American "democracy"

[SpliFF]

... stuff about American "democracy" ...

What strange timing. Last night on TV was a documentary called Casino Jack and the United States of Money which is about "super lobbyist" Jack Abramoff and how he made millions of dollars lobbying Congress to - among other things - reopen Indian Casinos he had helped shut down.

One of the more interesting moments in the doco was a discussion of the Northern Marianas Islands Scandal which basically involved the protection of sweatshops including a bunch of crap you'd expect from China (like forced abortions, servitude and workers trying to sell their livers for a ticket off the island). What's really interesting about it is that the island was being held up by prominent Republicans as a shining example of the merits of a Free Market economy (almost zero regulation).

Overall though the documentary paints a pretty clear picture of how American Democracy really works. Whichever party you support they're taking fuckloads of money from corporations, foreign governments and organised crime and using it to fuck you over (when they're not busy taking free holidays that is).

Considering all that it's pretty easy to see why they're so afraid of Wikileaks. They're not afraid of the world learning what they're up to behind closed doors. They're afraid of Americans learning what they're up to (or more precisely, learning what they're up to AND doing something about it).

[Forboding Angel]

Republic.

The American Government is divided into three branches:

1. Legislative, comprised by the Senate (100 Senators -- 2 from each state) and the House of Represenatives (435 Representatives apportioned by population).

2. Judicial, comprised by state courts and federal courts. Federal courts have three levels: district court, court of appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

3. Executive, comprised by the President of the U.S. whose powers are outlined in the Constitution.

Republicans generally hold conservative values: they're in favor of lower taxes, less government, defending unborn children, oppose affirmative action, etc.

Democrats are generally liberal: they favor more involvement of government in people's lives, higher taxes, women's access to abortion, in favor of affirmative action, etc.

The above said, there is some branching into each other's territory. Simply because you identify as rep or dem doesn't mean that you are hard line one or the other. The amount of people in america that identify as one or the other is onlt about 30% withe the other 70% identifying as Independent, meaning that they support views on both sides of the aisle.


Re: The content of your post. It wasn't always like that (really started being like that around the late 50's early 60's), and the newest iteration of republicans in the house and senate are all over that sort of corruption and working to stamp it out. I imagine it will take a while. Humans are by their very nature, greedy.

[luckywaldo7]

tl;dr picture version of SpliFF's post:

[Forboding Angel]

That picture is offensive to me. The statue of liberty represents america's people, not it's government.

[smoth]

It isn't that offensive to me.

[Coresair]

It's pretty offensive to me.....assuming I cared that is.

[Johannes]

But it is the people who end up having the short end of the stick, not government officials.

[luckywaldo7]

It doesn't represent the country or the government, but an abstract concept (liberty) that when applied to economics (capitalism/free market) can be incredibly abusable, and which some people are abusing.

An image that would be offensive toward Americans would be something like, Mr. Monopoly using the American flag as toilet paper instead.

[SpliFF]

That pic is entirely appropriate to the Marianas Island issue. One of the side-effects of the Free Market experiment there was an explosion in prostitution (since being a prostitute paid slightly more than working in one of the sweatshops). The sweatshops are all closed now due to Chinese clothing imports (ie, their sweatshops turned out to be "sweatier") but the prostitution remains.

The prostitution helped make the island attractive to business tourism. Wealthy businessmen literally went there to play golf and have their cocks waxed by underage, underpaid Asian prostitutes.

It's all pretty disgusting, and more so when you consider than only a few generations back millions of Americans died to free southern slaves from the same kind of exploitation that exists today in Northern Marianas Islands and that prominent Congressman actively supported right up until the scandal broke.

[bobthedinosaur]

That picture is offensive to me.

haha... right...

You're on the internet?

[Gota]

Noobs thinking they don't have lobbyists in their own countries...

[Forboding Angel]

It's pretty offensive to me.....assuming I cared that is.

^^ Pretty much this. However, it is a gross misrepresentation.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

how is it a misrepresentation?

[Forboding Angel]

That picture is offensive to me. The statue of liberty represents america's people, not it's government.

[SinbadEV]

That picture is offensive to me. The statue of liberty represents america's people, not it's government.

I'm not offended easily... but I think the idea here is that she represents freedom and the big guy represents our corporate masters and as such my interpretation of the cartoon is that "Our freedoms are being abused by (or are under control of) the corporations"...

What has always bugged me is that America IS a Republican Democracy... Which by classical definition means that the people elect the people they feel are best suited to rule the nation... as such, if the US Federal Government is allowing Corporate America to hinder the freedom of Americans... it must be that the people of America are choosing to allow this to happen.

[KaiserJ]

*plutocracy

most government systems in the world favour the rich over the poor (because it would be inhuman and socialist to have parity) but from what i've seen, unless you delve into third world countries, people in the US have the least upward mobility possible due to a crushing financial system that consistently milks the average citizen while filling the pockets of the 1% in charge

its not much of a surprise that free trade etc moved manufacturing away from the united states, crippling US steel and GM and countless other companies in the manufacturing industry in order to exploit the cheaper, plentiful workers in the developing world...

but it IS a surprise how badly americans are being put to the sword over basic things like fuel, food, shelter, education and healthcare.

noobs don't know that the statue of liberty is french

the statue represents Libertas, the goddess of freedom, explaining the big roman nose. the closest thing i can think of that's even close is the Marianne figure of france, from the arc de triomphe and lots of classical paintings. my point? the statue of liberty is based on a symbol that represents ALL of the "freed" lower classes. what more appropriate than to have her sucking off monopoly man, a symbol of aggressive capitalism?

[Forboding Angel]

The top 1% in America are paying something like 80% of all the taxes.

https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=h ... =firefox-a

So how much are you willing to punish those who pull themselves up from nothing to being rich (Like bill gates)? If you punish success, then what is left?

Here is a bit of an eye opener for you guys. If you were to tax the top 1% in america 100% (that means that everything they earned in a year went to the us government), it wouldn't even put a dent in out national deficit. Hopefully now you can see how bad of a situation this is.

[KaiserJ]

well, shouldn't they be paying 80% of the taxes? you're comparing someone in lower middle class (for instance, as one of the larger represented groups) earning about $45k per year, compared to the top 1% earning more than $250 per year

(pulling these taxation percentages off a chart for this year)

12.5% of $45k = $5625
32.5% of $250k is = $81250

or really, the guy earning 45k is really earning less than 40k (not even enough for university) wheras the guy earning 250k still has a good 170k to throw around

its not about punishing success, its about giving back to the system that gave you the success in the first place

don't just link a google search, i clicked some of the links and to me the numbers displayed there counteract your argument. i'm not an idiot, i know how to use google

If you were to tax the top 1% in america 100% (that means that everything they earned in a year went to the us government), it wouldn't even put a dent in out national deficit.

whose fault is this likely to be about the huge deficit though? the guy earning 45k or the guy earning 250k? the guy working hard in a factory and getting fired anyway when his job is outsourced to india, or the guy who OWNS the company doing the outsourcing in the first place

[SinbadEV]

The top 1% in America are paying something like 80% of all the taxes.

https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=h ... =firefox-a

So how much are you willing to punish those who pull themselves up from nothing to being rich (Like bill gates)? If you punish success, then what is left?

Here is a bit of an eye opener for you guys. If you were to tax the top 1% in america 100% (that means that everything they earned in a year went to the us government), it wouldn't even put a dent in out national deficit. Hopefully now you can see how bad of a situation this is.

I think the big problem is (at least in the public perception) that people who make more money are better able to avoid paying taxes while also being able to afford lobbyists and other types of government bribery (political contributions etc) to push their own agendas.

In all fairness it makes sense that people who earn more money should not be punished for doing so... if you know you were going to have to pay more tax the more money you make then you probably won't bother improving your business so it makes more money or whatever... but in my mind if I have to pay 10% of my income and that $3,000 and Mr. Rich has to pay 1% of his income and that's $3,000 then something isn't fair... he shouldn't have to pay a smaller %age of his income because he's making more money... why can't he pay 10% like the rest of us?

But the real answer there is that if you consider the "price of residency" as something like rent... I pay for bureaucracy, infrastructure spending and security essentially... it's not like Mr. Rich is using MORE bureaucracy, infrastructure and security then I am... in fact... if he's really rich he's probably using less of it... so from that perspective... let's say that it costs $3000 a year to live in the US... anyone who makes more then 60,000 will pay $6,000 and everyone else will pay 10% of their income... obviously we still need tax breaks for dependants and so on and we need to take into account disability and underprivileged and such (which as a socialist I feel should be a burden born by the more privileged)... but all in all we should come out even. Seems fair when you put it that way right?

[SinbadEV]

Math:

It apparently (wikipedia) costs 3.5 trillion dollars to run the US:
3 500 000 000 000
the population of the us is around 300 million
3 000 000 000

So it costs $1166 to be an American, so let's double that and round up a bit to $2500 because we have to pay back that 1.5 Trillion in debt we have...

okay... so the average income per household income is about $50 000
and there are apparently 100 000 000 households... so let's say each person is actually responsible for 3 people... so the price per household would be $7500... so, using my earlier %10

Everyone earning more then $150,000 (remember I doubled it to cover social programs, poor people, disabilities, pensions etc) should pay $15,000 a year in taxes and everyone else should pay 10% of their income

sound fair?

edit: note the complete lack of state and municipal tax mentioned in my theory... this would have to be worked out by state but I'd say leave it at another 5% or whatever... or handle it will program specific fines and fees and goods/services taxes...