What is happening in this country???

[Lady's Human]

It's all a matter of perception. Turn off CNN, get rid of USA Today, Fox News and other mass media, and we're not in too bad a shape.

Crime is down. The FBI just released its annual statistics report, and violent crime is down 5%, property crime is down 7%, continuing a trend that has been going for more than a decade. The reason crime seems so bad now is that we find out about the guy holed up in the building in Miami nationally, not just locally, and we hear about it well before anyone has a chance to get the facts straight. As usual, they broadcast the headline at the top of the hour, on the hour for hours, and then run the corrections on the bump as they go to commercial when no one is looking.

Weather? We're no worse off now than we were in the 1940's to the 1960's, when they had many, many hurricanes, every year, but there was no CNN to broadcast up to the minute reports every 10-15 minutes. There also wasn't so much coastal development as there is now. Saturation reporting makes EVERYTHING look like it's going to hell.

Jobs are available. Even in the Southern tier of NY, where unemployment is a constant problem, it's down under 5%, and has been there for a couple years now. It all depends on where you are.

George W. Bush is but one out of the thousands of officials, elected and appointed, that make things work in this country. Just as he cannot honestly take credit for everything when things go right, WE cannot blame him for everything and be honest about it. Your local politicians have a far greater effect on your daily life than anything coming out of Washington DC. They don't set state taxes, services, etc, your local government does. Your local government also has more of an effect than Washington DC on the local economy and local job creation. again, it's all in perception and the way Mass Media wants you to see it.

As far as animal abuse goes, there are more stories than ever, but there is more COVERAGE than ever, and checking facts seems to be a lost art with the media as well (see the story about using dogs as shark bait). The sun, a tabloid, runs the story and CNN picks up on it and reruns it as though the sun was teh Wall Street Journal.

Helping other countries? We aren't just "One of the more prosperous countries" as Cataholic put it, we are THE MOST prosperous country in the world. One of the best ways to fight the war on terror is to assist the people who get brainwashed into becoming terrorists, and show them that we are NOT the evil country that we are made out to be by some. It's far easier to prevent them from becoming terrorists in the first place than to fight them on the battlefield.

The US a spoiled country? Damned right we're spoiled. We have people getting help from relief agencies going on TV and complaining that they got an MRE instead of a hot meal. Doesn't that just make me feel special. In the field I live on 'em, but they aren't good enough for someone that the media has been portraying as starving? Guess they weren't really starving after all. We have enough resources in this country that we can afford $3.00/gallon gas rather than let the oil companies drill where the resources are and use our own oil rather than import it.

It's not that bad. You just got in a hole, and things will look better when you get up out of the other side of it

[moosmom]

I didn't mean to piss anyone off. I guess I was just venting over the state of affairs in this country.

And Lady's Human is also right. I'm in a huge hole right now and maybe I'll see things differently when I finally do find a job and get my own place where I really belong.

But it makes me sick when I watch on tv (maybe I should just shut the damn thing off) people who make MILLIONS of dollars making movies, playing sports, living high on the hog and paying an outrageous amount of money for a stinkin pair of shoes when so many people are going without them. It also makes me sick that these politicians promise everyone the world and then don't keep their promises.

I guess I'm just a little sensitive right now. Do ya think???

I'm going to take my anti-depressant now, have a good cry and go to bed.

Sorry if I opened a can of worms. If you think I should delete this thread, let me know and I will.

[RICHARD]

DON'T YOU DARE DELETE THIS THREAD!!


We are far from being pissed off....
I can tell you a story, (I have told it time and time before) about my Worst Six Months...

It is a matter of perspective.

And remember that should they start to fill the hole with dirt, you don't have much of a say about what happens afterwards.


Your feelings are valid, your opinion valued..


Or as Little Orpah Annie would say.

Tomorrow tomorrow I love you tomorrow
It's only a day away!!!


What brought THAT ON, i'll never know or tell!!

[Corinna]

I guess It just hit me wrong I get so tired of Americans bash our selfs as bad becouse we have worked hard to make our country "rich" . as others have done nothig but say we must remain the same its' Allah , or budda or what ever will. Ok so its the will to remain poor and ignorant. fine don't expect The US to pull your tail end out every time.
I 'm for helping out other countries but why do we keep helping out the same countries when its proven they arn't giving the millions to help their people but lining the government officals pockets.
As to the origanal question the answer is we have taken the act of respossiblty away and given excuses and oh poor you its not your fault. here the governemt will help you. And after 3 or 4 generations they are still on the government dole and now expecting it .
Sorry but i'm in the middle of doing my taxes for the year we own our own business and we now have to pay 45% of what we earn to the government . And as I watch the stupid women on welfare,food stamps and has 6 kids, buy steaks I can't . I get a bit ticked off yes tlets but my butt and feed the entire world on the sweat of my and my husbands brow, let them all set around and complain about the rich americans. NOT in my mind.
Any of you that don't write a check to the Irs set a side the amount you have deducted for a 2 month period and see just what you pay in. Not writing it out you probly don't know just what percent you let them have to play with. Just try it.

[caseysmom]

Please don't delete this thread, its good to talk about it. I am sorry things have been going so bad for you, by our standards here you are having a hard time. So many others have no food, no shelter, I don't think the money spent helping them would go toward helping you anyway, we need more jobs for people like you that are willing to work, I don't know the answer to that but its not just money.

Unfortunately in a system like ours many abuse the countries prosperity and don't work at all, then folks that are willing to work can barely get by...its not the best system in the world but its better than many.

[lady_zana]

It's understandable to be very, very angry right now. My husband is going to be laid off in December. He works for Lexmark Tech Support and they are sending all that sort of service to India. Naturally, the reason is to save them more money because they won't have to pay the people in India the $12.50 an hour Mike makes now. Times are hard for us now; they'll be really hard then because neither Mike nor I may have a job. I've been unemployed since May - there is simply nothing in our area that is hiring right now.

I do think that the media makes a big deal out of things - when you have twenty-four hour news coverage, they have to play *something* and often it's the same story over and over. It's sort of like airplanes compared to cars: when an airplane crashes, though it happens less often than car accidents, the number of people hurt or dying is much higher so it gets more media coverage and sounds much worse.

I agree with you completely on not reelecting Congress people for over two terms. If they haven't done what they promised, or at least attempted to start trying to do what they have promised, they don't need to be in office any longer. A third, fourth, fifth....term will not have any better results than the first two. I think that needs to apply to local politicians as well, though. The only problem is, sometimes you can't vote against someone because there is simply no one to vote for. I live in a nice little place now - it's not large by any means but it's much larger than where I grew up. The town where I grew up has had the same mayor for twenty years, I guess, if not longer, because no one is running against him. You can't put someone in office if there's no one to put in office.

I know I'm lucky - it's obvious that I at least have a computer and the internet when some people don't have enough food - but I'm angry and fed up too that I can't get a job and I have to worry all the time about the bills. Still, I think things will get better soon. I know I have my parents and my in-laws I can turn too when times get hard and they'll help me as much as they can. It's just frustrating, I know, having to worry all the time.

[lizbud]

Here's a great article on this subject I found in the Chicago Tribune. Dang,
I wish I could express myself half as well as she does.


Had enough?
A laundry list of ideas on how to undo the damage done by the Bush White House

Molly Ivins, Creators Syndicate
Published October 20, 2005


AUSTIN, Texas -- You can only sit around wringing your hands and moaning about what a mess the Bushies have made of America for so long. Sooner or later, even the gloomiest doom-meisters are bound to get beaned by an acorn on the noggin, leading to the startling and productive thought, "So, what could we do that would make things better?"

For those mired in loathing the Bush administration, the program would start with a long, long list of things that need to be undone: repeal the bankruptcy bill, repeal the tax breaks for the rich, and fix the farm bill, the transportation bill, the energy bill, etc. Or you could start with a list of gentle suggestions, such as:

- Making a rude jerk with a bad temper ambassador to the United Nations, probably not a good idea

- Putting a veterinarian in charge of women's health policy, maybe not.

- Making someone with a background in Arabian horses the disaster-relief czar, possibly needs reconsideration.

- Invading a Middle Eastern country with no provocation, a country that posed no threat and had no connection to Sept. 11, 2001 ... hmmm, perhaps not a shrewdie.

You can even do a sort of Golden Oldies list, such as:

- How's about we start enforcing worker safety laws again?

- What say we have a go at stopping big corporations from poisoning the air and water just so they can make higher profits?

- Say, how about helping people whose lives have been ripped to shreds by natural disaster?

But that's still not stepping up to the plate to take a swing at the always-relevant question, "What the hell do we do now?" Yes, we should follow the First Rule of Holes and stop digging. True, we need to go back to doing a lot of things we used to before George W. Bush "won" that remarkable "election" in 2000. And we need to go back to not doing a lot of things we didn't do before the 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court vote. But that still won't get us out of the fix we're in now.

We need to step up and come up with solutions to the problems this man has created.

We need a plan to get out of Iraq. I think New York Times columnist Bob Herbert had a good idea when he suggested: 1) A serious proposal for withdrawal of American forces over a reasonable (reasonably short) period of time and 2) couple that with a broader national security plan that focuses on Al Qaeda-type terrorism and domestic security.

One of the many problems created by the invasion of Iraq is that it took our eyes off fighting terrorism and dragged us into this endless struggle between the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. We're supposed to be fighting terrorism, and the single most useful tool for that purpose is international cooperation. Which means there is a lot of rebuilding to be done.

The go-it-alone Bush foreign policy will require long, hard, serious repair work. We need a beefed-up State Department and a new emphasis on human rights, complete with an acknowledgement of our errors in this regard. We also need beefed-up intelligence; tracking terrorists and their money, and their plans, and their people, requires a combination of good intelligence work and good detective work.

That, in turn, requires a whole lot of smart Americans who are fluent in Arabic--needed at State, the CIA and the FBI, just for starters. Isn't it lucky we have them, right here at hand? Of course, we will also need some repair work done with the Arab-American community, since it has not exactly been treated with the full rights to which every American citizen is entitled. Perhaps we should start a Bureau of Damage Control.

Next, the economy is in need of repair. We're obviously spending ourselves into deep doo-doo as fast as we can, and if ever there was a time for the classic Democratic solution, this is it: Tax the rich! Democrats should swipe Poppy Bush's old slogan, "No new taxes," adding, "Only old taxes back again." Since Republicans decided they needed to make Democrats look like cheapskates in the pork-barrel spending department, there are lots of thrifty, prudent stuff Democrats can do to fix that--and think how surprised everyone will be to see them do it.

While we're at it, the last time the minimum wage was increased was 1997, and $5.15 an hour ain't what it used to be. Another big chunk of what's wrong with the economy can be solved by fixing another major problem at the same time: health care. In case you haven't noticed, major employers and high-wage industries are increasingly choosing to locate in Canada instead of the United States. And what have they got that we haven't--besides more snow and never getting excited? National health insurance.

Yep, that ol' devil "socialized medicine" against which the right wing has so long and so relentlessly inveighed is now the darling pet of huge corporations. Not only is it good for General Motors, folks, the rest of us need it desperately too. In case you haven't noticed, our health-care system is falling apart.

This dandy list of Good Ideas on How to Fix Things will be continued.

[Edwina's Secretary]

Don't you just love Molly Ivins? I have all her books. She is rarely in the LA paper so my parents send me copies of her column from Chicago.

I wonder if she ever sent GWB a birthday card saying he is "cool'?? And does anyone wonder WHY George hung on to the card?

[IRescue452]

What's happening, sociologically, is the same thing that happened when too many rats were housed together. Its called overpopulation. Eventually large societies crash in on themselves. Not many people realize where certain effects come from but most are from overpopulation. There's no way to fix it.
As for our country being the only one giving charity...hahahaha, many many other countries give money to us during disasters.