Biggest problem in the U.S. today, in your opinion.

[bertha katzenengel]

I don't usually read the lounge much. Today I posted what turned out to be (so far) a pretty unpopular opinion. I don't care about validating my POV; I want to know what GD regulars think is the biggest problem in the U.S. today.

You're all intelligent enough to see sub-categories in everything below, but I split two categories out, as you see.

Obviously there isn't enough room for all of our problems. I'm not even leaving space out for "other." If you have an "other," don't vote - just post it.

In alpha order:

[Arugula Latte]

1. Boy, that was tough to pick one.

I went with the media (news -- or lack of news and distorted news, I should say) because if the mainstream media would do its damn job we wouldn't have to put up with things like stolen elections and illegal wars. They would be nipped in the bud.

[jenmarie]

5. Exactly.

If mainstream America knew what we knew, the bush cabal would have been thrown out long ago. Corporate owned/controlled press is killing us.

Our republic and its press will rise and fall together.
- Joseph Pulitzer

[unkachuck]

10. corporate....

....owned/controlled 'everything' is killing us.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

2. HANDS DOWN THE MEDIA.

With an honest, open, intellectual, factual, professional, passionate, brave, up-front, well reasoned media, our Democracy would thrive. There can be no assault on reason without the media bringing the propaganda of such an assault to the public realm.

The media is not only complicit, they are the primary engine.

[BlooInBloo]

3. Which category is for: Stupid, mean, bigoted, hopeless electorate?

[bertha katzenengel]

4. I think we have your "other."

:hi:

[TahitiNut]

6. A tuned-out, anti-social, slothful, pridefully ignorant electorate who've abdicated democracy.

Not a single issue in that list would be an issue if the people of this country didn't value gas guzzlers, fast food, and teevee more than our own liberties and integrity.

"I got mine so fuck you!" should be engraved on all our money - while it lasts.

[Selatius]

7. I am surprised few singled out the nexus between Corporate Power and State Power, the elections.

In our country, a person who is supported by wealthy interests has a better chance at winning an election than one who is supported by no such wealthy interests. Workers can't donate as much money as robber barons. One industrialist could donate as much as several hundred times the amount a typical worker could donate.

There must be fundamental electoral reforms in this country for it to avoid becoming a dictatorship of the corporation.

[IChing]

11. well, we both Know that my friend

the youth know that too.

[Fox Mulder]

8. Health Care.

[IChing]

9. Other....Corporatism

Fascism and control.

[lpbk2713]

12. The damage done by six + years of the BushCo regime.

It's a pretty broad answer but he is surely the root cause of all our major problems that we face today.

[Mojambo]

13. Consumerism = Our National Character.

And it shows...

[Phredicles]

14. I had to go with global warming - it could have the direst consequences,

even though my pet causes are single payer health care and public financing of elections.

[Tsiyu]

15. My youngest son and I discussed this

and he immediately said, "The Media. Because all they tell us are lies. They never tell us the actual truth and I am tired of it."

He is thirteen and I was surprised at this answer.

I chose Poverty and Homelessness.

The reason is that the other categories basically speak to how we organize ourselves.

Poverty and homelessness speak to how we actually are surviving on the most basic human level. They are a gauge of how little or how much we care about our fellow man.

If we don't care that a mother has food to eat and a roof over her head, why would we care about whether or not her children were educated..... or care that the air she breathes is clean...... or worry if her pension will hold value or fret over what TV shows she watches?

Or concern yourself with a bomb blowing her up?

[nolabels]

16. Your son is identifying the one arm of the monster he can see...

Though i would think it would be rather better to study how it operates rather than lash out at it. With the knowledge of how it all operates it will be easier to defeat. We could conceivably disable or dismember this part corporate media, but the thing would only grow another one, just like most any unwanted weed. Making the earth unfertile or too unstable for the establish more parts of itself is what will be needed first, estimation wise anyway :shrug:

[Yupster]

17. Other - overpopulation

More a world problem than a US one, but overpopulation is behind most of our planet's problems today.

We can all reduce our resource use by 1 % a year, but if the population grows by 2 % we're in big trouble long term.

The even bigger problem is that first world citizens use maybe 100 times more resources than third world citizens. When a third world citizen becomes a first world citizen, resource use goes up enormously, and that is happening even quicker than the birthrate.

I would suggest the book "Collapse" by Jared Diamond (wrote Guns, Germs and Steel." Collapse is a study of societies in the past which have collapsed and why. We're in a lot of trouble. There is a real pattern to collapsing societies, and one of the disquieting finds was that societies often collapse very quickly and violently, only a few years from their peaks.

[marions ghost]

25. absolutely

overconsumption and overpopulation.

Everybody should see "Idiocracy." So funny I forgot to laugh.

[JTG of the PRB]

18. Very, very difficult... I had to go with the Media...

... because they're closest to what I think is the BIGGEST problem in the nation today - ignorance.

For the most part, we are an ignorant society - ignorant of what's going on in the world at large, ignorant of other ways of life, and ignorant of the problems staring us in the face when we wake up every single morning. The MSM is a HUGE part of spreading and propagating this ignorance, but they're not entirely to blame. People are reading less, and they're thinking less.

We all know what happens when people stop thinking... George W. Bush gets elected for not only one, but TWO terms as President of the united States of America.

I mean, all the voter tampering and election stealing pulled off by Bush and his RNC cronies didn't help any either, but come ON America... George W. Bush? Twice? SERIOUSLY?!

[Crunchy Frog]

19. Corporatism.

It's kind of an umbrella that encompasses everything else.

[orleans]

20. how many can i vote for? (i didn't vote in your poll--can't decide which is worse) n/t

[foreigncorrespondent]

21. Bertha...

...you chose all really good topics, but unfortunately I could only vote for one, and chose health care. This is because I know far too many people in the U.S. including someone who was once very near and dear to me, who currently have no form of health care whatsoever. Given the fact I am currently sporting a broken leg at 39. Unable to work for six weeks as a result of that broken leg. I am more than glad my country does provide health care for low income earners. I would hate to think what many in the U.S. would face, given if they found themselves in my position.

[ThomWV]

22. Education, or the lack thereof

[nolabels]

23. The idea behind word holistic is not hollow and that is the scary part

The thing is all those ideas have real meaning to all people to different degrees regardless if they know about them or not. Our problems might or might not be something we can see,identify or sense. We might even be each others collective problem. This strange thing man has called belief is grown to an intense level in our evolution. It is actually the most radical thing to ever appear in such pure form on earth ever. The astonishing feats so many of earth's creatures accomplish through instinct is also part of belief. This thing, belief can be dissected and altered but it cannot be separated from the being while it is still alive.

I would say our biggest problem is belief, or lack of it. The thing known as belief is a very volatile quantity. It couldn't be measured ever but seems to fluctuate in all sorts of manner. It maybe even that our tiny little world, earth, has too much of it and is having a difficult time accommodating it. The ironic and improbable happens because the predictable and slow steady of gravity also works. We don't know enough about anything but we also have the ability to kill. Not just kill, but extinguish most life forms known as species here on earth.

We give ourselves too much credit and not enough, all at the same time, through this thing known as belief. It's really a scary thing if you think about it, this thing known as belief.

[IDemo]

24. #11 - Peak Oil

[genie_weenie]

26. The biggest problem is the WARMONGERING but,

the issues which are the pillars of the warmongers are the lack of media and runaway governmental unaccountability.

Why not vote for 84 billion for government contracts to Blackwater and Boeing? Most congressmen are not going to be voted out of office?
Why not be Rod Blagovich and have an airplane fly you down from the Chicagoland suburbs to Springfield every work day instead of staying where the plebians live?
Why not lie about the war and claim "progress" is being made? Which member of the media is going to point out the facts and risk being blackballed by the plutocratic elite in DC?