Were you USCG or Navy then?
I was a medic...which beats buoy-tender..haha.
I just believe that something needs to be done on many serious and pressing issues, and our elected officials - “elected”....aren’t responding.
It’s as if they live in a totally disconnected and separate world...which many probably do...and many are probably sociopathic in many ways as this type of profession attracts them like flies.
But where is the people’s recourse to make change?
You can maybe march in protest...and I say maybe because it seems the right to assemble is going bye-bye.
But other than writing letters, e-mails, calling your “representative”.
We are actually very powerless but shown in falsity, and taught in falsity, that our votes count in elections.
Maybe in some local elections they do...where they actually count individual votes and we don’t have some unelected delegate or super-delegate deciding for us.
I think voting should be mandatory...the conservatives need to cut it out with the non sequitur of rampant voter fraud...and call it what it is - the suppression of the minority and poor vote.
Count the votes of the people and see who wins.
Reinstate campaign finance limits and rules and burn Citizen’s United...otherwise, as we can all pretty clearly see now - it’s a conflict of interest between those financing the Congresspersons’ job and life and the will, health and safety of the people they are supposed to serve.
There is very clear evidence that Congress consistently votes for whatever corporate interest wants even if there is a majority of the population against it.
How is that representative of the people?
We didn’t get to choose Hillary and Trump...the delegates did...we all had the illusion that our votes make them sway their vote, but that isn’t human nature...human nature will tell such a person to do what they feel is best for the people irregardless - which makes it flawed and undemocratic.
Look at what untethered gobs of money have done to this bullshit election...it’s sad, but also necessary in many ways to shake the people up...to wake the people up.
Hate Hillary all you want, I think she is far more beholden to the people than Trump ever would be, partially thanks to the Sanders camp but also there are several generations now who have seen the decline of America and are not going to stand for it anymore...the Boomers rode that wave that was the New Deal...the Reaganites dismantling it after it served their needs (example - affordable education - we got ours - I don’t want to pay for yours). Every subsequent generation since them has seen the social safety nets that once was there ripped away...the rights that many in this country fought for and died to obtain - like the eight hour work day (which is almost gone too), many forget the brutality that the workers had to endure and overcome...almost all now have been quietly, slowly, methodically taken away.
When you say the word “union” in the US, it’s very polarizing...but it is the unions and such organizations that have given the people power to effect change when our leaders aren’t listening.
It’s gone too...unions have abused their power, lost the trust of the people, but more so...the law that once gave us the right to protest poor and unfair working conditions was destroyed the night Reagan forced the air traffic controllers back to work in the early 80’s.
The middle class is disappearing...most don’t even have $1000 in savings much less a solvent retirement plan...a good percentage of Boomers have not saved enough to retire, which not only clogs the job market for those graduating college, but it will eventually have to be addressed and quite soon when they no longer can physically work, but have no nest egg...are we going to open mass poor houses?
These are the social issues that the people want and need solved...not abortion or arguing about putting the Ten Commandments on the wall of the Court House...climate change is real...people are dying already from heat waves, starvation, flooding....our polar ice caps are melting...it’s a very poor scenario in the long run.
Why the fight? Even if it’s all bullshit...why the fight against cleaning up our environment and emissions?
Let’s stop burying our heads in the sand, quit kicking the can down the road that is now too hot to stand barefoot on and start working together toward real solutions.
Instead, we have news organizations that are run by those highly invested in the oil and gas industries making it sound like cleaning up our environment is not worth the investment.
Excuse me?
This is also the same guy financing the campaigns...this is the guy who’s vote counts now that money is no object...apparently, money is free speech...uh-huh, and I shit gold...and unlike me or you - this is the guy who’s e-mail gets read by HIS bought and paid for representative.
Fin.
additionally...please don't say 'sorry'. You need not appologize for taking a stance (and a thorough one too). Yours and the others here have weight to an opinion. This is one of the reasons we put up the fuss of objection within the stronghold of our democracy. Well done.
lol)