But that's just it, America isn't a total democracy. There are many key democratic principles embedded in our constitution but the greater part of our government resembles (even more so in the past) a republic, where classes do exist and power is divided unequally.


It certainly is frustrating but unfortunately in this day and age credentials are the deciding factor on your level of employment, not skill. I fully understand your sentiment and I do feel sorry for you; in other words, the system is screwed up. I'm only saying two things: 1) that you should've been aware of this before you got into this kind of work, and 2) that although the system is not fair, I don't believe protesting it will get much (if any) good done... and as I said, I just don't want to affiliate myself with this movement.

well thats pretty much been my sentiment all along. people who are actually looking for work are far too busy with drum circles. I think the wrong people are going about this the wrong way.

I'm not sure whether I understand this sentence.
Do you mean thatpeople who are actually looking for work are far too busy to participate in a movement like Occupy?

If so, you don't realize the degree of unemployment.

I try to illustrate it from a different point:
a friend is independent entrepreneur, his business melt down from about 10 employers to one, and now he is on his own.
He is looking for someone who can do some programming, only a few hours a week.
When I told him, he could ask at the lokal employment agency, he said that he doesn't want to remind them that he exists because when they remember him, they will send him tons of candidacies, even later when he doesn't ask.

Got it?

Why is it impossible to understand that if there are not enough jobs that there are people who won't get a job, whatever they try to do?

@ Redeemer:
Isn't it depressing to believe that the crowd of one of the wealthiest nations of the world is not educated enough to participate in democracy? Is the education system of the USA actually that bad?

And, why are you expecting any good from the decisions of the 'educated and rich', while you can read in 'educated' and investigative newpapers that it was their work of the last twenty years that evoke the crises?

I think you overestimate it. Unemployment is at a high right now that was only last seen in the '80s. Truly, this is the worst we've seen in a while. But that doesn't mean that we're experiencing another huge depression. Unemployment almost never drops below 4%.


If that were the case, they would be truly destitute. They could not buy their own food or their own clothes, and they could not afford shelter. Yet for the majority of those in the Occupy movement, that is not the case. As Sajeth pointed out:



Yes.


Haven't you asked this question once or twice already? My answer is the same. Granted, they were a huge part of this mess. No one denies that. But to say that this situation is entirely the fault of the rich is simply not true. And as I said, in terms of economic understanding, I trust their judgement more than I trust the judgement of Joe Shmuck off the street.

Redeemer,
do you believe in democracy as a system? Do you think it can work? Or do you feel that people in general are not educated enough to participate in this way, that the system is doomed to fail or at least to bring bad results due to people's inability or outright disinterest in politics?
Or do you just not believe in a certain implementation of democracy (such as the way it's handled in the US)? Is there another political system you favor?

(Note please that I've tried to formulate these as neutral as possible. Don't try to read my own opinion on anything out of this. I can share it later, maybe, but I just tried to not influence anyone, because I'm really just interested in honest opinions - I don't want to contaminate these results :))

Sorry I'm not adding much to the discussion. I'm just curious.

well... ive literally heard a college girl say she was going to vote for bush because he was "old-man hot"... whatever that means.

Here we go. just posted this on my fb. this is my thoughts on the topic:

It means that not only she was stupid but also blind.

Btw, I really enjoy the discussion in this thread, although I can't add anything constructive to it.

I believe democracy in it's ultimate form would definitely be a failure, but I think everyone knows that.

Democracy is a good thing, but like any good thing I believe that it should not be applied excessively to any given problem. I do not believe that the US's current level of democracy is appropriate, but I do not believe that it should be anything less than it has ever been.

@LC: Your idea is interesting because it brings up an important fact: the USD used to represent a very minute share in the United States gold supply. In fact, before the gold standard was dropped, you could walk into any bank and demand your money in gold, and they would give it to you.

This is important because gold, unlike a piece of paper, has real value. There are far reaching consequences to that fact, the most important one being that there's no such thing as "funny money" when you're trading in a real substance.

So my solution to the problem you mentioned is similar to your own: to readopt the gold standard on a national level. Unfortunately it's not likely that this will ever happen since the US is in an incredible amount of debt right now and the amount of money in circulation is not nearly proportionate to the amount of gold the US really owns.

Which is why we bail and let bankers go "down with the ship":p they do it with shell companies to their own partners all time anyways:) and since they supposedly only rep 1%,it SHOULD be doable...but as you said it won't happen. People are not brave enough and if it happened, I'm sure the bankers purse strings would open up to the right greedy poor people and would stop its progress anyways:/