pan6467

This is the vast reason nothing gets done and we continue to spiral downward.

PowerClown is entitled to his opinion on Reagan, as is everyone else.

But we get all caught up in pointing fingers and saying Bush, Reagan, Carter, Kennedy, Clinton.... and then we argue to defend our opinion of the past.

Meanwhile, we continue this spiral downward and no one comes up with any solutions. Just finger pointing and blaming everyone else that doesn't agree with us.

Stop the fucking insanity and let's work for solutions. Let's work together and find out how to stop the spiral, instead of arguing where it started and who did what when.

The finger pointing and blame game doesn't change anything, won't change the past, won't change someone's opinion, won't stop the downward spiral.

Hey Zeus Frickin Crisps........ let's start looking for answers and working together to accomplish a better future and fuck the past, we ain't never going to change it. We can learn from the past but only if we stop the finger pointing and negativity and start looking at what did work.

It's like addiction recovery, if you focus on the reason why you drank/drugged/whatever and not on how you can make a better future, you will forever be locked into relapsing. Find what works in your recovery focus on it, build off of it and realize that you can have a better life because you don't live in the past facing nothing but negativity and guilt.

I believe we are addicted to the negativity and downward spiral because a lot of people just don't want to change, they would rather finger point and blame everyone that doesn't agree with them, than to see they may have to sacrifice, compromise and put forth effort..... it's easier to just keep blaming and finger pointing and wallowing in pity as we decline further and further into the addiction than to face the truth and work our way out.

Must this country truly hit rock bottom before we realize this? In the stages of addiction, we, as a country, aren't even in the precontemplative stage in our addiction to the negativity, we're wallowing in the active/denial/blame stage.

I guess the vast majority would rather stay there than recognize the problem and move forward.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

host

Sorry, pan. It isn't the way that it works. I've shown you that, if you read it and considered it.

There is no way to "come together" when the influential force working on those furthest away from your POV is getting what it is paying for.

Humor me for a sec....it's 1934 and one out of five workers in sunny Cali-forn-eye-A is out of work, and everyone else is struggling with reduced pay, hours, or both.

A familiar face comes along, a man known to have exposed and forced the government and industry to clean up the meatpacking industry, years before. He gets your ear, and your neighbors, and he offers solutions that seem to make sense.

The newspaper owners disagree, and so do the Hollywood studio heads. They know that there is an underlying concern that, based on anecdotal obeservation and pride in the climate and the place, many residents already believe that there is a growing influx of out of state workers and their families, streaming into the state seeking work or just food and shelter.

The studios start making and circulating visual "aids", represented as current photos or newsreels (and the newspapers, too....) depicting "bums" packing railroad freight cars, riding the rails into their state and jumping off to slip into their communities, breeding crime and competing for scarce jobs and county welfare.

The newspapers incessantly remind everyone that the candidate is a socialist which is the same as a comminist and is on record refusing to embrace the sanctity of marriage.

You believe in unity, and you avoid letting your opinion be shaped to where it is nearly indistinguishable from the owner of that newspaper or movie studio's take on things.

Others don't avoid that, pan. If you compromise with them, unite with them, you're doing what the people who pay to have people think and vote just like they do, have paid to influence them to vote for, and taken you part of the way with them.

They won't compromise pan, they never have. So, how and where can you?

We're spending ten times as much as the closest military rival, and an amount equal to all of the rest of the world combined, on our military. I think it starts there....what is the middle way on that issue? Which candidate, besides Ron Paul, has even mentioned a middle way?

What is the middle way on judicial appointments, to the supreme court for example, or on gay rights, or on abortion? Do we make it illegal on odd days?

Can we all agree that the purpose of the voting enforcement section of the DOJ is to oppose restrictive state laws....like new ones requiring official state issued photo ID's?

Maybe it''s just me, pan, but if it's good for General Dynamics or Haliburton, Ruppert Murdoch, Exxon Mobil, Merck, or Council for National Policy, chances are, whatever it is, it ain't so good for me or my family,

If it means no new restrictions on trial lawyers, planned parenthood, union labor organizers, or people who don't believe religion has a role to play in government or in public shcools, chances are I'll be supportive of it....this spirit of unity.

ngdawg

I don't disagree with a word you said.
I will however, say it's futile at best. Look at the millions of people of voting age in this country and look what we're given to choose from: 3 people. THREE! And not one is addressing the negatives in a way that would have us nod and give an emphatic "Yes!"
I touched on it before, but...we as a nation have the habit of blaming one person for the woes and it doesn't work that way. There's an entire machine at work and too many of us are tiny cogs. We don't vote for who equals our visions, we vote for the least evil of the choices given. That just sucks. Where is anyone who doesn't have some huge money bag going to get their voice heard so that those of us who want the choice can take it?
You or I or even Host can't run for president because we're "average Americans". Hell, who here could even run for mayor?
We can join groups, start groups, oppose groups, but for whatever reasons, we either don't or we do and give up.
*sigh* We do what we can with the tools we are given......

Challah

Yes. Even then, after trying to fix the problems of today, we're going to run into the problems of tomorrow. It's kind of been that way since, you know, forever.

I agree that the United States is not doing so well in some areas. Its recent military endeavours are questionable at best and if anyone honestly expects positive results from them, well, they'll be disappointed. The conflict in Iraq will never be "won" and I don't think it was ever meant to be.

Same goes for the War on Terror.

And the War on Drugs.

And so on.

Moving right along. Entertainment. Not to be a dick, but the whole John Lennon thing suggests that you might not be trying very hard to find new, exciting music. It's definitely out there. Finding new music is easier than its ever been, thanks to the internet. Myspace and Wikipedia surfing are very useful for this. Looking into local projects is also, of course, a good idea.

And really, what do you expect from TV? The fact that TV is shit should not be news to you. A lot of my friends say things similar to what you've said, then sit down and watch Reality Show X because "OMG IT'S BETTER THAN MOST OF THAT CRAP ON TV, ITS AN EXCEPTION TO THE RULE." No, it's not. If you have your own little "exception to the rule", maybe consider the possibility that you aren't as far removed from the consumer horde as you might like to think. We should call that "Lennon Syndrome."

Then the news. I wish we could take a hint from how they did it back in The Day. You know, that time when those in charge of distributing information didn't exploit their position of power. A time when facts were delivered to people and people made up their own minds. A time when simple people weren't distracted by sensational stories about meaningless non-issues. When was that, again?

I'd like to know if you have any specific ideas about how to improve things. Recognizing a problem is the first step to fixing it but I get the feeling that things won't get any better until they get a lot worse. Sadly, electing a Democrat to the White House probably won't do a hell of a lot of good. If anything, it might make things worse. But we won't get into that here.

Even if massive changes were put forward today, I'm not sure it would be enough. You're in a pretty deep hole and a lot of people seem content to keep digging. You've made it through a revolution, a civil war, two world wars, a crippling depression and more. So we'll see. My lifetime should be an interesting one.