What's happening to the US of A?

Anyone who does that is going to get shot, surely?

I remember during the troubles in Northern Ireland occasionally some teenagers, or other seemingly innocent people, were shot and killed driving through a border crossing. People on the mainland were outraged that the army would have behaved like that - surely they could / should have apprehended the people, rather than shooting them?

I had occasion to drive through those checkpoints in Ireland at the time. Deliberately awkward and narrow chicanes, huge and imposting RSJ barriers able to be dropped in an instant that would stop a juggernaught dead, squaddies with machine guns held level at the ready, more machine guns in crow's nests, and all the trimmings!. It was imposing enough driving through as an innocent person, no one, in their right mind or otherwise, could have any doubts that running the gauntlet through there was a suitable Dare for a game of Chicken.

Driving a car like a moron, or maniac, in the vicinity of the White House is going to have the same consequences for sure, and IMHO no one should need to question the reasonabilityness of the people guarding the site in shooting first and asking questions afterwards.

 

Who was in power when hurricane Katrina did extensive damage and took many lives in a poor area with a large black population? I seem to remember those people were pretty much ignored and left to sort themselves out, and I believe it was only after considerable pressure from both the international community, and internally in the US, that the government eventually did anything at all to help them.

Here's a clue. Obama wasn't in power when the US government of the time very publicly demonstrated that they saw the people of New Orleans as some sort of insignificant underclass.

 

Strikes me its what they call POLITICS, and I've never found a politician on any side, in any country that I'd trust.
Lets not forget our own Tony Blair joined up very willingly to the George W Bush war-wagon.

They are all in it for their own ends, if they were in a different job most would be disgraced, but for some reason Politicians are allowed to lie, whilst going about their normal business of hoodwinking the public.

 

I remember a significant number of public protests against Bliar's strategy, which of course were completely ignored. I don't think very many people loved him.

As an interesting aside, during one such protest that happened outside where I worked at the time, I was getting a coffee and I saw them all out of the window lining up in front of the police station over the road. It looked like something was brewing so I stayed to watch. It was a great comedy moment. One man was banging a drum, and then suddenly another sounded an air horn, and at that moment the crowd just surged and they stormed the cop shop

 

So why did he reign so long?
Politics these days is more about choosing the the candidate you least hate as opposed to the one you actually like.
If this is democracy, someone needs to sort it out fast, before us lot, in the West go down the pan.

 

Listened to a program on Nixon the other week that kinda chimed with my thoughts on him - whilst he was a deeply flawed man (and is that not true of most great leaders?) he was far from an abject failure as a President. When you look at the things that he achieved on the world stage (the US "intervention" in the Yon Kipur War ((unsure of the spelling)), getting out of Vietnam, actually talking to the commies in China and Russia and negotiating the first nuclear arms treaty) he left a fair legacy (IMO).
Strange how the ruthless and self serving Kennedys seem to have earned a greater place in the hearts of Americans than Nixon, whose greatest shortcoming was his inability to get close to others and place more trust and faith in them.
The stupid thing about Watergate is that it was all about nothing more than a standard tool that American administrations had used for many years - it became his undoing because for once the press was able to prove that an American president had lied!

 

Just to make an earlier point. NOTHING else on the news regarding the women who tried to run at the white house.

 

I thought it was just one woman + her one year old daughter?

If you google "Miriam Carey" + Washington you should find some more up to date stuff. HTH.

P.S. This was the last item I recall watching on BBC News a couple of days ago http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24409973 For somebody who's mentally ill sister has just been shot dead I thought it a markedly composed response in the circumstances. And for the avoidance of doubt, she was asking for it.

 

Yes, it was one women and a one year old child. BUT, the point I am making is. IT was not on then news at all because it was a Black person. If it was a white women it would be everywhere.
Thats how it is here. NOT the SAME for all.

 

This seems to be a USA website http://www.katenews2day.com/miriam-...te-house-and-shot-dead-by-u-s-capitol-police/

'Washington Post' - surely that's a USA website! http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...94cc24-2ce7-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html

 

Glad you found those for me Scrungee. But, my point I am trying to make is . When I turned the news on since this event. There was NOTHING about her at All, because she was black. Had she been white it would have been all over the news.

 

Do you mean like this? http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/white-widow-samantha-lewthwaite-net-2345714 who apparently was not (proved to be involved), unlike a lot of other people 'of different ethnic origins'.

 

So in summary (and this is me still trying to understand it), it goes like this:

In the US, there are republicans, who, for right or wrong, think its still the colonial days, and the democrats, who are weak because they want to engage people rather than doing what they want. Then there are ordinary folk that don't really think about it too much.

The democrats won, but can't do anything because the republicans use 200+ year old rules to block them at every turn. The republicans can't get their way 100% because again they have to abide by 200+ year old rules, plus they aren't technically in power, so neither side can move. The democrats, who won with the majority of public support, wont and can't back down because they have a legal and morale duty to act in what they believe to be the best interests of the electorate, because it was they that the electorate chose. The republicans, who did not win because they did not have the majority of public support wont back down because they choose to ignore the wishes of the electorate and wish to block the democrats just because they can, and they somehow believe that by completely financially breaking the country they will somehow win more support.

Then you get the ordinary folk I mentioned, who just want to get on with their lives. Probably the majority if the US is anything at all like the UK. They wont look at the details, they most likely wont even look at the headlines. They will just look at who was in power when the country was brought to its knees. That will be Obama and his democrats. They wont consider that maybe the democrats were completely blocked and that the country was held to ransom by the republicans, so come next election, it is a foregone conclusion.

So it seems that if republicans win, republicans rule (and take the US and its allies to war usually). If the democrats win then the republicans hold the country to ransom and block any attempt by the democrats to actually do anything. So in effect there is one party permanently in power in a country that calls itself a democracy. I'd call that a dictatorship.

Have I misunderstood?