So how did it happen that the vast majority of us have no say in

[Doctor_J]

how we are governed? Almost 3/4 disapprove of Smirk, 2//3 think the country is headed in the wrong direction, and yet there is no change in the way things are done. What happened? This has to be the prelude to the end of the American Experiment.

[CrispyQ]

1. Television & shopping malls. --nt

[ixion]

2. our republic of, by and for the people is now none of the above

sad to say.

I don't think there has been accurate representation in this country in more than 50 years.

[CrispyQ]

6. Since 1886, actually.

Yes, corporate personhood was a HUGE blow to WE THE PEOPLE. Unequal protection for artificial beings that we created.

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/

[AtomicKitten]

3. gerrymandering, election fraud, no oversight in Congress

[Redstone]

5. Gerrymandering! Thanks for pointing that out. It's a BIG evil

in America's politics, and does not get NEAR the attention that it should.

Redstone

[AtomicKitten]

7. And it will make re-taking the House and Senate tough

when in light of the current polling it should be very easy, and that certainly does not reflect the will of the people - just the will of career politicians.

[Redstone]

8. Don't I know that. I live in a state (Connecticut) that has the

country's finest incumbent-protection plan...

Redstone

[joemurphy]

4. Well don't forget Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and

there are big questions about the electoral vote in 2004.

We don't control the Senate or the House. This might change a little in the next go-round though. The American Experiment is alive and well. We experimented with Bush and that Experiment is about to end.

[crickets]

9. Media consolidation

and changes in FCC regulations including abolishment of the Fairness Doctrine, corporate personhood (excellent point, CrispyQGirl), media commercialization where news departments were no longer seen as a social responsibility but as potential profit centers, poor education, media news coverage transformed into infotainment, gerrymandering, media dictating public opinion by outright statement rather than just surreptitious and sleazy suggestion, pork barrel politics, media, lobbyists, media, bribes and corruption, media that pretends to be informative conversation when it's really just a rigged debate with a predeterminded loser, general dumbing down of public discourse, media, one more time for the LOBBYISTS and the PORK, media...

Mike really handed "journalists" their hind ends tonight. They made their own beds. Boo hoo. Welcome to the pot where the rest of the boiling frogs live, suckers.