Are these US protests significant?

[El Kabong]

Does anybody remember the Perot/Gore debate of 1993? The consensus was that Perot made a fool of himself and that Gore won the debate handily, and now, it seems, most of what Perot was "babbling" about has come true.
There is certainly something very wrong in this country; the richest, most productive nation ever has an astounding number living below the poverty level, a rich/poor gap on par with that of China, and is bankrupt on every level from the federal government on down to the millions in foreclosure. This is nothing new as it has been an ongoing thing for at least as long as I've been alive. Our 'leadership' is guilty of one of two things: gross and utter incompetence, or of being venal, corrupt and greedy.

Perot got a lot of things right, but he also got some things wrong as well. The way he was portrayed in the media was grossly mishandled as well, his Vice Presidential pick was given 0 respect when all he did wrong was be bad on tv. He was a verteran and a POW that served his time in the Hanoi Hilton (along with Sen. John McCain) he was also a professor at Stanford but he was given 0 respect at all. Perot was wrong on thinking that the US given the size of our economy could be completely and totally isolationist....he was correct on Iraq though.


Al Gore is a lying sack of dog shit but he makes up for it by being pompus and dull.

[generalbulldog]

1 thing I find utterly funny Lyle is that you blame the left or liberals for all of the US problems but choose to ignore what guys like Reagan and Bush jr. also had a fine hand in it. Like I said selective memory.
Shit wasn't all rosy under those guys leading the nation that's for damn sure.

[El Kabong]

1 thing I find utterly funny Lyle is that you blame the left or liberals for all of the US problems but choose to ignore what guys like Reagan and Bush jr. also had a fine hand in it. Like I said selective memory.
Shit wasn't all rosy under those guys leading the nation that's for damn sure.

True but you cannot doubt that Reagan was a LEADER, he was held accountable. As for Bush, I think the Republicans really went off the tracks fairly quickly re: the social issues after he was elected...under Clinton the Republican run House and Senate did a lot of good, but Ol' Slick Willy gets the credit....that and people just happen to forget the ".com" bubble that hit right before W took office and yes he did turn the economy back around after a recession.

[Gandalf]

Lyle, you live in cloud cuckoo land. The US has been systematically assaulted for a good 30 years. It doesn't matter which party it is, they have all brought about the same thing. A weakened middle class. Party politics is bankrupt. Big business owns them all and they will continue to assault people until there is nothing left. They want America to be like Mexico.

[greynotsoold]

There has definitely been an assault on the American people, either that or it has been an accident and our "best and brightest" are absolute ninnies. My whole life it was important to keep the dollar strong against other currencies. Until 2000 when, suddenly, the strategy became to devalue the dollar. I'm no economist, but it seems to me that that is destructive to the financial status of just about everybody in this country, excluding those the either own multi-national corporations or that have access to unlimited supplies of money.
In 1980, I was a 'believer' and a high school senior and I worked as a volunteer for the Reagan team in the election. In the primary, he campaigned on a promise to eliminate the influence of the Council on Foreign Relations/ Tri-Lateral Commission from government, and then he made Bush (a TLC and CFR member) vice-president and appointed 81 of them to high positions. He, in essence, put in control of this country a group that he had denounced for favoring the interest of international bankers and MNCs over those of the American people. He signed off on the largest tax hike in US history, and, despite his claims of being against 'big-government', the size and scope of the Federal government exploded while he was in office. He was a pretty good public speaker, and he worked well in front of the camera. And it was during his 8 years that we became a debtor nation.
For many many years we've bought into this notion of trickle down economics, which I prefer to call slop the hog economics. Because that's what it is: keep feeding the pig and what ever overflows the trough is yours, providing the hog doesn't inhale that and you, too. How anybody ever thought that running a country for the benefit of 1% and to the detriment of the other 99% was a good, sustainable idea escapes me.

[VictorCharlie]

The meteoric rise in college tuition is a problem. We have convinced ourselves that it is a good measuring tool when for the most part industries would be much better off requiring just an Associates and having their own job training. There needs to be a lot more vocational training and not just for blue collar type jobs. Health care, housing prices and college tuition all have something in common. All have been heavily subsidized and b/c of this have increased in price far outpacing inflation. When we pull the government titty our of University's mouth and make them be much more competitive with both choice and quality then the price will have to come down.

[greynotsoold]

My sister has two daughters (16 months, and one any day now) and her financial advisor told her that, to have any hope of sending them to college, she needs to contribute a minimum of $1000per month, each, starting now. Fortunatley she is a vice-president at a major corporation and her husband is an engineer, but how the hell can the majority ever hope to pay that freight?