"Damn The Country, Obama Must Fail"

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


Yes, but choosing to not play the game is still revolutionary.
And honestly, it is about the only option left.

It reminds me of a paper I read when I was looking into the band The ColdWar Kids.
I was intrigued by the name of the band and looking into it they linked to a paper written by some sociologist or another.
He was describing the next Renaissance in American thought. He called the next 'hippy movement' the ColdWar Kids. In it he goes into how this next revolution will be exactly that. People who just resign to care.

It was a really good paper and I think he is probably right.

You see, you don't have to challenge them to be revolutionary. You just have to stop playing their game all together, like you said.

At that point, they lose their power because you choose not to let them have it.

PS - The reason I say that it is perhaps the only choice left is because any other way you look at it you are replacing an imperfect system with another. Getting to the point of the simple realization that it is unnecessary because we have the power to stop it immediately would be revolutionary indeed. And enlightening.




[edit on 11-8-2009 by JayinAR]

Originally posted by groingrinder
It is clear to me that lobbyists need to go. They have taken the lawmakers away from their constituents. If somebody wants my lawmaker to vote a certain way, then they should have to come to the constituency and make their case. Then the constituency would approach the lawmaker and give him their opinions. My lawmakers are supposed to be working for me. They do not work for the lobbyists. At least they are not supposed to. Lobbying is one of the things that is messing the country up badly.

Lobbying should be made a capitol crime. The only influence that Congressmen and Senators should be experiencing needs to come from the constituency.

Logged in specifically in order to star this post. Wish I could star it on the hour every hour.

I've been in trouble for excessive-quoting

sorry if posting the entirety of the above post fits into that category, but I tried to isolate the salient sentence .. couldn't. It's a post that needs to be seen and read in its entirety, in my opinion. Not a wasted word there. And I agree with every word.

reply to post by ladyinwaiting

Can we begin by identifying the lobbyists who are wielding such power?

I offer:

Blue Cross
The Phamaceitical Corporations
The Oil companies.

Let's start somewhere. Or has it gone so far it doesn't matter anymore?

You consistently write great posts

and this (above) was another

well done

I am speechless. Bill, thank you for this great insight. Of course it confirms what many of us already believed, but it is nice to see it from a point of view of experience.

There really is no easy answer for this problem. It reminds me of the fall of Rome. Either we abolish all lobbying or we give the American people the option to force a national referrendum. The sad thing is that noone could get it passed.

Our checks and balances have caused a critical deadlock in the system that has led to the government become a self-serving machine with no "off" switch. Really, the only way to fix it is to pull the plug.

I know how to get rid of the lobbyist, but it requires great sacrifice. In order to get rid of the lobbyist you have to kill the beast. The beat being the associations, that are nothing but a culmination of all the businesses that are "competing" against each other.

When I see names like the Telecom Association, etc. it only tells me one thing, all these huge conglomerates only want one thing and that is the never ending red tape to be even longer, to stop small upstarts from competing. Even though all the major corps. are trying to kill each other off, that is one thing that they all agree on, because it stops smaller companies coming in and offering what is most important in business which is customer service.

The way to get rid of them all, is to just stop working, quit feeding the beats, instead of feeding it starve it. It wouldn't take long, these huge conglomerates are operating in debt, everyday they are not making money they are losing millions of dollars an hour.

Want it to change starve the beast, the people responsible will single themselves out because they don't know what to do. Any kind of revolution violent non-violent isn't going to change anything, unless we also dissolve multi-national companies that operate within our boarders.

This corps. do not have a nationality, race, or even care about anything, it is the their sole function to simply make a profit, everything else be damned. That is the only way things are going to even begin to get better.

reply to post by St Vaast


I agree this should make it on every page in this thread.


Originally posted by groingrinder
It is clear to me that lobbyists need to go. They have taken the lawmakers away from their constituents. If somebody wants my lawmaker to vote a certain way, then they should have to come to the constituency and make their case. Then the constituency would approach the lawmaker and give him their opinions. My lawmakers are supposed to be working for me. They do not work for the lobbyists. At least they are not supposed to. Lobbying is one of the things that is messing the country up badly.

Lobbying should be made a capitol crime. The only influence that Congressmen and Senators should be experiencing needs to come from the constituency.

The way out of the current problem situation is hatred.
Americans don't hate enough.
We need more hate.
We need to teach hate.
If a large enough percentage of Americans were sufficiently animated by hatred, the current annoying farcical situation you are all moaning about would not be imposed upon us.
That's why we're finding it difficult to impose ourselves upon Afghanistan just now...the Afghans can't afford video games, which gives them more opportunity to practice hatred in their spare time. They've been working on it for a while...getting pretty good.

I remember when I saw 45 Grave at the On Broadway in San Francisco in 1984, and Mr. Paul R. Cutler called for silence from the crowd, and he said:

"I want you to go home, and sit down, with your mother, and your father, and your brother, and your sister...and look them in the eyes...and smile, and say, 'I hate you, and I want to kill you.'"

When enough Americans are finally set up right to feel the beauty of that parable...we'll be having a little less trouble.

Everything you-all posters are advocating is lame, mediocre, purblind, ineffective, false, not happening.
Hatred, on the other hand, pretty much always works, and it is happening.
Good luck beaming nice thoughts from Planet Happy-talk.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Ahhh..you are reminding me of the summation of class struggle as expressed by Orwell in the middle of 1984. Perhaps I can see your point there...but yeah, a revolution doesn't necessitate a change in government or even necessitate the people's best interest, as you stated in the last paragraph, it depends on who grabs power.

C'est La Vie...I am actually of the opinion that government is a place holder. If one were to visualize what government was, what would one visualize? Interesting, in that any visualization would inherently be a misrepresentation since it isn't a static entity but an amalgam of decisions and actions between many different people, from the local level to the international arena.

We live in interesting times and I want to add to this thread my favorite quote, paraphrased..

"The chasm of difference between the upper class and the lower class is such that even the most accomplished of the lower class cannot fathom that which the upper class comprehends and as such cannot escape his lot in life."
-Bertrand Russell

Varying levels of comprehension effect social interactions. Which is why I invariably avoid political debate. Most of it is motivated by reactionary impulse...

And I took no offense...

Edit to Add Quote Attribution.

[edit on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:04:42 -0500 by MemoryShock]

reply to post by JayinAR

You see, you don't have to challenge them to be revolutionary. You just have to stop playing their game all together, like you said. At that point, they lose their power because you choose not to let them have it.

By jove, I think you got it!
That is exactly correct.
Perhaps the modern day figure who came closest to understanding how not to play the game was Gandhi. Of course, in the end he was shot dead, but his life exhibited the nature of not playing the game.

I leave Jesus Christ out of the discussion, because I do not wish to get into battles with trolls. Let me just say that I believe he tried to show humans how not to play the game, but he had an advantage, IMHO, that we humans do not have.

reply to post by Hastobemoretolife


Exactly!

I don't care. Job? What job?

What are you gonna' do?

reply to post by SkepticOverlord



So you don't believe the statements by that man had nothing to do with the fact that he is an Obama supporter and works for the Obama administration?

Has the Obama administration done so good that you believe this man without any questions?

It is not like President Obama has shown contemp for the American people since his first day as he, and his administration spent more money than any other president for his inauguration, not to mention the whole "temple" thing, and all this during a time when the entire nation, and world already knew we were in a bad recession...

It is not like under the Obama administration about $9 trillion dollars were lost into a black hole, and President Obama himself stated they didn't know where it went.

It is not like President Obama dared to state what sort of cars auto companies should be building, and claimed that certain CEOs from "private companies" should resign, and of course under the Obama administration GM was nationalized meanwhile Americans kept losing jobs.

It is also not as if the Obama administration have their own lobyists and Obama has hired lobyist who want to give the sovereignty of the United States over to the UN, and for the UN to rule over us.

It is not like President Obama has put as his science adviser a known eugenics maniac who wants, alongside other Obama lobyists, to get rid of certain parts of the population.

It is not like the Obama administration with Janet Napolitano as director of the DHS labeled most Americans as "possible terrorists".

It is not like the Obama administration is trying to shut down any, and every oposition, including regular citizens and has labeled any American who questions this administration as "rightwing radicals".

It is not like under the Obama administration the Democrats gave power to something they call "the Corporation" to indoctrinate the future generations of Americans, our kids, into the Democrat, or Socialist party line.

But hey one man claims that President Obama and his administration must be fighting for the people because he claims lobyists are trying to shut down Obama, and to hell with the U.S.?

SO, sorry but imo you were punked by an Obama supporter.

[edit on 11-8-2009 by ElectricUniverse]

reply to post by Springer



Term limits and Lawyer'less' House and Senate. I believe lawyers in Congress are just as detrimental as life-long Congressmen.

The average American has no law degree. Our representatives should represent the average American.

The degree in law, without the intention of practicing law, is normally used for getting around the law.

Laws written by lawyers, are laws written for lawyers.

[edited ] for mistakes, tons of mistakes, and I'm sure more mistakes and more editing...

[edit on 11-8-2009 by SourGrapes]

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


Yep.

A good revolution is what we need.
But there is a catch. How do we initiate it? It isn't found in the Bible, that much is certain.

I have an idea how you get the chain rolling. You compliment 50 people. www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by ProfEmeritus

Man is an extremely imperfect being, and although mankind has progressed technologically, its propensity for conflict has progressed even faster, as technology has enabled much more damage to be done to any attempt to ascend in a pure or spiritual way.

There in lies the major problem in my opinion. Our monetary system as not caught up to the near infinite progression of technology. Therefore people are losing jobs to machines (yes it is true, my dad worked at GM [now retired] and said now because of the technology available to build robotics that pretty much make the car frames and such themselves there is no need to hire humans to do that job...This is only one personal example, there are more), look at paper newspapers-they are going obsolete due to the ever expanding internet, look at HEALTHCARE- all the extremely advanced technology and medicine costs way too much to produce and run compared to the average citizens ability to pay for it, look at anything you want and you will see that a lot of this issue is directly or indirectly related to the extreme unbalanced nature of technology compared to the current monetary system.

Am I saying get rid of technology? LOL, no...What I am saying is there needs to be a MAJOR change in our monetary system--Capitalism is failing, it was destined to fail. You see (in my humble opinion) the more we advance technologically the further behind our monetary system gets. The more advanced technology we have available, the less the need for actual human workers, and if that was not bad enough--Due to Capitalism whoever discovers this technology can sit on it as long as they want and charge whatever they want. Patent limits? LOL.....There are so many ways around that, again due to Capitalism--Which gives the bigger ("better" or more successful business) the ability to control the smaller and less successful business. Capitalism gives WAY TOO MUCH power to money, as we are sadly finding out too late. It is pretty much whoever has the better luck or scenario and jumps on something (new drugs, energy [oil], robotics, etc, etc) first usually controls the entire related market for a theoretical indefinite amount of time. But nature will run its course in the long run, as anything that is fundamentally flawed will always become extinct, and I believe we are seeing that right now with the US and Capitalism everywhere.

In conclusion it seems that we are not even mature enough to handle the technology we have now without abusing it. It is like the rich kid in the sandlot with all the toys that no one else can afford, as long as you let him win you can play, you actually stand up for yourself and you can't play anymore. So n essence what we have had happen in my opinion is the miracles of technology have been abused to suit the purposes of those who 'own' (again, a Capitalistic property) the technologies. Not only does this allow all the big businesses to sit back and rake in the money, well that is if you want to have a standard of living acceptable for the year 2009; it also inherently creates the loss of the very thing Capitalism is built on---JOBS, while the ones that are left are completely controlled (once again in this cancerous cycle) by the big business. So what is better? At this point I do not know, I have some ideas but it really doesn't matter does it? No, I fear this will have to continue to take the natural course it is already taking, that is something that no one can stop, hopefully it won't come to that, but I guess we will see soon.

[edit on 8/11/2009 by jkrog08]

reply to post by Springer

Originally posted by Springer
TERM LIMITS, it's the only way to "clean house". As long as we have career politicians in the Senate and the House we are going to get what we have...
:
We have Term Limits within our power, never re-elect the same Representative. Yes, it requires work in researching the other candidates, but I would think with what's at risk it's worth doing the work. Sadly it appears most of us US Citizens are too lazy to be bothered.

Springer...

Term limits are something I've been calling for for a long time. When politicians stay in the same seat for 20 - 30 years, it prevents infusion of new blood, new ideas.

Unfortunately, term limits cannot be accomplished through the ballot box. Once a pol gets re-elected, he/she has a distinct advantage of the 'machine' he has created. Then his term consists of feeding the machine with pork money and funding for their pet projects. They in turn 'get out the vote' to get him re-elected. After that, the occasional construction of a 'civic center' or health clinic 'proves' that he is working for the greater constituency.

Prime example: John Murtha.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
Until there's real and meaningful change (not reform) of campaign financing -- and change in why campaigns become so costly -- there's no hope of eliminating special interest lobbyists and their money from Capital Hill.

This will never happen under the current system. Politicians who are well-funded by lobbyists will never vote for this type of change - it would jeopardize their re-elections. It's a Catch-22. The only way to accomplish this is via a first step of legislatively mandated term limits. That may take a Constitutional amendment.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord
I understand u have a right to express ur op. On the other hand, don't do it. It undermines what ur entity stands for. jmo

reply to post by SkepticOverlord



There is no such a thing as a benevolent dictator. Benevolent and dictator are on oposite sides of the spectrum. Any form of dictatorship is bad.

Oh and BTW, i do not stand with or for lobyists of any kind, i just find it a bit too convinient for some man who works for the Obama administration to want to claim the administration is working for the people and that it is the fault of only those people you saw who might or might not be all lobyists.


[edit on 11-8-2009 by ElectricUniverse]

I think there is HOPE and the hope relies in staying informed, BUT not by listening to Rush or some liberal talk show, because that is plainly indoctrination. We need to stay informed and turn every stone to understand the source and validity of the information we consume. As a people, our biggest enemy is ignorance and lobbyists know that very well. Stay informed, be skeptical of intents and talk to your neighbor. Enough with the indoctrination of the right and the left! We’re killing ourselves.

Originally posted by expat2368
I absolutely agree. Obama is tearing the country apart anyway, it seems better to try to expose him for what he is and get it over with rather than have it drag out till the end of his term.

Please re-read the opening post again. It's clear you didn't.

The corporate machine will never let go of the golden goose. They are too powerful to be taken out of the loop through normal channels. Its too big.

We have two options.

One divine intervention.

Two the American people will have to take it back by force.

I dont see either option happening.

Unless they have broke the system so badly that we get tot he point that we cannot feed ourselves. Only then will our people find what is in them to fight this.

Good luck to us all.