You shouldn't trust your government, it's a rogue state: it consistently is (along with it's lap-dop, Israel) the only country that votes against UN resolutions which try and reinforce the basic human rights in the Geneva Conventions. The US has been breaking international law for decades, your presidents are war criminals. It has invaded and attacked Latin American countries like Uruguay, Panama, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Chile and El Salvador (amongst others) and instituted dictators in those countries whom oppress it's people. Big corporations then swoop into those countries and profit off the cheap labour and resources they produce. James Madison said that the purpose of democratic society is to "protect the minority of the opulent against the majority" and that the state should be controlled by the "wealth of the Nation" i.e. so-called "democratic" countries should be ran by wealthy businessmen: plutocrats. It has been that way and has only been getting worse.
However, having said that, you can have an influence over your government. You can't have a say in the activities of the giant corporations that govern world affairs; they are perfect tyrannies. The government, however, is not a perfect tyranny because it is potentially democratic i.e. if you, the workers of the country, organise and protest then you can have a say in your government and can change it.
To the poster above me who is under the illusion that Obama is a socialist: The most basic tenet of socialism is that the means of production (the factories, the workshops, all land, tools and materials that produces wealth) should be collectively owned such that there is no class divide between people who own the means of production (Capitalists or "bourgeoisie") forcing the working class (or "proletariat") to work for them through an oppressive and exploitative system of wage-labour that transfers wealth upwards (to the Capitalists) causing further class divide and wealth inequalities and so on. Has Obama done anything that suggests anything of this sort? No, of course he hasn't, in fact he brings in reforms that further benefit the Capitalists. The biggest protectionist (i.e. Capitalist-supporting) presidents have been republicans: like Nixon. The US economy goes, and has always gone, like this: massive protection for the rich, free-market discipline for everybody else. The state subsidises the rich all the time, if a big business goes down it's YOU the public who have to pay for it in taxes. The big businesses take NONE OF THE RISKS and get ALL THE PROFITS. All that risk taking that the public has been taking has led to the mass unemployment/redundancy: the likeliness of bankruptcy has increased significantly in the last couple of decades. American families spend less and food and less on clothes (etc.) now than they did in 1976. In 1976 11% of an average families income went towards savings, the average America family today has 0% in savings. Wealth is moving upwards. Obama isn't changing that.
The US has one of the worst health-care systems in the world. It has a worse health-care system than Cuba. Do you know how much wealthier the US is than Cuba? It's ridiculous that American health-care is so bad. France has the best health-care system in the world and that's because the public put it in the hands of their government rather than let it be controlled by tyrannical business owners which care more about profits than people's lives. If the US government provides Universal health-care that is poor the public will protest and force the government to provide better health-care, which it can afford. If health-care remains in the hands of business then it doesn't matter how sick you are, if you can't pay up then it's tough-luck.
Your media is controlled by wealthy Capitalists. Your news is propaganda fed to you by the bourgeoisie class. There is no "liberal media", the media that Fox News talks about certainly isn't "liberal". As long as you let these news programmes control your opinions, whether that news programme calls themselves "liberal" or "conservative" ("conservative" being far-right and "liberal" being more centre-right), you won't have any real freedom or control over your lives. These news programmes want you to keep thinking about golfers having sex so you aren't thinking about people dying in wars, people dying because they can't afford health-care, people losing their jobs because of a ridiculous economy etc. They want you to think that it's "commies" and "terrorists" and "socialists" etc. that are causing all your problems. They want you to argue over abortion and gay marriage so as to keep you distracted. They want you to hate your government and your president so that you become more and more distrustful of the only institution that you can potentially control!They want you to hate each other to prevent you from turning against the real cause of your problems: "the minority of the opulent", "the wealth of the nation."
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