Politics and the electronic age.

Non-Phish General
#1

This is a big reason why I don’t even care about it anymore. There is NO accountability. NONE. The second you put someone in office there is nothing you can do to hold them to do what they said they’d do. Not to mention that at least 60%-70% of Congress is bought and paid for by some sort of lobbyist or special group. And if not that, they’re tools of their own political party and can’t deviate from Party ideals even if they want to. And if you actually get lucky and get a candidate who actually gives a shit about doing what the people want, he can’t get it done anyway since everyone else in Congress is corrupt and won’t let it happen. Why do think that the smartest people in the world never run for office?..Because they’re TOO smart to get involved in that disaster or they’re too smart to tow the party line so their own party doesn’t want them in anyway. Government will never work until lobbying is done away with. Sadly, that will never happen.

This won’t work for a number of reasons. For one, most of these people are old fogies who can’t even turn on a computer, let alone use one. For two, Even if they did, it’d probably just be run by some intern. For three, they probably get plenty of letters sent by mail so they’re too busy ignoring those letters to ignore the ones on the web. For four, it wouldn’t help because if they allowed people to post opinions, they be even MORE confused since they’d get a smorgasboard of opinions on the same issue so there STILL wouldn’t be one concensus belief for the politician to follow. And, of course, they’re all in someone’s pocket anyway so they don’t care what we say.

[quote]
It just pissed me off to hear that the US isn’t planning on cutting carbon emissions, even though they are the biggest culprit, but aren’t going to stand in the way of anyone else’s efforts. I mean what type of shit is that… its not as if those small fucking atoms stay fucking stationary. That shit effects us all… wind farms are being used out at sea here in england and more planned for the future, people are being charged for driving in major city’s on a daily rate (about

#2

i must say that is a fantastic idea, ICC. I’m sure there must be a few kinks in that plan that we aren’t seeing but surely it can roll on in a snowball effect until it reaches a point where it could work. I think its definately what needs to happen with the way things are run. I’m so tired of what i can and can’t do and how long the world’s going to last being decided by a few assholes trying to line their pockets. The people definately need to be in charge. Fuck politicians.

But the reason this will never happen:

it will have to go through congress first and all the scummy politicians and scummier lobbyists will be out of their mansions because things will be done right.

#3

You know, I was just thinking about all of this, and something elbastarde wrote made me realize that except for the shape and name of the villians, nothing much has changed since the beginning of time. No matter what political system is in place in any country, it will always be the strongest and the wealthiest to call the shots, and I’m not talking about the politicians either because they are only the frontmen of the real power brokers.

I mean, if you’re that one in a million average guy who winds up in some position of political responsibility, and someone with a handgun pays you a visit one quiet night while you’re watching the tube, and tells you that your ten year old daughter is going to wind up floating in some lake, the poor victim of a boating accident if you don’t vote for a certain bill, what do you think you’re going to do, sacrifice her life for your principles?

I can tell you for sure shit like this happens all the time, even to plain everyday folk like night auditors at the local Holiday Inn who happened to be called into a meeting one evening to witness a signature. Some months later, an operative for the democratic party in Bergen County comes to his house and requests that he comes to testify at some trumped up hearing at town hall in Ridgefield to indicate who was coercing him that night to sign as a witness for a person who was wrongly accusing the opposing candidate of having a mistress and funnelling township money to her in some bogus work plan. When he inidicated that he didn’t want to get involved, the guy says something like it would be in his best interest while casually raising his pant leg to reveal a handgun holstered at his ankle.

So now I know where the town hall in Ridgefield is, but the point is, money and power will always use threats and force to get what it wants. To think that one system is any better at safeguarding you against it in any ultimate fashion isn’t clear thinking. To think that the reps are better than the dems, the libs better than the cons, is all just playing into the illusion that money isn’t the root of power, greed the bane of civilized cultures.

yeah, so screw politicians because they know what the real game is and they’re just positioning themselves to make the most that they can out of it. And even if there were some super fantastic idea to stop all the graft and corruption, the guy who proposes it will probably lose his wife in an airline crash and decide to open a Taco Bell instead.

Viva la revolucion! of the mind, that is.

#4

“It’s just a handful of people that run everything, and that’s provable… I have this feeling that whoever’s elected president, like Clinton was, no matter what promises you make on the campaign trail - blah, blah, blah - when you win, you go into this smoky room with the twelve industrialist, capitalist scumfucks that got you in there, and this little screen comes down [Industrialist smoking a cigar]: “Roll the Film” … and it’s a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you’ve never seen before, which looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll… And then the screen comes up, the lights come on, and they say to the new president, “Any questions?” …
[President]: ‘Just what my agenda is.’”
-Bill Hicks

#5

Bill Hicks for President!

Oh wait, damn.

#6

hahahaha

#7

God, I’m sorry, but it seems like you guys complain about this a lot. If you find something better, no one is stopping you. We still have freedoms. We still have restricting laws. The grass will always be greener on the other side, and we’ll never be happy.

EDIT: Well in retrospect, that was unnecessarily harsh. But still, we do have it good, guys. We at least have the false security that goes along with democracy.

It’s all good dudes. We’re alive and kickin’, and we might as well not dwell on shit that we can’t fix when we’re so grossly outnumbered.

My Two Cents: I don’t like Bush. But I liked Clinton. I’m too young to remember much, but I do know this much: I related to him. He was human. The sex scandal? I look up to him for it. He didn’t dwell on it and didn’t blame it on anything, not to my knowledge. Was it wrong? Probably. Has it happened before? Oh, sure! I’d be willing to put money on it. I am biased, I am a Democrat. But I still think Clinton was a step in the right direction.

SECOND EDIT: Electronic age tie-in: Can’t stand it. Politicians with MySpaces? Bullshit. Just give us shit we want or need. Give me a really nice foam coaster and tell me optimistic and realistic ideals that agree with my beliefs, and you have my vote. It’s that easy in local elections, might as well do it on a national scale. But the electronic age shouldn’t have anything to do with politics. All the electronic voting booth things I take as a sign. I think it’s something I’d like to see kept old skool. The only thing i’d want to see online is opinions of politicians. Little write-ups on what these people are saying. And I’d like these from a third-party source, because I don’t trust what’s coming out of their mouthes. I’ll let someone with some political science background touch it up and keep up on it all. I want to keep debates on TV, commercials during the news and not pop-ups on gaming sites, and like I said before, free swag instead of free spam.

:breath:

#8

Freedom ain’t free!

puts 17 different ribbon-stickers on SUV

attaches 19 American flags to SUV

wonders whose SUV this is

#9

::spouts generic hippie cliche at Neil…and everyone else for that matter::

#10

I don’t get it, how can a 15 year old be a democrat? Don’t you have to be part of the democratic party or at least vote democrat to be a democrat? Just because you support that parties beliefs doesn’t mean that you are part of that party. It’s like me saying “I’m a Shiite.” Maybe I could support their polical beliefs, but I have no say in anything they do, so I’m not.

#11

DING DING DING DING!! Tell him what he’s won!!!

Seriously, it’s not that bad though. I’ve learned that if you simply focus your eyes elsewhere, you can basically ignore all politics and government altogether. For your sanity, it’s better that way. I’m not so good at that since I like to still know what’s going on, but knowing that every decision is made because someone’s got money paying someone else, makes you less angry at it all. I tend to laugh at politics for the most part since it’s so ridiculous.

For God’s sake, they couldn’t even keep a rich idiot like Paris Hilton in jail for more than three days before her money and influence got her out…how could it be any different for anyone in government?

Stevo

#12

Access to information because of new technology has, and will keep revolutionizing the way people interact with their government. I don’t think it’s as simple s making online poling the deciding factor for law making. I’m sure that all of the poling groups and press in the U.S. use the internet to get information, and poltcians pay attention to them. I think anyone could actually start an online poling site, and if people actually started using it, politicians would listen as much as they do from established polls. If the government started an online poll system o actually define laws, it culd be another step towards destroying the fine line between reality and reality TV.

If you live in America, the “rulers” want you to get so frustrated with politics that you stop caring.

It may be because I live in a smaller city, but I have to admit that it is pretty easy for people to become involved culturally and politically on a local level and directly affect life in the community.

The current “system” is falling apart. The rulers do some shitty things, but we give them much more power by not accepting our own individual freedom.

#13

Thank you for saying what I was too opinionated to say.

#14

um…i’m a sunnis…soooooooooo

aims

#15

Well put.

#16

I did a 3-week internship at Project Vote Smart in Philipsburg, Montana during January 2004. I had to do an internship somewhere in order to complete my requirements for graduation. The PVS internship, I think, was for those lazy bastards who didn’t really know what or where they wanted to intern at so an opening was always there at PVS.

Anyway, it’s pretty fascinating. Basically their whole intent is to arm the casual/uninformed voter with any information they might need to cast an educated vote. I was basically a gopher while I was there, inputing information into the system for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 weeks. But it wasn’t all bad; I was able to hang out with the full-time employees at night and get fucked up on the weekends.

All in all, it was quite an experience.

Anyway, the point is that there’s no reason for anyone to not know what is going on with their prospective candidates, be it at the local, state, or national level. There are TONS of resources available.