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The US government is beyond corrupt and beyond any possible reform and nobody cares. my team versus yours bullshit It won't happen in my lifetime. I know

The US government is beyond corrupt and beyond any possible reform and nobody cares. my team versus yours bullshit It won't happen in my lifetime. I know that much. Have you ever volunteered for a local politician? Paid close attention to an particular issue? Gone to your state capitol to lobby for a particular bill? Took notice of any substantive differences between politicians of both major parties running against each other? Have you ever spent a substantial amount of your own time and effort to attempt to fix any of these issues? Or do you just bitterly complain about the irredeemably corrupt nature of US government on online message boards? Your cynicism, and those of people like you, is also a large contributor to our nation's innumerable problems. There exist honest, well-meaning, hard-working people working in government and politics to attempt to fix these issues. Unfortunately they're outnumbered by people like you, who tar all of them with same brush you use for the most corrupt business lobbyist. That's probably because it's much easier to complain than fix the problem.

rooshdi 15y ago
Yes, there are honest, well-meaning, hard-working people working in government, but there are also lying, corrupt, self-interested politicians lobbied heavily by corporations. When news like this comes out, it just adds to the suspicion and paranoia that all the war lies and government bailouts have already brought upon the American people. It doesn't help.
VladRussian 15y ago
nice logic. According to you the GP is guilty of having the trillion dollars taken from him.
pstack 15y ago
Unfortunately, the system is setup to expediently counter attempts to change it. Why do you think we keep getting the same results after every election? If it was just a matter of "getting a democrat" in the office or "getting a republican" in office, then problems wouldn't exist, because we have one or the other in office every few years. It's a deeper problem in that the fingers that manipulate the puppetry and the machinery are so deeply embedded in the process that with very few outlying exceptions, little occurs which isn't vetted by the corrupt process. (Also reads: There aren't really many substantive differences between viable politicians.) The few people with any power in politics are expelled by the system itself. They're either not viable to begin with or if they somehow absurdly get into the system, it marginalizes them. They're called crazy or otherwise derided and made irrelevant through all the modern mediums we have available to us and society itself is too pre-occupied with what church they go to or if they ever smoked pot. I didn't say I have any meaningful way to contribute or improve the process. Nobody else really does, either. It's not merely as simple as "well, run for office and be the first honest person in the government!". Very few people can even stand up against a single company and fight injustices. What hope does anyone have against the corrupt government plus all of the companies - together? I know, this is all very anti-American. We're raised to believe that there's always hope and "we the people" and "power to the people" and all. Just check the right box in the voting booth or volunteer your time to support the right magic politician that we've been waiting a couple centuries for. There is a critical point past which an organism is so consumed with cancerous tissue that nothing can be done to save it.
- 18pfsmt 15y ago
  They seem to be making progress at massive change in the middle east (Libya, Eqypt, Syria, etc.). It's pretty inspiring how much strength there is in numbers. I'm not much of a leader, but I would always participate. Maybe one of the talented designers around HN could spin up a nice site to pledge to march on DC if/when 10 million people sign up? I'd write the copy and donate some hosting $.
  - mceachen 15y ago
    No need to code anything up -- it's already been done. Set it up on http://www.thepoint.com/ http://www.thepoint.com/ (which is the predecessor of Groupon, btw)
  - beagle3 15y ago
    > They seem to be making progress at massive change in the middle east (Libya, Eqypt, Syria, etc.). It's pretty inspiring how much strength there is in numbers. I'm not much of a leader, but I would always participate. This is after 40 or so years of dictatorship in every single one of those countries; and peaceful previous attempts did not work (were mostly met with deadly force) In the US, most people have the illusion that they are actually voting for THEIR representative, and thus it will take 400 years (not 40) until something will happen. Douglas Adams described this very well: "Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages. "It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..." "You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" "No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is." "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?" "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?" (copied&pasted from http://www.virtualeconomics.co.uk/2008/05/keeping-the-liz.html http://www.virtualeconomics.co.uk/2008/05/keeping-the-liz.ht... )
__david__ 15y ago
You know, it's not my job to fix the problem. I have my place in society and I'm not about to start over in life and become a politician just to fix my perceived problem with the system. No more than I would start over and become a doctor because I thought that, say, doctors had bad attitudes. I'll vote the appropriate way but that's really my only recourse. I still have the right to bitterly complain about rampant corruption in politics and even be pessimistic about reform happening. > There exist honest, well-meaning, hard-working people working in government and politics to attempt to fix these issues. Unfortunately they're outnumbered by people like you, who tar all of them with same brush you use for the most corrupt business lobbyist. I don't see how the OP's attitude affects the good people working to fix the issues. They clearly want the same thing the OP does. If they think he's wrong--prove him wrong! Get things reformed in his lifetime.

rooshdi 15y ago

Yes, there are honest, well-meaning, hard-working people working in government, but there are also lying, corrupt, self-interested politicians lobbied heavily by corporations. When news like this comes out, it just adds to the suspicion and paranoia that all the war lies and government bailouts have already brought upon the American people. It doesn't help.

VladRussian 15y ago

nice logic. According to you the GP is guilty of having the trillion dollars taken from him.

pstack 15y ago

Unfortunately, the system is setup to expediently counter attempts to change it. Why do you think we keep getting the same results after every election? If it was just a matter of "getting a democrat" in the office or "getting a republican" in office, then problems wouldn't exist, because we have one or the other in office every few years. It's a deeper problem in that the fingers that manipulate the puppetry and the machinery are so deeply embedded in the process that with very few outlying exceptions, little occurs which isn't vetted by the corrupt process. (Also reads: There aren't really many substantive differences between viable politicians.) The few people with any power in politics are expelled by the system itself. They're either not viable to begin with or if they somehow absurdly get into the system, it marginalizes them. They're called crazy or otherwise derided and made irrelevant through all the modern mediums we have available to us and society itself is too pre-occupied with what church they go to or if they ever smoked pot. I didn't say I have any meaningful way to contribute or improve the process. Nobody else really does, either. It's not merely as simple as "well, run for office and be the first honest person in the government!". Very few people can even stand up against a single company and fight injustices. What hope does anyone have against the corrupt government plus all of the companies - together? I know, this is all very anti-American. We're raised to believe that there's always hope and "we the people" and "power to the people" and all. Just check the right box in the voting booth or volunteer your time to support the right magic politician that we've been waiting a couple centuries for. There is a critical point past which an organism is so consumed with cancerous tissue that nothing can be done to save it.

18pfsmt 15y ago
They seem to be making progress at massive change in the middle east (Libya, Eqypt, Syria, etc.). It's pretty inspiring how much strength there is in numbers. I'm not much of a leader, but I would always participate. Maybe one of the talented designers around HN could spin up a nice site to pledge to march on DC if/when 10 million people sign up? I'd write the copy and donate some hosting $.
- mceachen 15y ago
  No need to code anything up -- it's already been done. Set it up on http://www.thepoint.com/ http://www.thepoint.com/ (which is the predecessor of Groupon, btw)
- beagle3 15y ago
  > They seem to be making progress at massive change in the middle east (Libya, Eqypt, Syria, etc.). It's pretty inspiring how much strength there is in numbers. I'm not much of a leader, but I would always participate. This is after 40 or so years of dictatorship in every single one of those countries; and peaceful previous attempts did not work (were mostly met with deadly force) In the US, most people have the illusion that they are actually voting for THEIR representative, and thus it will take 400 years (not 40) until something will happen. Douglas Adams described this very well: "Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages. "It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..." "You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" "No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is." "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?" "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?" (copied&pasted from http://www.virtualeconomics.co.uk/2008/05/keeping-the-liz.html http://www.virtualeconomics.co.uk/2008/05/keeping-the-liz.ht... )

__david__ 15y ago

You know, it's not my job to fix the problem. I have my place in society and I'm not about to start over in life and become a politician just to fix my perceived problem with the system. No more than I would start over and become a doctor because I thought that, say, doctors had bad attitudes. I'll vote the appropriate way but that's really my only recourse. I still have the right to bitterly complain about rampant corruption in politics and even be pessimistic about reform happening. > There exist honest, well-meaning, hard-working people working in government and politics to attempt to fix these issues. Unfortunately they're outnumbered by people like you, who tar all of them with same brush you use for the most corrupt business lobbyist. I don't see how the OP's attitude affects the good people working to fix the issues. They clearly want the same thing the OP does. If they think he's wrong--prove him wrong! Get things reformed in his lifetime.