Forum Post: "Approval of Congress falls to all-time low"
Posted 11 years ago on Aug. 15, 2012, 5:36 p.m. EST by TitusMoans
(2451)
from Boulder City, NV
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
All I can say is, "No kidding."
The surprise is that 10% of the polled respondents hold the Congress in any esteem at all. The real tragedy, though, is that most of these same clowns, who Americans dislike and rate so lowly, will be re-elected. Go figure. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/approval-congress-falls-time-low-082653179.html
Congress is an abomination. And, we've learned during the past four years that who we vote into Congress is just as important, or more so than who we elect President.
But wait for the election results; most Representatives and Senators up for re-election will waltz back to muck up another term.
Sadly true. Turkeys voting for Thanksgiving.
I may have told this anecdote before about an acquaintance of mine, a union man. One of his favorite sayings: "A working man voting for a Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders."
That could translate just as well to partisans voting the party line are like turkeys voting for Thanksgiving.
True. I keep thinking about how to change this, but it's a tough nut to crack, isn't it? The closest I have come is that the American ethos needs an overhaul in order to protect itself from ruin. Big societal change is needed, not political change. Societal change to drive the political change.
There's the rub. How?
The only way I see for now is in educating the public to the system's and societal failures through continued protest and agitation. The other solution, at least with the Citizen's United decision and relative impossibility of passing a Constitutional amendment to significantly change the electoral process, is not pleasant to contemplate.
Education, protest and agitation. Those are the biggies.
Those are the biggies.
One of the reason I don't just sweepingly condemn black-bloc tactics at various demonstration is that their purpose is generally not to gain support, but to draw attention to a specific issue. The peaceful demonstrations and protests are designed to build support.
That is an interesting way to look at it. I never thought of that.
Take a look at most "eco-terrorism." The black-bloc tactics are not designed to garner support from the community, but to focus attention on certain egregious acts.
Also 'fyi', TM : http://occupywallst.org/forum/some-outrageous-facts-about-us-inequality-by-paul-/ .
ad iudicium ...
Thanks again.
You're welcome mate. Good 'forum-post' ; Good thread. Thanx.
pax, amor et lux ...
Rocky Anderson is on ballot in many states, and he praised Ows as idealistic courageous and convergent with his positions. His strategy is through social media, as the egyptian s did, wants a revo. Against duopoly. If we met up in public forums, parks, and championed his candidacy, that's freedom of speech. How could that be shut down. And everyone emailed, wrote everyone they know, everyone in the phone book, but keep it optimistic, have kids there, etc pro family and worker.
http://my.firedoglake.com/jest/2012/04/01/video-rocky-anderson-forcefully-dismantles-the-logic-of-2-party-system-apologists/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKRR5_NdnLo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8q2lFSvhPI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJCEoRUc4B0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBtiuAiAzvE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7DSLUPRunw
http://archive.org/details/scm-48382-rockyandersonstandingupforjust
I'll take a look. I agree with you that our best chance for reform is working together to bring independent candidates to the forefront.
One component to education is providing some hope for improvement. Why is the above down-voted? Click the bottom link and celebrate that someone else who has held an office has the same ideas. His videos are educational, and inspirational, or am I wrong, that he is laying it out in plain language.
It was cool to the public when you occupied. Real not staged. For those who know in their soul the system has deep problems, it was inspiring.
Can you occupy central park and spread the message there, even if it is daily. It was cool you were out in public standing up.
It's just whole country feels conservative, cause cons keep repeative Obama is communist.
It was so fast, and not well covered in main media, for most part. I think it was raising awareness, especially when the police got out of line, but now it is easy for public to ignore, and for many they may believe it has faded away:((
Sorry if this is a poor idea. I'm old & on west coast. I'm out of loop here. There was an occupy in my town, one of longest lasting closed in dec.
"It's just whole country feels conservative..."
To a large extent public perceptions result from steady indoctrination by the ruling class through it's control of communications, the media, and entertainment. It creates the memes, by which many people view the world and even how they live.
The mission of groups like OWS is to educate the public through agitation, demonstrations, and protest, but it is a slow process, which the ruling class attempts to subvert and suppress.
right on - the population is more social democratic (on most important issues) than most realize - it is the media and talking heads that make us think the country is conservative
How true. A good example is when the majority of Americans are asked if they support isolated parts of Obamacare, without mentioning the program, they respond positively, though when asked if they support Obamacare in general a large number respond negatively. Hmmm.
TRUTH.
4 years? You're missing a lot of years on that. LOL
In 1999 it would have been nice to have a congress that didn't repeal glass steagall. In 2003 it would have been nice to have a congress that impeached Bush for war crimes. In 2011 it would have been nice to see Obama impeached for assassinating Americans. The list is probably in the thousands when it comes to examples of how congress could be better.
LOL! Great point, Trevor!
The real abomination are the sheep that vote for them, while good choices lay on the outskirts without the corporate money to get them primetime television pimp spots.
I agree with you 100%. Money controls the elections making it nearly impossible for an independent, unpaid-for candidate to make it on the ballot, let alone really vie for office.
There is another underlyuing issue, even below the line of money controlling the elections. The question is "Why does money control the elections?" "What advantage does the money give people".,
It gives them the ability to get on TV. Mostly running smear ads. The people fall for it hook line and sinker, election after election.
So basically we have a population that, if played a certain message enough, will respond in like to it.
Is that natural of all human beings? Probably to a certain extent. Should we be evolving to a point of recognizing and automatically disqualifying that person due to them already accepting bribes....errrr...contributions?
It would be nice :)
Sweeping campaign-finance reform might accomplish that, but that would require an almost-impossible-to-pass Constitutional amendment.
Only because the sheeple refuse to vote for someone whom they didnt see on a tv (ie paid for).
Maybe most people like all the attack ads; that way they don't need the issues to confuse them.
I think we are onto something. no thinking, just reacting.
Raw reactions. Thats it, nothing more.
No one wants to be confused with all those issues. Let the lying politicians handle it, but it's the other side's politician that does all the lying.
Exactly, blame the other guy. ZERO accountablity on the one we voted for.
It really is the perfect scam.
that's the same for congress as well.
In my city if you don't have 50,000 raised in your campaign... the local debate won't let you in.
A new craigslist category: political office for sale.
Excellent point.
"the fault.... lie not in our stars, but in ourselves..." Shakespeare
the political system is irreparably broken
Have enough really learned that lesson yet? There is still no move to organize people around a few good congressional candidates and become a real force for change.
We need to focus on education because without knowledge things won't change. I think we've come a long way this past year.
Together we have power. If we work with unions, and somehow mobilize the people.
People are not so excited for obama, but their afraid of romney/ryan.
Get the Justice Party OWS to form an alliance, there's a lot of public service workers, immigrants, homeowners, teachers too who are sympathetic, feel they've been scapegoated a bit. university students!
Get down to the unemployment, Welfare, inner city, libraries: and parks, and get some real answers to the issues. Get People Registered!!!!! Now!!!
you get what you pay for - right?
LOL! I saw somewhere a statistic on how much increase in wealth a person has after becoming a member of Congress. It was unreal. I'll have to see if I can find it.
How "Members Of Congress Grow Wealthier Despite Recession" :
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29579.htm ,
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45612773?__source=google|editorspicks|&par=google ,
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_51/And-Congress-Rich-Get-Richer-209907-1.html ,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/congress-net-wealth-income-gap_n_1069377.html .
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7388130n&tag=contentMain;contentBody (15 mins).
'Insider Trading' by members of Congress has been going on for so long that they seem to think that it is their "inalienable right" to do so ! They claim "it's not illegal" !! Keep big barf bucket handy for last link !!!
e tenebris, lux ...
Thanks, for that. I should have known you'd have the info!
I've linked to 'The Keiser Report' ( http://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/ ) many times over the last few months in my 'forum-posts' & comments as I believe that Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert are two of the very few journalists that are willing to tell us like it is when it comes "Banking, Finance and Scandal". Others who come to mind are Matt Taibbi, Nomi Prins, Teri Buhl and to an extent Gillian Tett.
His very latest show (Ep.#328) dovetails beautifully with the subject matter of your point re 'enrichment as a result of being in Congress' as he and Stacy Herbert touch on this matter ; Paul Ryan's personal behaviour in 2008 ; Ayn Rand ; 'High Frequency Algorithmic Trading' and other subjects.
In the second half of the show, Max talks to Sandeep Jaitly of http://www.feketeresearch.com/ about the real Austrian economics of Carl Menger versus the fake Austrian economics of Ludwig von Mises and how Ben Bernanke’s confusing ideas on money and central banks are leading us into a second Dark Age. Max and Sandeep also discuss the reasons why 'Rehypothecation in London' is fraud. Now I'm not a big fan of anything Austrian (other than apfelstrudle !) but Carl Menger's theories of 'sound money' are interesting and indeed what is considered 'Austrian / Libertarian Economics' in America would leave most Europeans economics scholars and students, cold and scratching their heads vigorously.
'The Keiser Report' is an acquired taste but is an absolute singular look through the apparent complexity of Bankster Crimes & I thoroughly and wholeheartedly recommend it to all interested readers. In the case of this particular episode, Max & Stacy are excellent and Max & Sandeep Jaitly are very interesting tho' admittedly a little dry.
radix omnium malorum est cupiditas ....
I've seen it and agree. It's a great show.
Six hopefully useful links for you and other interested readers :
http://retheauditors.com/ ;
http://www.teribuhl.com/ ;
http://www.nomiprins.com/ ;
http://rt.com/programs/capital-account/ ;
http://publicbankinginstitute.org/home.htm &
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog .
ipsa scientia potestas est ...
Great. Thanks.
Cool & here's hoping that they are some use to somebody - someday, lol :-)
docendo discimus ...
: )
money out of politics would be a good start - seems like a no brainer - it would have to get 80% of the population behind it - we can't get it
It's unreal how this nonsense has been allowed to go on. The people need to continue what OWS started and rise up against all greed.
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This was actually something my introductory political science class touched on last fall; people get fed up and disgusted with the actions of Congress as a whole, but there's a disconnect between what people think of Congress the institution and what people think of the individual men and women they send there. Thus, you'll see Congress with a 5-15% approval rating overall, but individual members of Congress tend to enjoy approval ratings at or above 60%.
I'd guess that this phenomenon is currently exaggerated because of the degree of deadlock in Congress, and so most people look at this and say "if only the other house were in the hands of people like our Rep. So-and-So, who see the light and want to do the people's business first, then things would be alright and things could get done again." People will complain about the dysfunction of the institution as a whole, but will always fault the other side, even if that's not a particularly consistent pair of positions.
Odd how our biases influence our perceptions. Maybe that's the fatal flaw in humans; our emotions control not only our perceptions, but our behavior.
True, but people who are aware of that can generally eventually learn to compensate for it.
At least that's what we like to believe.
People have been programmed to believe their congressman will "bring home the bacon" and this has been fostered for years.
Length of service in congress, even being the first newly elected congressman to get ranked ahead of the others has been praised as good local politics. Committee positions etc. People fear their area will be left out of the goodies congress doles out, and then the name recognition. People go to the polls with no real idea of the issues, but their congressman hasn't been in the news in any scandal or bad way.
The problem is that for a long time doing things that way actually worked; Congress was responsible for dividing up the spoils of the American economy at least as much as it was responsible for making big decisions on the issues. As far as a lot of people are concerned, a congressman who votes their way on a few big things and brings home a lot of good booty is a good congressman.
It did work and now works against us because people are unaware of the corruption. They think it continues to work that way, especially the Congress protecting equality and justice. They need to know the truth.
Soon, I predict people will be against cutting the military, (or other things), because it affects them locally. The people need to understand their so called gain comes from their neighbor and not a very good way of making progress as a nation.
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