We the Problem

We the Problem

www.newsweek.com

Washington is working just fine. It's us that's broken.


The problem is not the system. It's us—our "got mine" culture of entitlement. Politicians, never known for their bravery, precisely represent the people. Our leaders are paralyzed by the very thought of asking their constituents to make short-term sacrifices for long-term rewards. They cannot bring themselves to raise taxes on the middle class or cut Social Security and medical benefits for the elderly. They'd get clobbered at the polls. So any day of reckoning gets put off, and put off again, and the debts pile up.
Click he

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.humanevents.com

Ok here we go!

We have the pot calling the kettle black!

I f'n bet the guy that wrote this piece of trash has never lifted a wrench in his life!

I would find it hard to believe that he has put in seven days a week 12 hours a day on a construction project as a grunt while teaching his kid to read and running them to various activities.

I am willing to bet he has NEVER slept under a bridge or went hungry.

I have done all of the above and work with people who have as well.

Guess what.

I have never complained nor have my friends. We call the above life. Shiznet happens.

This type of talk shows just how big the gulf IS between the elite and the working man.

Calling the working man FAT....lol.

I am fifty years of age. I can run a mile...was tested on a heart/lung machine just last year for a physical and did 12 minutes full out at a angle on the stress test...

I can out work any 18 year old...fat my fn ass.

Come on down to the bar I hang in and we will see who is fat Jackass.



www.newsweek.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 1-3-2010 by whiteraven]

Wow these people are either ignorant or playing dumb. When 51% of our budget is comprised of military spending, when most of the economic recovery act went to fund education institutions and local government, when they can give bailouts to wallstreet, when they can vote themselves a pay raise and they have the nerve to say we are confusing them? Maybe they should be less worried about spending money on corporations and more about getting people in need a helping hand. How about legalizing marijuana? Tax it, grow it, and we have a new industry overnight producing many products. They have a plan is all, and they don't want you to know about it. Either that or they don't know which masters to serve corporations or the people.

The point is this so called journalist whose job SHOULD be to REPRESENT the freedom of the press is nothing more then a fat mocking bird waiting for some big new promotion because he is towing the line.

I could care less about the Mary Jane debate.

Hello a massive, heaping pile of propaganda!

Well this is exactly what they want...To make the people question themselves...Make them think "wait a minute- am I sure I'm listening to the right side?". This is their way of trying to deflect blame and criticism for when they pass healthcare folks...Funny enough- I saw the same thing today flipping through a news channel.

Proof of just how manipulated the media is.

reply to post by AceOfAces


The fact is that this so called Newsweek Journalist is more then aware that billions upon billions of tax payer money has been used to prop up the elite...but the working man can simply, according to him if you look at what he said....WORK HARDER!!!


Work longer and harder?

This Snake journalist understands that the people who push this of type crap live off of PEOPLES TAXES...hard earned taxes...and he has the nerve to print that we are lazy...WORK HARDER...WE NEED OUR TAXES.



Kinda of reminds one of Pharaoh making the Israelite slaves work harder at the rebuke of God toward Pharaoh.

[

1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.' "

2 Pharaoh said, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go."

3 Then they said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword."

4 But the king of Egypt said, "Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work!" 5 Then Pharaoh said, "Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working."

Exodus 5



[edit on 1-3-2010 by whiteraven]

the fact that it's one of the most subscribed to NEWS magazines in the US says a lot about what state the country is in.

look at one of it's other thought-provoking titles How China is good for Tibet

[edit on 1-3-2010 by Ionut]

reply to post by Ionut

look at one of it's other thought-provoking titles How China is good for Tibet

Yep.

You are correct. Look how China is good for Tibet?????

That shows who feeds these pigs...communist China.

I clicked because I thought the headliner was great.
I still have to read what this is all about.

To be brutally honest, I've been tooting this horn for years. In fact, I've posted numerous essays here concerning the topic, to mixed reviews. You can find a few in my signature.

The article quoted is entirely correct. The general populace IS at fault. The majority of the population are apathetic, lazy individuals who do not give a flying damn about the future or the state of their world just so long as they get what they want.

If you sincerely believe that a few thousand people have more power and influence than the action or inaction of 7 billion, then you are truly and sincerely deluded and entirely ignorant.

I could write another essay here, but frankly I don't have the time and I've done it several times already here on ATS as I've already stated. WE ARE THE PROBLEM. You don't want to admit it because it challenges your perfect world view.

Next time you complain about the banks, realize who it was that racked up hundreds of thousands in debt, individually, buying houses and cars they couldn't pay off in their lifetime.

Next time you rant about the government, think about who it was that refused to give a damn about voting, refused to exercise their right to revolt when it got out of hand, refused to lift a finger to stop it.

Next time you harp on about how kids these days are out of control, realize who it was that farmed them off to televisions and sitters so you could work for the debt you took on it part 1, denying them parenting throughout their childhood.

The sad thing about the article writer, is he is entirely right, but it's a truth so harsh and brutal that almost everyone will reject it out of hand: It doesn't fit their perfect little world view that revolves around them and theirs.

Well I would disagree.

I have worked with these so called lazy people all over North and Central America.

lol

Lazy my ass.

When a dimes weight in silver bought a gallon of gas when my grandad went on strike as a butcher they walked out until they got 25 cents and a day off.

Nodbody suffered and the place prospered.

People forget where we have struggled and how we have struggled.

But to blame the common man for the guys who are steering the ship into the iceberg is absurd.

And of course you can defend it, I have heard the BEST lawyers paint an innocent man evil.

There is definitely an agenda atm by the MSM to blame debt on government programs that actually help the people instead of pointing out the obvious.

Pleasant Illusions are easy answers. PIs don't require you to change your life, just to pick a better institution or product or idea and it magically makes everything better.

Difficult Realities are those hard facts of life that we must confront in ourselves and the world. DRs mean we have to actually get out of our comfortable chairs, work together and find real solutions, and that not everyone will be happy so there might be some struggle.

It's an eternal human tendency to want PIs instead of DRs, because we're busy leading our own lives. Don't rock the boat, at least before my investment portfolio comes in. Don't do anything that might alienate any of my customers. Don't make the underlings mad, or upset our corporate overlords.

It seems to me that if you post a Pleasant Illusion, many people sigh and think wouldn't that be nice, and click it, but DRs get voted down as quickly as possible. Is it any wonder our human problems change form but never go away, if we're unwilling to face them?

reply to post by whiteraven


That's nice that you're a working class man and have seen all levels of society. Unfortunately, no matter how much you want to put on rose tinted glasses and complain about how today is different from yesterday, it doesn't change reality.

The relentless pursuit of the "American Dream" throughout the past century by every class and creed is what brought us to this position, not the "powers that be".

Yes, the leaders and wealthy are complicit, but their power pales in comparison to the sheer influence that the average Joe has globally. The fact of the matter is that for the past 80 years, the public has given up on caring about the world around them and focused solely on the pursuit of their own personal material gains at whatever cost. We currently are the single most apathetic, selfish generation of souls to ever walk this earth, at least since the fall of the Roman Empire.

So please, don't give me your working class bull hooey. You can be as working class as you want, that doesn't change the fact that YOU HAVEN'T BOTHERED TO RAISE A FINGER TO START A REVOLUTION AGAINST THE THINGS YOU DIDN'T LIKE, WHICH IS WHY WERE ARE IN THIS MESS!

In other words, put your fist where your mouth is and stop mocking the people who tell it like it is. We're sick of trying to get the reality of the situation through to people who are too ingrained in their fantasy land to accept it.

reply to post by D.E.M.

If you sincerely believe that a few thousand people have more power and influence than the action or inaction of 7 billion, then you are truly and sincerely deluded and entirely ignorant.

I guess that makes me "truly and sincerely deluded and entirely ignorant."

Why? Because you are dismissing a couple things...

A - Most good people have moral restraints, something the power hungry greedy elites do not. When we discover an inspiring person that represents the majority of us, whose voice resonates with the hearts of the masses... POW!!!! Assasinated.
Most good people don't do assasinations, regardless of how evil and criminal some of the elitists are.

B - Most people have financial restraints, a limited access to resources. The Elite don't.

C - Generational development: with every generation, humans adjust to their surroundings and consider them normal. Like with the boiling frog effect, the people just don't realise how bad the times are or how bada neighborhood is.
You are kinda blaming billions of us for having watched TV when we grew up, which imprinted the global soap opera with all of it's stars and culture into our minds.
I don't think it's entirely fair to judge an individual for the worldview he has, since a lot of it was imprinted when he didn't yet have independent control of the input.

The elites may do things differently with their kids, and put up this Hollywood DC dog and pony show for the masses - not just to be brainwashed, but to be brain dead as well.


In short, I hope you are just frustrated with the levels of apathy and ignorance within the masses, but to blame that entirely upon them and not on the malicious intent of cross generational elites is wrong imo.

There's a difference between Harvard and Grand Theft Auto, and there's no such thing as equal oppurtunity in this world.

reply to post by D.E.M.
[more)

We're sick of trying to get the reality of the situation through to people who are too ingrained in their fantasy land to accept it.

Explain to me who we is and who and what they are trying to get through to the populace.

And how would you know if I have or have not lifted a finger?

What is this reality?

Next time you harp on about how kids these days are out of control, realize who it was that farmed them off to televisions and sitters so you could work for the debt you took on it part 1, denying them parenting throughout their childhood.

First the kids I work with work hard!

Second I have always been sure that my kids had one parent at home~

lol

I am sitting with one right now.. .my old lady is probably closer to your age then mine...so don't try to place me as some person who blames anybody or judges anybody because they are younger. lol

For that matter I take full responsibility for all of my actions as most of the people I know do!

You do something stupid YOU pay the price.

But I will not stand for ivory tower BS and sounds to me like you got yourself some.



Get real bro...sounds like you are the one who needs to take off the glasses.





[edit on 1-3-2010 by whiteraven]

I would say that it isn't over yet. Of course the masses will go along being ripped off as long as they feel that they're getting ahead. But now the wheels have come off and the ponzi scheme is collapsing. The people will have to choose between their Apathy and their Hunger, unfortunately.