Have Americans become insignificant in the USA?

[caty]

Poll after poll tells our government that the majority of Americans are very unhappy with the way things are going in our country.

We want our soldiers brought home to a heroes welcome and an end to this war. If there is a civil war in Iraq, let Iraq handle it.
We want our country to be first in education, not 58th.
We want health care for every citizen.
We did not want our jobs sent to other countries that have forced a lot of us either out of work or in a low paying job.
We did not want the tax cuts that have been given to the wealthy.

And yet---look at what they have done to our country. We tell them what we want and we just get ignored. But, we still have to pay taxes and live with the misery they have put on us. What's the point of voting if the people we put in office don't stand up for what we want. This is no longer a government of the people or for the people.

[mmonk]

1. No

We're useful tools.

[annabanana]

2. dust in the road. .

It's hard work to turn it into clay . . . .

[Double T]

3. Who? Where?

Never heard of THEM, don't know what you're talking about.

[caty]

7. I thought

"them" were our representatives. But all I see now are bullies and cowards.

[demnan]

4. Until we start raising hell in the streets

yes, we'll be insignificant.

[bdamomma]

5. we need to push back and keep that window opened before it shuts

down on our heads!!!

[natrat]

6. yes-we want our votes to count

we want an honest media

[Hydra]

8. Didn't you get the memo?

we're being phased out, just as our jobs are being offshored. We don't exist, in their minds, except to serve them.

[Eileen]

12. I would venture to say

that most Americans are quite content with the way things are going with their continent.

However the people in the US section of the continent have a great deal to be disgruntled about - especially politically and socially.

Sometimes it's hard to remember that "American" is a continental designator and not a nationality, especially when a little more than one third of the Northern continent has most of the population and they deliberately misname themselves to appear to own it all.



Eileen

[Hydra]

13. NAU n/t

[Auntie Bush]

18. Are you Mexican, Latin American or Canadian?

Just wondering and a little nosey. :shrug:

[Lone_Star_Dem]

9. Don't be foolish

We're expected to fulfill a significant roll as consumers.

It's when we step beyond that roll that we meet resistance.

[Skidmore]

11. We need a massive consumer strike. I've been saying this for years now.

A consumer revolt. Buy only the absolute essentials for survival. Stop buying doodads, particularly new ones. Shop consignment stores and recycle. Stop being freaking slaves to the impossibly atrocious crap the fashion industry puts out just because it has a certain "look". Buy what you need to cover your butts and to keep warm. Who freaking needs to spend $100/oz. for perfume? Make things last and don't buy something because it's the latest doodad. Fix things on your own when they break or pay someone who knows how to do so. Conserve energy. Carpool or whatever it takes. Conserve water and electricity usage in your homes. Turn down the thermostats and program them sensibly. No child need a gazillion toy with batteries to satisfy their need for play. Quit buying 500 types of cleaning products when baking soda (washing kind runs $1.25/for a reasonable box), white vinegar ($1/gallon), and Barkeepers Friend are all you need to clean your entire house with. Buy the simplest shampoo--you don't need to smell like an avacado-cucumber. Support your local farmer's market, butcher, and grocer instead of big box stores, cook at home, and invite others over to share. Go back to basics. Starve the machine. And create new industries while we are at it. Here. Where those of us who have lost work can find it.

Refuse to pull the trigger for corporate robbers.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

16. I agree

It would appear that getting most of America to agree isn't as easy. However, the economy is giving us a helping hand with that.

[soothsayer]

17. Ok, but it's us little folks who will lose our jobs, not the golden parachuted

On edit, if we can subvert the corporatists and really, truly support LOCAl stores that are not part of big conglomerates, then the money would stay in our communities and get bounced from local business to local business and to each other, and get invested in the local banks which would than loan money out to others in our community, and would NOT get sucked off into the pocket of some rich, rtax-avoiding,non-USA supporting jerk who farms jobs off to cheaper labor in foreign countries---THAT would make a difference!

[Turbineguy]

10. Can I stop reading now?

I need to go shopping.

[soothsayer]

14. Practically, since 1947 and 1949 when we lost oversight of the govt

Catherine Austin Fitts explains it really well if you go to the link. Here's a snippet:

Under The National Security Act of 1947 and the CIA Act of 1949, we have created a legal mechanism to borrow through the Treasury, combine that money with the proceeds of criminal activities, & use it for intelligence & military operations -- no oversight by Congress, no transparency to the American people.

The financial machinery is out of control.

Yet the U.S. government continues to borrow more & more money, no matter how they behave. They produce no audited financial statements, & comply with none of their own laws for appropriations & management. In spite of $4 trillion undocumented "adjustments" that we know of since fiscal 1998, the banks continue to transact & Congress continues to appropriate. There's no mechanism to shut off the money, & the creditors continue to loan.

What is the reality? The people charged with saying No! Stop! are making so much money, why should they stop anything? The ugly question is, What's next?

http://www.solari.com/articles/MoneyChangersInterview.htm

[Hubert Flottz]

15. Frank Zappa said it best...

"and number one ain't you...you ain't even number two!"(you ain't shit anymore, because you work for them now, they don't work for you!)

[eagler]

19. pretty close to totality