MBL and your own website may be on death row

[Erik]

That means the big cable and phone companies are pushing money at politicians if you ask me...

Yeah, and it's legal in the form of "campaign finance". I'm not a big fan of the way things run in Washington DC.

[Greg]

I think no money should be put into funding the presidents election.

There should be a government channel on radio and TV designed specifically for that.

Then people can see the candidates and they are time blocked on the channel fairly and equally.

Maybe even on the internet too.

Worst of all I am beginning to think having political parties is not such a good idea either. They just gang up and monopolize the White House..

Oh I better just hush hush...

[Erik]

I agree, the two-party system definitely has it's drawbacks. Making it more open to other parties would be a good thing.

[florida man]

Gang. I was a political science major in College.

Noam Chomsky would have a field day here. I too agree as i climb up the socio-economic ladder , seeing more of reality than i care to see sometimes.

The 2 party system in American politics is to control the outcome. 2 guys needing the same type of politic to make it to the final 2 to begin with. Neither is really much better than the other, but save their professional handle on spin. The party and /or others really set the administrations agenda and the president gets to work within the slim framework allowed by the real powers.

The powers that REALLY be, Chomskys 2% , control this easily . They cant have some far out tree hugger coming into office to upset the apple cart. Therefore the system is designed for only blue blood elitists to make it to office as they are best suited for the hoops they have to jump thru to get there.

The other contolling factor is the media which takes being a 'spin doctor' to a HUGE new level that many of us would be horrified if we knew how bad it was. The biggest con in this country is that we are 'free' but then automatically brainwashed by media control to believe what the real free people in the country want us to believe. This doesnt always work but does 99% of the time.

The times that the propoganda doesnt work = an ISSUE , being social economic , military and or otherwize, and its a HUGE headache because the powers that be must use 'damage control' to get what they were gonna get no matter what anyways. Very rarely does it actually stop the elite from doing what they want . Vietnam is an excellent example of that.

[florida man]

srry . Forgot to mention another controlling factor. Parties.

the more they con us with constant media pounding that either you are a 'republican' or 'democrat' -the more you will accept that one of the 2 will win an election.

All elections are run within the parties, until the final candidates are 2 guys who are socially virtually identical in their real agenda and the power they will be allowed to enforce.

Those 2 guys who are really the same, are presented to us to 'vote' so the whole thing is in large majority already determined in advance but we get to choose which actual guy gets to carry out the orders and idiological framework predetermined by the elite.

Not much diff between that and a dictatorship where you get to pick between 2 pre determined dictators is there? Its illusion of freedom. It works from the mayors office thru the govenor and senate right to the top job.

[carlo@CreditReportAtlas]

Wow.. that's deep stuff guys.

[Cheerfuldude]

Mercy, this was a very interesting thread to read. The amazing part was that everybody seemed to agree on pretty much every point.

On a side note, I was discussing some of these points with my 61 year old disabled father just yesterday. He told me the thing that upsets him the most is that they get to decide their own paycheck and to make matters worse, when they do retire they don't have to live on the same retirement system as the rest of us do and/or will.(assuming it's still there when I get there) His suggestion was that we all stand up and demand that we(the people) get to vote on what their wage AND retirement plan is going to be. I thought that an excellent idea! He also thought that if they were put on the same retirement that the rest of us are... we would probably see it get "fixed" or atleast changed rather quickly.


Just my two cents...
Hersh

[Erik]

You're talking about Congress' retirement, right? I agree - it's bunk that elected officials living off taxpayer money (and retiring on it) get better retirement than those who work their whole lives paying into the soon-to-be-bankrupt social security fund.

I'm not a big fan of government intervening in much of anything, but if they're going to do it then they can't make special rules for themselves and ignore the people they supposedly serve. There's a name for such things and it's called corruption.

[Greg]

That is interesting! I am glad you made those educated posts from the college days.

I think we should try to find out more about the proposal ie bandwith specifics for each line.

Maybe it is not as bad as we think.