Our Socioeconomic Position is at Risk

The problem is that in America, we have a larger proportion of the global companies' headquarters (or we used to) meaning it's much easier for some CEO to say, "Well, Americans aren't working hard enough, we'd better outsource to some country where they wil work harder."And that's on top of the fact that it's all but impossilbe for our government to make any more work-related oversight laws, since our corporations are now considered people with the ability to throw millions of dollars at anyone willing to vote against these types of measures.

No, it's not. WHen the government was founded, running for public office was seen as a sacrifice, that people had to be convinced to run, and that these people would received public money to do so.Of course, it very quickly became a goal rather than a sacrifice, people's net worth rose above the level that public funding could compete with to the point that almost no one takes the public funding any more.And then, when we have some people in government fighting to keep money out of the having undue influence, the supreme court goes and overturns years of precedence and declares that corporaitons are people, and that is used many years later, to overturn even more years of precedence in allowing corporations to spend virtually unlimited amounts of money in political contests.I'd say that the form of government "the people" put in place has been turned on its head by the people with money.

Exactly in the same way that many armies are fighting the previous war. The situation, when it was set up was able to be taken advantage of in ways that were almost inconceivable in the previous generation. Once people got into power by taking advantage of a system, they're able to then influence the laws such that they can keep themselves in power.For instance, redistricting was created as a way to allow districts to change as populations moved. Now it's used as a way to keep the current reigning political party in power. "We the people" have no real say in how redistricting is done other than by choosing whether it's Democrats or Republicans who game the system.When it comes to financial contributions, the person who can buy the most media and slander his/her opponent usually wins. The people who give the most money to that person can ask for some sort of recompense, and they usually get it. Those of us who don't own a company or don't have a few more digits on our net worth don't even register as a blip on most donation registers.Ultimately, it comes down to the victors writing the rules for how they can be revictorious, and they have no reason to try to change the system since the system works for them.

Actually, the percentage of people who vote is on a generally downward spiral, but that's not an argument on either side.The fact remains, people vote based on lies and distortions. The people who DO vote, vote without having, or being able to get, a clear picture of who they're voting for. They're far from being able to make informed decisions, and once people are elected, the bills they vote on are generally pages and pages long, and from those pages, they pull out one or two lines and point to those as their reasons for voting for or against something, and the people who then get to decide if they get to keep their job are again left without a full picture of their record.

No, it's a world we inheritied, that was created by fallible people over hundreds (in America's case) or thousands of years, each glomming more sludge ontop of an already sludge-filled sundae.{AbE} WHen your choices come down to "the better of two evils" can you really say the world is as we want it?Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.

You can say this, and I suppose at a very naive level it's true. But you can't deny that those with money and influence have had more influence in the creating that world than the average person.

I agree, some of it is their fault, but a lot of the reasons behind why they allow or even encourage it is because the environemnt they grew up in, one influenced and controlled by the people with power (and money), told them that this was the only way. People are a product of their environment.The people who see this situation either rail at the dark, or just detatch from the process. Neither of which actually changes much.The protests and revolutions in the Middle East seem to be the only way to chang the situation, but if you look at Egypt, that still doesn't mean some other group won't use the situation to their advantage, once again thwarting the actual will of the people.

I completely agree. Much of our system was created centuries ago, when the entirety of the country was the Eastern seaboard. It has since been changed piecemeal by different people with different goals. It almost seems like it's time to clean house and have another Constitutional Congress where we can try to create a new Constitution that still leaves our ideals in place, but is more relevant to the world we live in. Agreed. From the moment someone is elected, they're already campainging for reelection. I'm not so sure size is the major factor, it's just disparity of needs/wants. This disparity goes hand in hand with size, but even a small organization with people who can't agree on what needs to be done, nor on how to do it would be just as ineffective. I don't think the US should cease to exist, it should just change it's function. The US should be the oversight committe, the institution that enforces human rights type laws, but they should also allow a lot more latitude among states for other laws. This is something I've believed for a long time. The AMerican people have, in the past, risen to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, but, and this is a big but, they seem to need to hit rock bottom before rousing themselves to do so, and every time we hit rock-bottom, we seem to force that bottom a little lower.

In the immortal words of Adam Savage, "Well, there's your problem!"

I live in Wisconsin. I'm not sure how aware of US news you are, but we're currently in the middle of a huge protest in Wisconsin relating to public employees and their ability to have a union. People are willing to fight to keep something they've had, getting them to fight against something that's been in place is tougher to do. Which is why we have so few states with legalized gay marriage, and many more which have outright banned it. It's also why allowing gays to openly serve in the military was such a hard battle.

Exactly. I'm proud to say that I went to public school in WIsconsin and went to the University of WIsconsin Madison for college, but if we keep going down this road, my kids won't be able to be so proud.The funny thing is, Walker seems to think businesses will come here if we don't tax them, despite the fact that we'll have no educated or experienced workers to become employed by these businesses. It's just mind-numbingly absurd. Almost everyone I know who voted for him are regretting their decision. You get the world you create, but that doesn't mean it was the world you were intending to create.

Sadly, this is true, for the short term at least. If we can try to force a silver lining, however, with the recall petitions out on the Republicans in the legislature, the all but inevitable recall on Scott Walker, and the fact that people have finally been woken up, they may have pushed Wisconsin into the blue camp for the foreseeable future.

The world is as it is because of the choices of everyone who has come before, and everyone who currently is. That's a fact.Hpwever, the ability for me, for example, to do anything about the plight of our modern society is virtually nil, for the very fact that it would be me versus the uncounted trillions of people who do and have lived.There are two ways to make large changes, get a large group of people, or get large sums of money. Large groups of people fall prey to differing ultimate goals, and large sums of money are tough to come by. Therefore, the ones who already have large sums of money are the ones driving society while the rest of us are along for the ride, regardless of whether we like the ultimate destination.

I love this quote, however, it sort of ends before the process really gets going.A small and determined group of people can make a temporary change, but without getting a majority of the people that the change affects to get behind it, the change quickly slides back to the old status quo.

Very true. I'm worried that people will roll back over and hit snooze if this just becomes another fait accompli. The fact that there are recall efforts still ongoing, protests still being planned, and that the protests are a pretty good representative of the whole state (farmers are planning on surrounding the capitol with tractors today), I'm cautiously optimistic.