How Much Longer Can America Continue In This Direction?

There are so many problems with this country right now that I don't even know where to begin.

Our massive debt- We are somewhere over $14 trillion dollars in debt right now. Let me write that out for you, $14,000,000,000,000. I heard that it would take somewhere around $2000 from every person in the world to get us back in the green. But instead of the President taking action and trying to save this country from a complete catastrophe, he's on CNN poking fun at the people who believe he's not an American citizen. Can somebody inform me as to what exactly he has done to reverse our national debt? Literally anything he has done, even creating 20 jobs at a Wendy's would be a good start. (Not a rhetorical question, but from what I've been seeing/hearing he has not been creating jobs) On top of our unfathomable national debt, food/oil prices are skyrocketing along with unemployment being pretty high too.

Wars- We are currently fighting wars that do not affect a single American citizen. Taxpayer money is being spent doing something that does not even remotely benefit the people funding it, call me crazy but I feel like taxpayer money should be used to help the country out, especially considering how bad of shape we are in right now. Didn't Obama promise to get all of our troops out of the Middle East? Not only did he lie about that, but he also chose to spend millions of dollars bombing Libya. Now that I think about it I can't even remember why were went into the Middle East in the first place, the only thing I can think of is revenge for 9/11, which is not exactly a mature motive.

Unnatural Disasters- The Gulf Oil Spill- Even though there are not any serious, immediate effects from it, I still believe that one of these days we're going to get hit hard, whether that is from the oil slowly making it's way up the food chain to us, or from the thousands of gallons of harmful Corexit they dumped on top of that oil. There have been some recent reports buzzing around ATS about people involved in the clean-up who were getting sick, and they all had similar illnesses. One of them that I remember involved some lady whose entire body became enflammed and bruised. Another thread I read about involved hundreds of people from a community near the Gulf who were all getting sick and their cries for help were being ignored.

Crazy Weather- The tornadoes that have been hammering the states just seem unnaturally devastating. I hate to bring up 2012 here, but don't you guys remember hearing "In the years leading up to 2012, you will notice a steady increase in dangerous weather" or something along those lines? Well, whether it's involved with 2012 or not, it's happening. Hundreds of people have been killed by all those tornadoes, and they've been popping up in areas where they've almost never been seen like in the middle of cities.

Clown-Like-Politicians- America has just about hit rock bottom when it comes to politics. The front runners for the 2012 presidential campaign are Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. Take a minute to absorb the stupidity involved in that. There is a good chance that in less than two years, either one of the stupidest women not just in politics but out of the entire American population, or some guy who has his own TV show and an ego the size of his bank vault is going to be running this country.

Constitutional Rights Getting **** On- It seems like every there's always some new issue involving our Constitutional rights being tossed aside and forgotten about. TSA airport security is groping your 7 year old sons testicles because some terrorists ALLEGEDLY hi-jacked a plane and impossibly blew up the World Trade Centers 10 years ago, and now we're all paying for it by being forcibly molested every time we want to go see our grandparents. It's now illegal to videotape police officers who are there to "Protect and Serve" (Even though ironically 90% of people get nervous when they see a cop as opposed to feeling safe and protected), but it's completely OK for them to videotape your DUI stop and humiliate you by putting it on COPS. Remember that guy being arrested for making a joke during a police arrest? Those cops might as well have stolen the Constitution and used it as toilet paper. I'm lame and those are the only examples I can think of, can anybody else help out?

A Steadily Increasing Population Of Idiots- Do I even need to elaborate here? A good portion of Americans care more about the new Gaga/Beiber song and the Royal Wedding than all of the problems with this country. In fact I guarantee that a quarter of the population can name a dozen Lady Gaga songs, Jersey Shore characters, or iPod Apps, but cannot name 8 of this countries past Presidents. Ask 5 random people what is at the center of the universe, and probably 1 or 2 of them will say we are. Even with access to new technology, I feel like people are just becoming stupider. I can't be the only one that sees it. Music, television, and just overall priorities are becoming more materialistic and popularity based. New music sucks. New TV shows suck. New presidents suck.

I feel like every day a new problem is added to the dogpile of issues with this country. One day, this country will be so deep in problems that we're just going to crumble, and every day brings us closer to the inevitable. Can any of you honestly say that in the direction America is going, we can continue functioning for another 50 years? 10 years? 5 years? Maybe December 21, 2012 is the date where America's countless problems implode on themselves. Maybe we'll somehow pull through the dark days, reverse our debt, create millions of jobs, create some honest and hard-working presidents, create some deep and meaningful music, and create an educational system that does not leave people thinking about their popularity and appearance at the end of the day. Following our current path I cannot see this country lasting another 10 years without erupting into total chaos.

I don't see us having the rest of this year myself......I honestly believe we are through.......

Yeah, we're screwed big time. You forgot the sharp rise of inflation on necessities, such as food and gas to get to work.

I agree with caj... with the way things are going I don't see us making it to the end of the year. Russia last fall/winter ordered 1000 new underground bunkers to be FINISHED by November 1st. Makes you wonder what the hurry is...

reply to post by tinker9917


Yeah I touched up on that topic in the debt section, but it's definitely one of the many major problems with this country right now. Russia's building underground bunkers you say? If nuclear war breaks out I just hope I'll be in the blast zone so my death is quick and painless

I think we are just about done. Either dictatorship or anarchy, one or the other will be coming very soon imo.

reply to post by TupacShakur


Not Long . 3 Out of Every 100 Americans may have a chance of Survival when the Economy and our Present way of Life finally Collapses if they are Smart enough to become Aware and Prepare for the Tribulations that are in place that will Test all of their Resolve . The others are Doomed to perish by their own Denial and Stupidity . Hopefully from the Ashes of this Drastic Change there will be a New Generation that WILL NOT Forget the Mistakes of the Past and Fight Tooth and Nail to Preserve their Freedoms that TPTB want to take away from them by Force .



www.youtube.com...

reply to post by TupacShakur


America is screwed if you continue on the same destructive path. You can't spend more than you bring in, that's a rule to all businesses. America is nothing but a big corporation so the rules don't differ. You have all these programs that can't be sustained because the retiring population is wayyy bigger than the working population. So the debt will keep on increasing until no other country will lend to feed the addiction.

Of course once that happens America's economy will get a jolt because every time America is bankrupt a big war erupts.

Just saw a press conference or whatever with Obama, and instead of talking about how to solve the problems with the country, he's decided once again to focus on the issue of whether he was born in the US or not. Instead of telling us how he's going to get us out of debt, he was seriously cracking jokes about Matt Damon. YOU'RE NOT A COMEDIAN OBAMA, YOUR THE PRESIDENT!

If he gets re-elected, that will be comparable to Bush being re-elected, which was pretty terrible. As of now it looks like our president is going to be Obama, Palin, or Trump next year.

In 2001, the national debt was somewhere around 5.7 trillion dollars, compared to over 14 trillion dollars in 2011. How can our debt increase by almost 10 trillion dollars in only ten years? That's almost a trillion dollar increase in debt every year! I find that completely unbelievable, and I had no idea it was even possible to even begin spending anywhere near that amount of money in just a single year.

Obviously we can't keep up the punishment much longer. We have to pull our troops back home, we have to shut most foreign bases, we have to cut social programs, we have to increase taxes, we have to protect the middle and lower classes by forcing the massive wealth of our corporations to distributed more reasonably and we have to stop playing games and get down to business now or we might as well do nothing.

reply to post by TupacShakur


We spend more than twice that as a matter of standard practice.. We will spend about 4 trillion this year dealing with wars and bailouts.

2.5 trillion in tax revenue and we borrow like mad men.

reply to post by Fiberx


I agree, but sadly very few of those things are going to happen anytime soon IMO. Pull our troops back home? Psh, didn't Obama promise that he would get our troops out of the Middle East? Where's the 'change' we were promised? Increase taxes and equally distribute wealth? Come on, what is this, the land of equality and freedom? Like the old saying goes, the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. I'm all for getting down to business and fixing some of the problems with this country before its too late and we pass the point of no return (which I believe we passed a few years ago), but with Palin, Trump, or four more years of absolutely no change with Obama, that will never happen. If only politics wasn't dependent on who has the most money, that way the honest Americans who care about the future of this country could become president just as easily as the rich fat-cat who wants to read a teleprompter and pretend to care about the people.

reply to post by TupacShakur


honestly this is not only USA i'm in france and people are the same, they talk only about money fame and lady gaga, they are full of real tv and people start to be very conservative and nationalist, food price is very hight, music is boring, movies are boring, book are boring... they are blind and i also notice that people start to act strangely, like they show only there bad side or they do not have anymore any complex to be mean and specialy the younger.

so whatever happen i hope it will be fast and painless for me too

reply to post by pitchdragon


I guess not just Americans but society as a whole is becoming stupider and their priorities are all mixed up. I almost never have conversations about space, the universe, death and what it might be like, extraterrestrial life, or any other topics like that, but every day people are talking about the new terrible song that they "love". Nobody even seems to care about anything that doesn't involve....being stupid, if that makes sense. It's all about partying, listening to terrible music (as I've mentioned like 47 times in this thread lol), talking about stupid things, watching terrible TV shows like "Dancing With The Stars", "American Idol", or "The Real World". You want the real world? You're living in it, enjoy it before you're dead. Where's the TV show where we find a person who thinks they can solve the nuclear meltdown in Japan, or we find a person who can stop an oil spill before we have to resort to dumping deadly chemicals in our oceans? Why aren't people interested in shows like 'The Universe'? Maybe I'm a little biased because that's just what I'm interested in, but how can the creation of the universe and everything within it not be interesting to people? Billions of galaxies each containing hundreds of billions of stars, supernovae, stars burning at millions of degrees, light taking thousands of years to reach us, how galaxies form, how stars die, and all that stuff simply is not interesting to people anymore it seems. Most people I talk to about college want to major in something that will get them "lots of money", what ever happened to spending your life doing what you enjoy? Is money and material possessions all that matters to people now? Because to many people that's all that seems important.

reply to post by TupacShakur


You are correct about the $2000.00 worldwide figure for each person to pay off our debt but the real figure that each citizen owes to pay off the debt in the U.S. as the debt clock tics is $46060.53 and by the way once I type this figure in it has gone up up up. The correct title of this thread should read (How Much Longer Can America Continue In This Misdirection?). I do appreciate your concerns about where the U.S. is headed and bringing your thoughts to the ATS table. ^Y^

reply to post by TupacShakur


your question are very important and you put the finger on it, why people don't look more often at the sky ?
because evreything was made for that...this is more than just a conspiracy theory, if I could ask three questions and be certain that I will know the answer would be this

1-why the money was spent to wage war does not serve it out to conquer space or medical issue, if all efforts were concentrated between countries to build a common project inftead to be divided and without necessarily benefit only for his country to show how they are powerful then the others, we would now perhaps even more in advance in our time.

2- why the religion are made for, people are more devided now then ever and most of time they fight for power or religion.we are always at the same stage for centuries, some say there was an evolution, but personally I can not see them. we always finish before the wall issue, which has the largest religion ...personaly i don"t care about the religion, i care more about the real value people stand for as a human.

3-why everything is done to ensure that we doubt instead of being clear ...

people who say i see too much conspiracy i will tell them answer me at those question and i will stop to doubt
because right now everything is done to ensure that this world falls into chaos.

reply to post by pitchdragon


I totally agree with you about countries uniting instead of dividing. We're the human race, not the American race, the German race, the Japanese race, so why do we treat each other like we're from different planets? Like you said if we focused our efforts on working towards a common goal, for example exploring space, solving world hunger/poverty, or getting rid of diseases, rather than killing each other and competing, who knows how advanced we would be as a civilization.

With religion, I just wish people would do some logical thinking and consider how delusional and irrational the idea of a higher power is. I have a thread over the flaws I see in religion if you want to check it out.

On your third point, I don't exactly understand what you're asking, care to explain?