to accept change in small steps. If you have no idea what I mean, then just disregard.