A commentator I listened to remarked how Americans must be a bunch of self-loathers because, while they strongly disapprove of congress, over 90% of incumbents are re-elected. Which points to the Adam’s commentary above.
I strongly suspect that there must be something fundamentally wrong with anyone wanting to get into politics, and yet they get votes.
Greg, I don’t think politicians are nut cases, many of them are intelligent, but people make the assumption that they are there to work for us. Given the vested interests and the amount of money in the political system it is generally not in the personal interests of politicians to help the general public. There are lucrative side lines in terms of promised future directorships, inside information or plain and simple cash to make it all too easy for them help themselves and expletive deleted the rest of us. We are often reduced to picking the lesser of two evils and for many the difference between the two is too small to be significant which explains why may of us feel disenfranchised.
Because of this we offered a limited choice at the election and most of the choices we can immediately rule out because even if a party is offering exactly what we want there is little point in voting for a minority party because unless they get a majority, which they won’t, they have no chance of implementing their policies.
This can, and has in both the US and UK, lead to what is in effect a two party system. Any other party being largely politically impotent, they are able to help expand the debate but are unable to wield any political power. In effect they are reduced to shouting from the margins.
We need real change and that change is not in the interests of those who currently hold the power. This explains why Jeremy Corbyn is being attacked by the media and the establishment, including most of the parliamentary party in spite of being loved by many traditional Labour voters.
We are often reduced to picking the lesser of two evils and for many the difference between the two is too small to be significant which explains why may of us feel disenfranchised.
Yes. I approve of this statement. On the other hand, two things play into the discussion we had, both of which may indicate that so-called heroes have feet of clay.
On Google+ only being for Open Source techie types that’s because those are the people you’re following.
I searched for some other non-technical Communities and they’re out there.
Knitting - 6,000+ members
Painting - 29,400+ member
Photography - 129,000+ members
Basketball - 8,000+ members
Book Club 16,000+ members
A person could be interested in multiple topics and so be a member of multiple communities which is a great way to filter out the baby pictures and food pictures unless you’re a member of Food Photography with nearly 200,000 members.
I have a simple way of describing the 3 main social networks. Facebook - where you go to see what your friends and family are doing. Twitter - where you go to see what’s happening now Google+ - where you go to connect with people who are into the same things as you even if they are on the other side of the world.
Skin Care (Community) - 45,000+ members
Brtiney Spears (Person) - over 360 million views
BBC News (Page) - 8.2+ million followers and nearly 600 million views
Bollywood (Community) - there are 2, 1 has 90,000+ members and the other 44,000+ members
G+ works great the way it is setup. You get to be part of the communities you like and can ignore the rest.
It it was called HobbyHub.com then it would make more sense other than being a terrible name held by a squatter.
Finally - these days I just follow people and stick them in a Circle, but I never view G+ using the Circles. It’s just a handy reminder as to why I’m following them rather than because I want to only see their posts when I’m interested in that circle. I enjoy the mixed up posts. All my interests in one place.
In the UK the difference may be too small to be significant, Labor and the Tories are after all left of center if measured against the US political spectrum. However, I believe anybody who thinks that the Democratic party is the same as the Republican party here in the US is a either given to hyperbole or a complete nutter. Yes, they are both craven groups which pander to the moneyed class. However, if you think that if we’d had a Republican president for the last 7 years (rather than Obama who I agree is a disappointment) we would have :
a form of universal health care (albeit rather shitty) , or
that women’s reproductive choice would be less constrained than it is now,
that we would have come to an at least half-assed agreement not to find an excuse to bomb Iran, or
that gays would be treated as equal under the (federal) law (or almost, not quite yet due to the knuckle draggers in the House),
