Summations Only

I don't think so.None of this is really much of a surprise and I've been singing this same song now for well over a quarter century.BUT...I can look back a history. There have been many similar periods and each one was resolved, unfortunately almost all through very bloody revolution, but in one shining example through a relatively small revolution with limited bloodshed and violence.Granted, one example out of many is not that hopeful but it does show it is possible with minimal pain.If we look at the reforms that began under Theodore Roosevelt and pretty much continued all the way through the Johnson administration, we can see a lesson plan of how to proceed. It is a matter of changing the government from being a tool of big business to being a tool of the average American.Now those battles were not without bloodshed and pain, but compared to the English Civil Wars, the French, Russian and Chinese Revolutions they were pretty mild.There will eventually be a redress, it is up to us to try to make the pain of paying the bill as small as possible.

Do you have any evidence of "mobsters" or is this another one of your unsupported innuendos and assertions?Do you have any evidence of a "radical left wing liberal atmosphere in Oakland" or is this another one of your unsupported innuendos and assertions?

Which is why I also provided a link to the talk itself.But I would definitely say trust is a quality of life issue and that it is really horrible in the US.We cannot trust news, we cannot trust politicians, we cannot trust clergy, we cannot trust teachers, we cannot trust doctors, we cannot trust law enforcement, we cannot trust the governments.If that is not a quality of life issue then what is?

I cannot imagine much worse than a true democracy.

Those too are certainly quality of life issues and again, the US seems to suck on most of those and we are rapidly trying to destroy the few areas where we have made progress like air and water quality.

Sorry but a pure democracy is simply a tyranny of the majority.

That is a subject for some other thread.

So in related economic news, the CEO of Quantas grounded all their planes. You can read about it in the Bloomberg article where the CEO is quoted as saying that only a ban on strikes would assure that he will resume flights.The most interesting comment in the article IMHO is this one:

quote:

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Joyce needs to break the unions like Margaret Thatcher did with the coal miners, said Odia Ukoko, a 44-year-old Melbourne-based businessman who was in Perth to seek meetings with delegates at the inter-governmental summit. If he breaks the union, I won’t buy Qantas tickets but I’ll buy Qantas shares.

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If the public does not buy Quantas tickets, what will be the value of Quantas shares?

Utter chaos, increased discrimination, total destruction of all infrastructure and in a very short time a major violent revolution.

Ignorance, a lack of training in the area of critical thinking, inability to do long term planning, a total lack of historical knowledge.A pure democracy would likely be the worst possible form of government.

Those are what I see in the electorate.

But what you see in the elected officials simply mirrors the electorate.As I have said several times, any change will take decades.

No, the problem with real democracy is ignorant voters.

You are free to bet most anything but history shows that no true democracy has ever worked in any group larger than tribal size.

Well, there are two methods in place to modify the Constitution, by Amendment and by a call for a new Constitutional Convention. Unfortunately the latter is quicker and leaves the scope and pace of the reforms wide open and potentially sweeping.