2008 Election views chart:

[NightDragon83]

SlorgNet said:

Um, the reason 2000 was a controversy is that a majority of US voters chose Gore, not Bush - but our 18th century electoral system turned the loser into the victor. I didn't vote for Gore myself, but the Electoral College is, without question, a barbarous relic, which should be replaced with a direct vote.

As for the election - I'm registered in Illinois, so my vote doesn't matter - Obama will win overwhelmingly here. Don't know who I'll vote for, but it sure as heck won't be for The Manchurian Candidate, a.k.a. McCain. Maybe the Greens, if they're running a national candidate.

Obama is a smart guy and a savvy politician, and is almost sure to win the election. But here are the massive challenges America faces:

1. The US health care system is broken - we have the highest costs but our healthcare outcomes are among the worst in the industrial world (#36 in infant mortality, #42 in life expectancy). Why? No universal health coverage. Fat profits for insurance companies, bankrupcty and misery for everyone else.

2. Our mass media is broken - five giant corporations own the US mass media, period. They lied us into the war on Iraq and couldn't give a rat's ass about democracy. Fat profits for those corporations, crappy media for everyone else.

3. Our foreign policy is broken - we spend close to $1 trillion a year on the world's largest war machine, despite the fact that we have no significant military enemies anywhere in the world. (China has a small military and no force projection capacity. India and Russia are democracies with small, defensive militaries. North Korea has no oil and couldn't invade a beach resort.) Fat profits for the military-industrial complex, waste and wars for everyone else.

4. Our electoral system is broken - the Electoral College is deeply undemocratic, and the first-past-the-post system is a lousy way to represent the popular will, which is why all of Eastern Europe adopted systems of proportional representation. Even if you get elected in the US, $3 billion in campaign donations and corporate lobbyists make political change almost impossible. Fat profits for corporate lobbyists, lousy legislation for everyone else.

5. Our housing market is broken - Fannie and Freddie Mae are about to be nationalized. Fat profits for the investment bankers who sold bogus mortgage securities, huge losses for the public till.

6. Our energy economy is broken - high gas prices means the middle class can no longer afford the driving, heating and cooling costs of suburban sprawl, while the Federal government has done almost nothing to jumpstart the use of wind, solar and renewable energy. Fat profits for constructional moguls, oil companies and Detroit, but horrendous long-term costs for everyone else.

7. Our distribution of wealth is broken - a tiny bunch of rich people (1% of the population) have gotten fabulously wealthy, while the vast middle-class majority has seen their real wages fall and their debts skyrocket. Fat City for the rich, hard times for everyone else.

8. We're dependent on the Bank of China and the EU to lend us $800 billion per year, just to keep our economy going (what the economists call our current account deficit).

 

 

You make some good points there, but allow me to throw my 2 cents into some of your comments...

#1... Ever hear of the phrase "There's no such thing as a free lunch?" Well there's no such thing as free healthcare either... oh sure id love half my wages going to the gov't to run a healtcare system, because the gov't is so great at running things... they can't even keep a restaurant afloat without having to privatize it.

#2.. And whose fault is that? If we had journalists that did their jobs instead of towing party lines and trying to push their own personal agenda, then maybe people would trust them again... 75% of the people believe the media is unfair and not always truthful in this country... IMO that's too low, it should be 100%

#3... Its true we spend alot more than we should, especially in foreign aid where most countries just squander the money and then complain when things go wrong and their gov'ts are in shambles... but that doesn't mean we should give a pass to nations like China, Russia and Iran who are consistantly hostile to US interests and regional neighbors.

#4... The electoral system serves a purpose in that it gives representation to the smaller states with low populations... without it ever single election would be decided by the 2 coasts and big cities... no one would even bother to campaign in rural or small town America.

#5.. Again whose fault is that? I didn't realize the gov't was responsible for the consumers' poor judgement with money... It's called living within your means, not taking out ridiculous loans and mortgages so you can keep up with the Jones' and buy a McMansion that costs a fortune to maintain as well.

#6... Shoulda thought of fixing it for the past 30 years, when thanks to all kinds of regulations and BS environmental policies we more than tripled our dependance on foreign oil and energy instead of upgrading our own infrastructure and creating more refineries and power plants... and again when the hell did it become the government's job to kickstart an energy program? Especially one based on wind and solar energy that wouldn't make a dent in our current energy needs and demands.

#7... Our distribution of wealth is broken.... well that shows your true colors now doesn't it? Who's talking about distributing wealth? And when the fuck did the USA instate that Marxist idea? You're in the wrong country my friend... wealth here in America isn't distributed... it's EARNED!!! It's not the job of productive and successful people to provide social services for the people in this country who would rather sit home and collect their welfare checks than do something with themselves and actually get a job and add to the economic growth.

#8... No argument here, it's fun watching national landmarks like the Chrystler Building getting bought up by Asian and Middle Eastern oil and financial conglomerates. But again, its our fault for not doing anything sooner to reduce our dependance on foreing energy and finances, and instead just riding all those bubbles throughout the 90's. Now that everything's gone bust, everyone's pointing the finger at each other, and big businesses and politicians alike have no one but themselves to blame.

I'd also like to add another thing that has made our energy crisis even worse than it needs to be... and that is Global Warming. Or rather, the alarmist organizations and political groups behind all the GlowBull Worming hysteria... Oh no our ice caps are melting, we're gonna be under 100 ft of water in 10 years, all the species are gonna go extinct.... the temperature has risen 0.5 degrees!!! Too bad the truth has been slowly making its way out as real scientists continue to disprove Al Gore's and the global warming media's talking points, and the real reason behind the whole "Green" movement is what you said in #7... the distribution of wealth. They want to take a certain percentage of all developed nations GDPs and distribute it to developing nations, all the while crippling our economy even further. There's a reason why Clinton didn't sign on to the Kyoto Socialist Protocol back in '98. Its goal and the Green movement's goal is to create a one government body that controls the world's wealth and dirstributes it accordingly... sorry but that's just not gonna happen, not as long as we remain an independant nation and have leaders who aren't full subscribers to the Marx and Mao way of life.