Land of the free

[glenatron]

I know I go on about this, but here is a very clear article describing the steps from democracy to fascism and demonstrating how the current US administration is taking them.

It's interesting. If I lived in America I would like to think I would at least be writing to my political representatives, but of course I am fat and lazy...

Comments

[penella22.livejournal.com]

Rest assured, I actually DO. Although, sometimes, because I live on one of the most politically active states in the country, it feels almost redundant. I am surrounded by people who are more politically aware than I am. Ever heard of moveon.org? Its writing your political reps FOR fat and lazy people. :P

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

We had some really good stuff along those lines going on, sites like faxyourmp.com (don't know if it's still running, doubt it) that was really good for the times before our MPs believed anything useful could come of email ( so up until about 2005 then ) and helped people get themselves represented. Now it's become something that the government pays more attention to I guess we're doing better, but then actually the whole of the UK would only make for a regular US state.

[spirithorse21.livejournal.com]

Do you want to know how far a letter to your representative goes in America? It's enough to make you cry or want to blast a small middle-eastern country back into the dark ages.

Step 1: Write your first letter. It lands on a secretaries desk where it is then shuffled to an intern who is required to read it before he or she dumps it into a trash bin. I've actually witnessed this.

Step 2: Repeat step 1.

Step 3: Repeat step 1 several more time. Finally, you decide a phone call will be better. You are passed around a switch board in hopes that you will become aggravated and hang up before you reach the right office. If you hang in there for the correct office, you will be put on hold. If you get through that, you get the intern who will then put you back on hold. If you repeat this process for a week, you MIGHT get to speak to your rep. My Mother has experienced this.

Step 4: Repeat the letters again, at which point the rep and his people start to think you're some sort of fascists yourself, so they start collecting everything they have on you and putting it in a permanent FBI file. Several of my peaceful civil disobedience type friends have experienced this. In fact, I bet I have too, and just don't know about my FBI file yet.

Step 5: You practice what you preach and start going to meetings or protests about these issues at which point the police and other under cover people start following your every move despite the fact that everything you do it legal to the T. My dear friend has experienced this.

You're right. Our current leadership sucks. And I have no problem ending up in these situations and working for the better, standing in with my voice and opinion. But in reality, it's not doing much good. That doesn't mean that I'm quiet. It just means I know what's really going on.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

When I first read Greg Palast I realised that although I had been completely cynical about everything political I actually had somehow not managed to be cynical enough. It is amazing just how mired in corruption every aspect of the national governments of both our countries are, before you even get into the multi-national corporations and institutions that have the real power. *shudder*

[thewhitespider.livejournal.com]

In terms of land area - don't forget the UK has one fifth the population of the US.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

England has less people than California, but also vastly less land.

[thewhitespider.livejournal.com]

But California is one of the four huge states. The median population value for a US state is about 4.2 million - you get fifteen median US states for one UK.

On the other hand, we have only one and a half times the land area of that median state.

The stat I was most surprised to discover is how close our per-capita GDP is - $38,000 for the UK against $44,000 for the USA.

[thewhitespider.livejournal.com]

Actually, that might be a Wikipedia typo. Going to check the CIA World Factbook (which I bet they used as the primary and only source) the UK has a per-capita GDP of $31,800.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I look at the prices of land in the US and how many people there are per square mile compared with where we are now and looking at how much it would cost to emigrate...

[penella22.livejournal.com]

nonono...I'm moving over there.

Have you heard our president give a speech?

(In all seriousness, the state where I live is pretty darn nice. Its the rest of the country I'm not so fond of. I think we should secede...oh wait, we already voted on that. Oh well.)

[penella22.livejournal.com]

exactly.

any chance anyone in UK watched "Sicko" for example? Seriously left me wanting to move to France or something...

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Maybe we should all move to New Zealand. No idea what the politics are like there but the scenery is good...

[penella22.livejournal.com]

Now there's a plan. New Zealand it is...

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Apparently they're just at the start of a lovely warm summer right now...