How has the U.S. changed in the last 8 years?

This line of discussion has, obviously, been on my mind a lot today. And it's interesting to see the similar discussions that have been spawned in various other places. Reading the Cafferty File question of the day a bit ago, the sentiment that we've changed quite a lot seems to be rather rampant. The question is... how do you feel we've changed? Are we more united? Divided? Stronger? Weaker? And more importantly... what needs to happen to move us forward?

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"Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence" - Amiel

"The beginning of thought is in disagreement -- not only with others but also with ourselves" - Hoffer
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I am so sick of hearing all the blame game that goes on. Putting all your stock into one single person is crazy.

'Bush did this, Bush did that and now we are miserable it’s his entire fault'. 'Obama is Great He will fix this nation He will take care of everything' (or the exact opposite). It all feels so un-American.

Whatever happened to personal responsibility, strength, individuality, consequences for actions, and standards for the individual actually being a worthy standard, the struggle to succeed making the success worth the struggle...uh I forgot where I was going.

It is up to the Americans to control their government and to work hard to fix this country so we can all have a chance again (i don't mean redistribution but hard work and Earnings), not the president or congress, but the people. To think that anyone person, especially someone classified as government, can fix anything for a place this large diverse and free without taking a toll on freedom is really very nuts.

We have become a bunch of spoiled brainless brats expecting everything from everyone but ourselves and never taking responsibility for anything that happens. This country was built for the people to be wise and control the tasking of the gov, to know what is going on based on the premises that critical thinking would be encouraged and that effort was natural endowment and it would not be forgotten. How quick we forget.

Sometimes it really feels like we are sheeple neh-ing for another meal not willing to wonder from our cozy corner.

On a side note (not that the spew above made any sense) I saw a bumper sticker that said 'Jesus was a Socialist'

There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.~- Anais Nin

Some things are worse, some are better. I think its good that we are more aware of the world around us, but at the same time I think we are less connected to the people close to us. We text and e-mail as opposed to going to visit people or just hang out to meet new people. But we have gotten smarter, I think, in a lot of ways.

Like what you've read? Well, then here's more:
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711

I don't think America can really move forward at this point and time as we're so divided. Like it or not one has to realize that Obama is trying to balance a socialist system with a capitalist one, which, to me doesn't seem like it could work. And even if it could, all the nay sayers wouldn't let it work. I mean, surely you guys heard about Rush Limbaugh trying to sabotage Baracks presidency or something like that? Man I hate Rush Limbaugh. Also i was told that Obama's approval rating is lower than Bush's ever was, which astounds me. All in all I think Amrica is going to collapse eventually just like all empires do.

Thinking too much about life can drive a person crazy...

"The question is... how do you feel we've changed?"

The most important change in the past eight years is that the average person on this planet is becoming better informed.

"Are we more united? Divided?"

Definitely more divided in the USA politically. About 20 years ago Rush Limbaugh saw a niche for a conservative counter point to a liberal leaning media which at least pretended to be impartial. Today, led by his (bad) example that pretense is gone and the spinning of news is blatantly practiced from all quarters.

"Stronger? Weaker?"

Individually we are weaker, and collectively we are stronger.

"And more importantly... what needs to happen to move us forward?"

We should strive to preserve the freedom of every individual to choose, and more importantly strive for, whatever constitutes a 'better' future in their own eyes.

"It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true."
- William James

The United States has been on a downward path for the last 30 years and perhaps since the end of World War II. It is an us against them mentality that is getting more and more polarised.

The Religious Right and the Moral Majority have created a farm system that indoctrinates from birth to grave. It began with the first 24/7 hour religion stations and with the massive fund raising capabilities that these stations were able to raise it went into several different pools. Fundamental political advocacy, fundamental Christian education from pre kindergarten to universities. When Reagan deregulated the FCC and took most of its teeth away it paved the way for unbalanced and heavily biased reporting.

If the look at Nixon's Southern Strategy we can see that he picked the most volatile group of persons to bring the Republican Party back to victory. What I mean by volatile is the persons that were most against the Civil Rights Acts of the 60s.

It is like LBJ said with the passing of the Civil Rights Act the democrats lost the South. Originally he said it was for a generation, but that generation has come and passed.

If we look back a little bit further in the 1950s at the height of Mc Carthy we see the introduction of "One Nation Under God" introduce into the pledge.

The us against them mentality has been deeply embedded into the cultural fabric of the United States for at least the last 50 years, and it is getting progressively worse.

What we are seeing currently in the United States is a return to the era of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Obama is Nazi, Obama is Socialist, Obama was born in Kenya, and so on and so forth. We have preachers actively praying for the death of Obama. We have a group of people taken loaded guns to town halls. We have groups of people going to town halls to scream so long no discussion can be heard.

The United States is travelling down a very dangerous path.