Are we simply pawns in a much bigger game?

In my short enough life on this planet I cant help but feel i cant trust any sort of higher power without being told a different story or different "version" of things. I cant help but feel that humans higher up in the chain are simply corrupt by power and will do anything to keep a happy face on things if possible. This site alone contradicts alot of what the world tells us. Is there really a thing called democracy in our govermental systems and do they really make decicions in OUR best intrests. To be honest im tired, tired of being told somthing then being told somthing else thats supposedly the "real" truth. I cant really believe anything anymore without me thinking: "They could be biased" or "That could be propaganda".


Thats just my two cents.

Ill share my humble opinions, but remember this is political so they are just opinions.
Democracy worked 200 years ago when there were maaaaaybe one million people here. It does not work with 300 million. When you have such a saturated population, the only system that can handle the economic load is communism. Unfortunately the pure communistic theory has never been realized, as human greed (the foundation of capitalism) has always found its way in and corrupted the upper levels of "power." Some form of a democratic-communistic hybrid is needed for populations of our size or larger. China is slowly moving in this route, becoming more democratic while remaining communistic at the core. Something where the people still have a say so we dont get screwed by more totalitarians.

Unfortunately you really cant ever believe what youre told unquestionably. Unless you were actually standing there when an event happened, your only getting part of the story, so you have no idea what the whole picture really is, and thus cannot draw conclusions based on what little information that has been conveyed. Saying "they could be biased" or "that could be proganada" is what results from this. You cant know, so you have no choice but to question, especially when so many motives exist for deception.

Corruption is running wild today in this country, yes, but it does not have as great an influence on the people in power who feel they are "right" and everyone that disagrees with them are "wrong." They think they have the God-given authority to dictate what people can and cannot do, think, say, unf, whatever. They think that getting a job that grants power means they actually posess such power. When we demonstrate that they actually do not have true power, they become angry, and act out agressively against us. This has led to riots, domestic terrorism, and ultimately civil war. It will again, I can assure you.

You can easily see this for yourself by telling a typical domineering overzealous cop to go lay with a donkey (using no profanity). This is perfectly legal, and will probably land you a billy club upside the head (have your camera ready). The pig honestly believes that he is special. He went to school and got a job (like everyone else) only his job, which you do NOT have to be special in any way to acquire, carries with it state-granted authority. I say, I gave this man no such authority over my being, so therefore he has none, unless I choose to grant it. Like when I get a speeding ticket. I know I broke the law, so I choose to grant the citing officer the authority to issue me a fine, because it is what I deserve.

I wonder if Ive already made a watch-list somewhere.
The FBI doesnt like me too much, but not for anything homeland security would wanna know about (I think). Oh well, they can bite me... and I bite back.

> hehe short answer to the topic question: no.. our "leaders" are.

[edit on 14-4-2005 by apc]

The problem is this --

Are our government's actions, are our laws in our best interest? Well, yes.

The problem is your definition of "us" and "our."

There are laws that are in our best interest (us businessmen, us rich people, us victims, us political, military, and corporate leaders). There are laws that are in our best intererst (us clergymen, us blue-collar workers, us artists, us inventors). There are laws that are in our best interest (us manipulators, us liars, us criminals, us felons).

One law can't be in everyone's best interest. Laws against homocide aren't in the best interest of murderers, for instance.

The idea is to cater to the majority. The majority of Americans aren't explicit murderers, for instance.

You have to ask yourself if our leaders cater to the majority of the people. Maybe so, but that's declining. Maybe not. Maybe this type of public service never happened. Maybe it's always happening and we're just too simple to take it all in at once and see its virtue at once.

How can you tell, though? Not by recent elections, that's for certain.

Does the government have your best interests at heart? Mostly. You and three hundred million other people. This grand experiment, this democracy, has all of your best interests in heart, and they compromise on each of them almost equally.

Zip

[edit on 14-4-2005 by Zipdot]

Well, Pete, I will say this: you are right to be skeptical, but possibly for the wrong reasons.

The thing is, every single person on Earth has:

• Different interpretations on what they've heard.
  
• Different motivations as to why they want to pass it along.
  
• Different methods of communicating.
  
• A different spin during their communication.
  
• An audience different than themselves.

Everyone. Even your parents and friends. Listen to the way they each tell their side of some humorous story some time

The speaker isn't neccesarily trying to fool you, or spread disinformation, or neccesarily even have some alterior motive to telling you something, but that's still no reason to believe anything anyone tells you. The only way to really get any measure of peace of mind is by looking at all the facts you can, in as broad a scope as possible.

"[Y]ou've put your finger on a major problem: how does one report facts in an unbiased way when the facts themselves are biased? [...] From the names of our fallen soldiers, to the gradual withdrawal of our allies, to the growing insurgency, it's become all too clear that facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda." -- Rob Corddry, dead-panning on The Daily Show

Let's take one example, Israel vs. Palestine. If one bombing occurred, you would get a different story depending on if you listened to Fox News, NPR, BBC, The White House, Israeli Prime Minister, or the government in Palestine.

Now keep in mind that in America, on TV News, they assume that the audience has an average education to an 8th grader, so they're going to dumb down everything. They also have a limited amount of time before moving on to the next story. And they want something flashy, to grab the attention of people. So the story you'll get will look more like a trailer for a Jerry Bruckheimer movie than anything else.

An announcement by the White House will try to be as non-confrontational as possible, and say as little as possible on the subject, while appearing genuinely sorrowful for the victims of this terrible incident.

NPR, on the other hand, will assume their audience cares a lot more about the subject than they actually do, will tug on the heartstrings, and use a lot of verbage, foreign music, and interviews dubbed over in English, until two hours pass and they go into the next program.

The Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims will each have a different filter for the bombing, because of issues that happened between the two during a battle thousands of years ago, and whomever did the bombing will tout it as a victory to their own people, privately, and a trajedy to the victims publicly. The victim country will decry this as an example of why peace can never be, paint the other side as monsters, and will do the best they can to pacify a panicked public.

That's a teenie-tiny microcosm of possible interpretations from one single scenario. In actuality there's thousands of speakers, and for every speaker, there are audiences of thousands or millions who will each take something different away from the same speech.

No one except the bomber will actually know what the full story was, why he/she did it, and what events in history or one's past could bring a human being to kill so many innocent people. Maybe they were a demon, maybe they were an angel, or maybe they were just plain nuts. Everyone will have their opinion, their spin, and their say.

So, in summation: always remain skeptical of anything anyone else says.

(unless it's me, then you should always believe every single word )

Thanks lads. Yeah im pretty much gonna be skeptical to everything i here on the news, read in the papers etc. I mean i doubt that there is (if any) complete truth and fact in a press or goverment release without it being altered even in the slightness.