What is America? I don't think it is a Democracy.

Seriously, though, the increasing openness of this fact and its acceptance by the American public is really beginning to frighten me. I believe the correct name for such a system is "Oligarchy" considering that most of those who control the corporations come from huge money. The Bush dynasty is a prime example. I don't know of any Horatio Alger CEO's these days.

estela, you are totally OTM as well.

what are you going to do about it?

What's so bad about democracy, theoretically?

The men who wrote the US Constitution most strongly admired the Roman Republic, but also the Swiss Confederation. They drew heavily on both examples. As a result, the oligarchic elements predominate at the federal level, just as in the Roman Republic the senatorial class held the major power. The existance and relative independence of the state governments is due to the Swiss inflluence.

Because the wealth of the US oligarchic (owning) class is predominantly based in commercial and corporate interests, those interests get the lion's share of consideration in the making of policy. Because voters must be mollified, they get a certain amount of consideration in policy, accompanied by a lot of lip service and propaganda.

If you look at Rome, the people never amounted to much as a power in government, but eventually one of the oligarchic families - the Julio-Claudians - established a popular dictatorship.

Anyway, that's how heard it.

ILE shocka!

I think with our current state of technological advancements, a TRUE democracy might actually be possible, at least on a small-scale. One person-one vote might work now that everyone is so wired together in what is a largely information based society.

Actually, not a day goes by that I don't ponder the hilariosity of the fact that America was founded on a skittering amalgam of what were at-the-time experimental political philosophies, that most people considered either "bad" or "good" only in theory.

And I was reading the other day that the Soviet Union didn't crumble because "communism is stupid" as the capitalist propaghanda machine would have you believe, but because, with the Cold War, all of their resources were drawn away from making "livingry" for the masses, and instead all went to making thousands of nuclear weapons. It even went so far as to insinuate that the Cold War was used as a weapon by the West against the development of communism into a viable political/social system. Pretty interesting.

And, personally, I'm already taxed enough as it is...I'd like some say in where that money is going, beyond voting for one of two careerists who don't really give a crap what my opinion is. I don't like that my son's teachers barely make enough $$ to live, while we're sending billions of dollars (of MY money!) worth of tanks and hellicopters and "smart" bombs over to the Israelis to continue a cycle of violence that I have nothing to do with. I don't like MY money being spent that way.

Yeah then they downsize half of them and speedup the rest and pay shit wages and skimp on medical. Hiring people to make profit from their toils isn't exactly altruism, you know?

(... and if election 2002 didn't prove this -- particularly the results in Minnesota and Georgia -- then i don't know what does)

It doesn't have to be altruism to give off benefits to people. Obviously, there is a balance to be struck between unrestrained capitalism and socialism. I just get annoyed when people start talking about how evil corporations are destroying America. It is an overly simplistic view.

That's true enough. But don't you think that the opposite and equally simplistic view -- that government is all-bad, and that corporations should just do whatever they want w/ no government interference -- is more prevalent?

Tom - I am not sure what you mean. Americans always bitch about politicians not representing them. Having an inherent distrust of government is almost patriotism here. What do you mean by legitimacy?

Tracer: if you think big business is the only gang in Washington, you are very wrong. Who is "we" anyway? Don't "we" have a really big fucking gang come election day? If our representatives are supporting big business, doesn't that mean we are supporting big business?

Attempting to spread the wealth via taxes is a nice theory, but again, I don't know how much help it would do. It seems like then we would be trying to make up for the loss in jobs, wages, etc. that will occur through increased social services. So then we expect the now sort of buyoed middle and lower class to keep the economy from contracting?

As to the buoyed middle and lower class keeping the economy from contracting, I don't think that is such a flawed idea. Lower and Middle-class consumers spend a much larger proportion of their money than the wealthy, and while the wealthy undoubtedly buy more expensive items, there are far more middle and lower class consumers out there. Perhaps the luxury goods and yacht markets would see a decline, but I think plenty of money would still find its way into the marketplace.

In the case of the USA (and EU), the real suffering is displaced to those living outside our borders in countries that are 'farmed' for the exclusive benefit of banks and large multinational corporations. Compared to US (and EU) citizens, their suffering and powerlessness is another order of magnitude greater. We have it good. That's because we have votes, small as they seem, to stay the hand of the powerful.

That's funny, 'cause we've got a 'conservative' government right now NOT balancing the budget, giving out LOADS of foreign aid (esp. to Israel, Africa, South America, and Central Asia), expansion of government beaurocracy, and CUTTING taxes.

There is NOTHING conservative about what our government is doing with our money right now in America.

"Loads of foreign aid" is questionable both relatively (% of GNP as opposed to EU) and absolutely (0.5%, 2%, it's still fuckall).

(also they'd prolly start fighting amongst themselves and forget about the rest of us ;))

also -- --, you are talking out of your ass, i thought laissez-faire was even less cool than communism...

What utter bollocks. No-one pays for AA meetings, they are 'self-supporting through their own contributions' and each group is autonomous. Therefore, a meeting attended by Native Americans would be self-funded.

The traits of alcoholism should not be conflated with its sufferers various cultures and those cultures' perceived failings. I'm an Anglo-alcoholic, now sober, and I think you would find that I, back in my drinking days, displayed many of the behaviors you might think of as typically 'Native American'. Alcoholism is a devastating medical issue, not a moral or cultural weakness.

Governments could actually do a lot more to help sufferers; huge amount of revenue are raised from taxes on alcohol and I see no reason why that money should not be spent on treatment programs for those who discover they are physiologically unsuited to drinking.

Also, I've sat in AA meetings with Native American speakers and I have never once heard any complaints about'the white man', though some such complaints seem warranted in light of your uninformed rantings.

As for not believing in "handouts"--you didn't answer my question. How much adversity have you overcome in your life? What are your inspirational stories about how you were born with nothing and managed to rise above it?

AS for my 'inspirational stories' of my past, they are by no means movie material. However, I was born into a split household with little money. My parents were, at the time, factory workers in a time and a place where that was not a very lucrative 'skill.' We often lived with friends for short periods in between jobs and homes and towns, and food was an issue at times, but we always managed. Neither of my parents would take any 'handouts,' and if anything was given to them, they always returned the favour. I'm not sure what programmes were around at that time, but we never took part. I grew up with very little. When I was at an age where i could do a little more for myself on my own, I studied, worked, and made something of myself, with little help from my parents, as they had little to give, and little help from anyone else because I would have none of it. Today I have a family, a rewarding job, as do my parents, as they wored their way up also. So I'm not speaking completely blindly here, I understand what it takes to change your position. Maybe not inspirational, but I can at least say I did it myself, and everything I have was directly because of my hard work and stubbornness.

Sociologists have a particular way of gauging this, actually, and it's by examining the correlations between a person's income and those of his or her parents. A 100% correlation between these incomes would mean that everyone made exactly what his or her father or mother did; family income steady by generation. A 0% correlation would mean there was a random distribution, in which any child, born in any circumstance, could theoretically achieve anything. Current estimates for this correlation in the U.S. stand at 40%. In Canada, by comparison, it stands closer to 20%. "American dream" = "Canadian dream," to be accurate about this continent.

So you're left with two options: either admit that blindingly obvious fact that economic success in the U.S. is not particularly strongly tied to merit -- and, by extension, that it's perhaps worth state efforts to combat this with such simple things as more equitable funding of primary education -- or claim, if you really want to, that the attributes that lead to economic success in this country are not only hereditary but that miscegenation between people with different levels of these attributes is shockingly low, in which case Tom's sort of clever point above gets in your way.

NB, you still haven't answered my question: who, speficially, are these people who are "all around" us who happily choose poverty and powerlessness over economic achievement? Native Americans, is that it? Is it really so common for cultures quite recently decimated (and then provided by the government with systems of education and health care far worse than those enjoyed by other citizens) to happily and successfully compete in the culture erected by the conquest? Though you have, to your credit, picked the American cultural group with the most reason to explicitly reject our notions of and paths to economic success, which was actually the deal from the beginning.

(And by the way I can name one prominent Native American politician or businessman: U.S. Senator Ben "Nighthorse" Campbell.)

so if people just want to say i'm "pro-handouts," then so be it (though that isn't quite what i advocate). i think i'm just being a realist about human nature.

i think that attitude is totally un-American, much more so than any of the alleged "America haters." it's more akin to the mindset of George III or the Romanovs, and i thought that that was one of the reasons we fought a revolution -- to get away from being run by people with that mindset.

on the other hand, the Bush mob -- not just Dubya, all of them (including Barbara) -- i don't believe that they give a flying fuck about what's in the best interests of America or its people. they just want to loot and steal (ahem, "claim their birthright,") and don't give a shit if they trash the country in the process. they probably can't help being what they are, but what is so upsetting is that there are so many Americans who love them for it anyway.

what john lennon once said still applies so well -- "you think you're so clever and classless and free / But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see."

Like the people de-institutionalised in the sixties from mental wards who later became homeless "bums". very sad. When I see homeless people I can't help but wonder if they are schizophrenic, and how their lives might eb different with more care from mental heath proffesionals.

But the majority of children raised in such circumstances who don't manage to accomplish this intellectual epiphany should be punished for having been born with nothing and taught that they can never be anything?

N*ts*h, I agree with your POV, but disagree with your argumentation. Race != culture -- let alone plain old parental influence. I agree that socioeconomic injustice and attendant lack of opportunity are the primary culprits here, but I think the binary to which you're reducing things is way too simplistic (and I say that as someone who's spent 90+% of his life to date well under the federal poverty line, for what it's worth).

who, speficially, are these people who are "all around" us who happily choose poverty and powerlessness over economic achievement?

It strikes me that escape from poverty generally requires at least two things: opportunity, and will. As opportunity increases, the amount of will required to escape diminishes; as opportunity decreases -- and the crushing effects of poverty become more and more inescapable, on both a personal and environmental level -- the amount of will needed gets larger and larger. Society can, and should, provide the maximum degree of opportunity -- preferably as early in life as possible, right? -- but no one can force everyone to take the opportunities that come to them.

Now, whether to blame people for this is another question; personally, I suspect that between desperate circumstance, malnutrition, and a million other factors, a great many of the poor are suffering from clinical depression. But talking about "happily choos[ing] poverty and powerlessness" is sophistry: any student of psychology will tell you that people will repeatedly make passive, self-destructive choices in every area of their life, and economic decisions are far from exempt from this. It's chicken-and-egg time again -- are the crushing conditions in which one is raised the "ultimate cause" of one's future neurotic behavior? -- but I tend to think, from my own experiences, that we have at least a little agency in all this, even when we're on the receiving end of severe social injustice.

So I tend not to like the "effort" analyses, because the same amounts of effort, coming from people in different circumstances, do not bring equal results. And I do think this is largely due to social and structural impediments. I don't doubt that there are people who make loads of bad decisions -- but I'm unsurprised, because loads of people aren't really put in a position to be able to easily make good ones; I also think that loads of people make those very same bad decisions without great consequence, because they began life with a lot more room to make economic mistakes. (You're less likely to see people complain about paying unemployment for the middle-class office worker who slacked his way out of a job. There's a persistent bias that people who are doing okay are doing that way because they've earned it, but I don't think it's too radical of a statement to point out that this isn't entirely true: some people are born into a pre-established expectation that they'll receive a certain type of education and work a certain type of job, and a pretty minimal amount of effort allows them to follow this path. Others are born into lower circumstances, and if they wind up in the same place later on, it's not necessarily self-evident that they put any less effort into it than the previous type of person.)