Sinergy
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I will take a stab at this. I do want to say that generally I agree with the posting and I AM an American.
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ORIGINAL: DCWoody
Education system is awful beyond belief....and because of this so is the level of ignorance.
We became the leaders in science and engineering when various Democratic leaders going back to Johnson and Kennedy poured money in to science and technology. While the reason for this was not something I consider particularly noble (Fighting Communism) it was done. I would have preferred something more in line with the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, but I am one of those silly tree hugging peaceniks.
Every Republican administration and Congress we have had during that time has systematically dismantled it. I see education as being foresighted. You educate the people today you will need to develop things 15-20 years from now. The current administration is completely ham-strung by a belief that there is no reason to think out past 90 days. What will happen in 15-20 years is that our country will be filled with uneducated dolts.
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Seem to just accept, beyond moaning a bit, ridiculous actions/performances by the govt.
Jefferson almost succeeded in establish a truly ineffectual government system, hamstrung by the concept of checks and balances.
What has happened with the rise of the corporatocracy is any attempt to change anything by the citizens faces a vast amount of money attempting to prevent movement, which simply adds to the general difficulty of Congress to actually do something.
I like Jefferson's approach, and perhaps the "Yer fired" election of 2006 shows that people in the United States are starting to waken from their slumber.
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Race is a big issue.....big big issue....you guys are still talking about when slavery was about.
It is safer to focus on race than economic inequities.
People find it easier to rail against the black people who work at Walmart and require government subsidies to exist than they are at passing laws to force Walmart to pass a living wage.
People cannot help being black, which absolves anybody who objects from having any personal responsibility to change things. It requires a huge amount of effort to pass laws to make Walmart behave, and failure to do so implies one is being irresponsible.
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A large percentage of the population seem to be constantly living from paycheck to paycheck....also a digustingly large number of people living in poverty/homeless.
Rather than keep pace by forcing a living wage, our government systematically inflates our currency to overcome the debt problem they have. For example, if I borrow $1000 (in real value) from China today, then inflate my currency so it is only worth $500 in real value, I have just profited by not having to pay back that other $500 in real value.
What this means is I made $7.50 an hour as a laser welder in 1979. I made $25.00 an hour in 1990. If it was not for the fact that I only worked 8 hours a week in 1979, I would be able to buy a lot more with the money I earned in 1979 than in 1990.
To clarify, within 3 months of starting my laser welding job I bought my first car, I was taking my girlfriend in high school out for expensive dinners, and I had a complete SCUBA outfit I purchased new.
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Big usa cities consider themselves tolerant but are in reality only tolerant of big usa city values.
I am not really sure what this means. We have a few big cities, but with urban sprawl, white flight, offshoring of companies, and the movement of our manufacturing base out of large cities, I would be hard pressed to figure out what a big city value is.
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Everything I hear suggests to me that the police are scum.
Some are. Some arent.
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Ridiculous lawsuits.
While this is probably true to some degree, at least we in the United States have the ability to obtain redress for damages caused by other people and corporations.
When Chevron killed all those people in Bhopal, India, they had to sue in US courts to get money from Chevron.
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I have thought of something positive to say.....optimism, very optimistic outlook.
Difficult to remain positive, but it does beat the alternative.
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California seems to have a very separate culture to the rest.....although there are variations all over the place of course. Cali seems to really stand out.
California, Oregon, and Washington tend to have a distinctly different culture than the rest of the country. Although one could say the same thing about other parts of the country. I have a co-worker who grew up in Baton Rouge. She says that much of Louisiana considers New Orleans a cultural anomaly which has no business in their state, whereas many in New Orleans feel the same way about the rest of Louisiana.
Whether the cultural differences are considered positive or negative is relative; there are posters on here who want to hacksaw California off from the rest of the country because they dislike our culture. Of course, the same could be said about Californians on here who are developing plans for Pacifica; the sawing off of California from the rest of the country because we dislike their culture.
Sinergy
edited for typo
< Message edited by Sinergy -- 2/24/2007 3:48:38 PM >
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RE: The American Culture - 
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