Bob Owens said:
When properly informed the people of this country are just as socially balanced as Europeans.
Wretched Wrench said:
Now..about the last election...
In view of the last election results (PotUS, HoR and Senate), who is responsible for this lack of the
majority of the voting "people of this country" not being "properly 'inform'ed"? And who decides what is "proper"; and just suppose the 'inform'ation is not accepted as "proper"?
The people who own the corporations that distrubute the media for the most part control the information we see. So despite the rights claim of the "liberal media" the fact is that the media is the megaphone of privately held corporations who tend to be conservative. While outright censorship has not been instituted the sheer volume due to the vast resourses of the major media corporation effectivly drowns out the possiblity that people recieve balanced reports. Right wing watchdog groups who have complete control of certain networks (such as Fox) specialize in propaganda techniques that were used by the Nazis and Communists. Political adversaries are slandered and demonized in order to drown out whatever message they have. Spurrious stories that are either half truths or outright lies spewed out by right wing propaganda centers are broadcast by FOX and other far right networks, then when other networks fail to cover the same stories due to their nature and the inability to verify content or sources they claim that "the liberal media" is censoring news. The failure of the media to distribute accurate balanced news is one of the reason why a large number of American actually believe that Iraq had a part in Sept 11. Who benifits from such a belief? The liberals or the Conservatives?
In my opinion an overwhelming majority of Americans have been rejecting European "social" values since they first came almost 400 years ago.
Wrong. Our democratic roots go back to the Magna Carta. Our Common law system also came from England and most retianed their religions, surnames, customs etc. Most of the Scots and Irish came here because of agrarian changes in the Brittish Isles where landlords were changing their farming practices and clearing people off the land.
Over the ensuing years millions more have come to
escape European values; and we have created our own "social balance". It has always borne little resemblence to any contemporary European equivalent.
Wrong again. They came to either escape corrupted political systems or for economic opportunity. At Ellis Island they display both Immigration and Emmigration figures and you would be suprised to see how high emmigration figures were at times, meaning many came here and went back.
I don't expect the newest Latino additions to change it. They will be assimilated - just as were the Irish, Italians, Jews from Europe and the Chinese, Korean, Viet Namese from Asia.
Assimilated? By that do you mean speaking English or becoming what you consider to be "an American". By the way since you claim we have all assimilated could you please give me a description of your "assimilated American? What does he/she look like? What reigion do they practice? What is their last name? What do they eat? The fact is we are a tossed salad not a melting pot. The biggest link we have is our love of Freedom and tolerance to accept the fact that we are different.
Judging by the dramatically declining union membership numbers recently publicly admitted by AFL-CIO leaders, I question whether unions are the best "informers". This decline is bad enough as an absolute number; but it is much worse as a percentage of the workforce.
The decline in union membership is due to many factors, one no doubt is the lack of democratic accountability within many of todays unions.
Until unions arrest the decline in their own numbers, their 'proper information' message will continue to be lost on "the people of this country". Thus, if I were a union person. I suppose I would have to agree with the AFL-CIO dissidents that dues money would better be spent on ‘organizing’ rather than ‘politicizing’.
OK.
However, I question whether either will really be very effective – but to me better the chicken (organizing) should come before the egg (politicizing). However, the main dues thrust seems to be “aggrandising†– a goal usually equated to AA top management on this and other AA threads. The word root is the act of increasing the wealth or prestige or power or scope of something.
I leave it to the union member posters as to which is the goal of the various AA employee union leaders.
Its pretty clear that the goals of TWU leaders only inclued "self interest".
