That's sad... that greed and a spineless government will bring a country to it's knees before somebody with a spine stands up to effect change for the better. Trouble is, the system as it stands is there purely through apathy, too many people thinking "if it isn't broken....".

OK, it isn't exactly broken, but it sure is in serious need of the old parts being yanked out, some major panel beating and an engine overhaul... that's if it's to keep running at all, in any shape or form.

I don't even live in the US, but I see one thing that's fundamentally wrong politically, and that's this thing I keep hearing/reading about how incumbents (congressmen, senators, etc) are pretty much assured of their place in Washington until they die, or are too ill to continue. I mean, what's with that? If they don't have to fight to stay in office, they have no need to work for your vote, the common good... no need whatsoever to keep their promises. No wonder greed and corruption is rife, running rampant throughout the system... the American people have given these self-serving, waste of space politicians free reign... the keys to the castle, so to speak.... and in turn, free reign to the profit motivated corporations to rip you all off without reprisal.

Government will never ever be perfect, but you can certainly improve your lot by kicking their lazy fat arses out of office - refuse to vote for the pricks!!! Maybe then, perhaps, subsequent office holders will actually work to keep it and your vote. If not, kick the bastards out at the next election - don't return to the 'incumbent' thing - and herald a change that tells politicians they don't 'own' the position anymore but temporarily hold it at your behest/as long as they work for you and not against you. Fuck the incumbents.. they've feathered their own nests and have done nothing whatsoever to deserve your vote.

Another piece of this:

I saw a hospital bill a few years ago for about $250,000 gross. The patient belonged to an HMO. The HMO dissallowed about half of the hospital bill, paid their part of the remaining $125,000, and the insured paid their part of that same $125,000, and everybody was happy.

In other words, the HMO declared half of the bill garbage and threw it out. So I have to wonder, if the patient hadn't belonged to the HMO, would the hospital have gone after the insured for the gross amount? I don't know if it's some funky way of accounting for things or if it's a way of gouging, but it seems more than a little funky to me.

Of course not: violence breeds violence... and that which is born of violence travels a rocky and violent road. There is more than enough/too much violence already, so a peaceful revolution via the ballot box is preferred... oh, and vote for pacifist politicians who won't take you to war. The massive savings would help fund a universal health scheme that would actually be saving lives rather than taking them.



Now that is total bollocks!! As is $110,000 for knee replacements!!

Let's see, even if there were 20 people involved in the procedure @ $1000 each; $2000 for the anaesthetic; $3000 for each prosthesis and $1000 per day post-operative care for 2 days, it's still only come to a grand total of $32,000... and that's still being rather generous for a couple of bits of molded plastic and a tank of happy/sleepy gas... not to mention a grand for under a day's work. I mean, realistically, how many of you get a grand for just 4 - 5 hours work....

Obviously, at $110,000/$250.000, somebody is profiteering big time! No point in some blaming the medicos and others pointing the finger at insurers... they're one as bad as the other, and thus will feed off one another as long as you keep paying exorbitant prices hand over fist.



That's why insurance companies are evil... they sit on and profit further from your money (investing it for personal gain), but when you make a legitimate claim on your money, they look for as many ways possible not to pay out. For example, I know an old bloke who has been insured with the same company for 40 + years, was rear-ended at a red light by an uninsured/unlicensed driver and had his claim knocked back because his insurer determined fault on his part due to the tread on one of his tyres being 0.02 centimeters below the transport dep'ts guidelines. Now that is total bollocks! He was rear-ended for Christ's sake... and he obviously had ample tread on his tyre(s) to pull up at the red light... without rear-ending the car in front of him.

Yup, what with all the what ifs and nefarious law suits, the world has gone insurance policy mad... and the insurance fat cats, with their luxury villas, cars and yachts, will keep playing up the what ifs to keep you paying hand over fist... thus "gouging" and blowing the price of anything and everything insurable out of proportion.



And if their money comes from insurance, vote for somebody whose money doesn't.

So very true but the insurance lobbyists cover their bases by giving to everyone except their clients.

I live in Massachusetts where health insurance is mandatory. Talk about complete fail. People are forced to buy the crappiest insuarnce policies possible in order to meet the new law. The insurance companies don't cover anything so now you have poor people being forced to have useless insurance. The money they pay towards premiums could help them with other bills. Instead they are deeper in the shit. They are poorer with useless insurance.



You can take the word probably out of that statement

Nancy Pelosi has to go. She is a stupid puppet that reacts to the morning news and wings it from there.

The first thing every politician does is try to get themselve a pay raise. We allow this to happen over and over and over. They even have a system in place that keeps us out of the loop and doesn't even give the public a vote.

We are all sheep. Yes, EVEN YOU!(meaning everybody) if you weren't a sheep you wouldn't be expressing your frustrations via the web. You would be an activist of some sort.

Just because anyone thinks they get it does not free them from being a sheep. Pissing and moaning is part of the game. You are just a disgruntled sheep.


Banks are starting to fail. If you have more than $ 100,000 in the bank. Get it out! The Man is already broke and will not be able to cover all the losses.

Good for you Giz!.  Thanks!  

Web are you and starkers sitting next to each other   Finally some people who think like I do about "our" government. WebGizmos, starkers, NT and others have expressed most of my feelings, but I would like to say what needs to be done is that we (the people) excersize our Constitional right to remove a screwed up government (like Web stated). Unfortuneitly only a violent revolt will actually work, it's gotten that bad. Hummm maybe if the gov had to divert troops from this senseless war to handle the revolt wouldn't be a bad thing.    The entire polictical system here in the US has to be changed from the bottom to the top before any real changes can happen, the system is too corrupt now for any thing to change. Just take a look at our so called presidental candidates. They were pre-selected by the same corrupt government leaders responsiable for this mess, not by us. They were choosen not for what good they could do this country, but for what they could do for them.   

I'm a retired social worker so I've had my share of run ins with the gov regarding health care and all I can say is that there is no health care for most of us, what we have in place is sicking and disgraceful, I have some medical problems that I need treatment for and if it were not for me serving in the military I would be screwed because I can't afford health care. European countries have the right idea when it comes to health care, we don't adopt it because there's no money in it. Enough said. Oh one word "ANARCHY" "ANARCHY".  sorry that was two!  

Yup, too many rich and powerful people in bed together... so what's needed is for the less fortunate to all get on the bandwagon together and protest loudly in their bedrooms... an en-mass coitus interruptus of the richus, if you will.



Me too.... well I was up until 2 Tasmanian Government officials threatened me with reprisals if I didn't shut up and go away... 'tis sad when government and its bureaucrats use the law/police to threaten and intimidate/make you go away. And all I was trying to do was get them to administer the law as it stood to protect my 15 yo runaway stepdaughter from predators... herself. Bah... a waste of time... there was no money in it for them.



Hehe, all that's keeping me from climbing the gun towers is me hook n' peg leg...Aarrgghh!!

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.

"From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.  These nations have progressed through this sequence:

"From bondage to spiritual faith;
 from spiritual faith to great courage;
 from courage to liberty;
 from liberty to abundance;
 from abundance to selfishness;
 from selfishness to apathy;
 from apathy to dependence;
 from dependency back again into bondage."

Dr. Alexander Tytler, a Scot professor, wrote a scholarly tome, from which this concept comes,  called "The Athenian Republic" which was published shortly before the thirteen American colonies gained independence from Britain.  "Google" him to learn more.

Funny how old news is still news

Scary......if I apply a time line to this.......the last 15-20 years have definitely been in the "dependence" era

I seriously doubt the public at large would stand for that...I sure as hell wouldn't. And if this government is going to try and use our own troops on our own people...well...lets just say I alone know a lot of armed citizens. And if a mass revolt is done in a peaceful manner I doubt our troops would cross that line.

Sorry Web but having been in the military I kind of know what most (I said most) of troops will do and that is follow orders. Yu and I might not stand for it, but most of our citizens will because most do not want to mess up what they have now. Unfortunitly I don't believe you can get a mass peaceful revolt, it may start out peacefully but as soon as the powers to be push it will turn ugly. DaveRI made a good point,when push comes to shove w/o arms the revolt will lose. It's sad but Americans are so spoilded with their lifestyles that most will do nothing that would interfer with taking that away. That's just the cold hard facts.   

I don't see a revolt as a solution either. To me it's more a matter of constant committed pressure to maintain the separation of powers. This isn't a new idea, it's kind of what the whole structure was based upon. I suppose I think that the "other" powers which haven't been successfully addressed are "Wealth" and "Religion". I'm not even going to start on Religion.

Goes back to my earlier statement regarding the blurring of the line between government and the corporate world (e.g. healthcare) which is what got me going on all this. And of course there is concentrated personal wealth. I honestly believe we need to continually work to drive a wedge between money and government, or at the very least know who's been throwing cash at the candidates. It's the old money/power thing vs. representation of the people.

This is a link to OpenSecrets.org - Money in Politics WWW Link As far as I know it's objective, but who really knows for sure. I put it here a little reluctantly because it's already so friggin' slow    I do honestly think that the best indicators of what you might expect from candidates are where they've been, what they've done, and who's throwing money at them. After all, elect those oil boys and the oil industry sure does seem to do great, doesn't it? This is not the first time this has happened. [can't really think of an emoticon to express how I feel about this]

Which leads me to another thing that always amazes me. The US will have impeachment procedings for a president who fools around sexually, which is (moral judgements aside) a relatively common practice amongst the powerful. Yet a president goes to war based upon manipulated intelligence, ignores and continues to ignore one of the larger natural disasters in U.S. history (New Orleans), turns the largest treasury suplus in history into the largest treasury deficit in history, and things are strangely quiet. I don't get it.