Unemployment, and so on

[kandrathe]

Haha, yes I also agree with this. But lets just take one of your points. ''''If you donate to a political campaign, you are ineligible to enter into government contracts.''''''
But let's be realistic. In the US FITs armed revolution will happen before this will happen.

The beginning of change is for people to have a common vision of what that change would look like. So long as people don't believe the change is possible, it will be undermined by that type of pessimism. There is a role for pragmatism in assessing whether a certain reform is possible, or whether we are merely tilting at windmills. Generally, with all these reforms, what is needed is to separate out the enforcement and oversight of these conflicts of interest from the oversight of those committing them. The beautiful part of the US system lies in its separation of powers, and not just at the federal level, but also as a republic in sharing power with States. So, I'm suggesting that the federal government branches need to be more accountable to the States. The federal Attorney General, who is charged with upholding the law, needs to have the power to root out corruption in the Congress, and the Congress has the power to write the law. But, also the states can adopt laws governing the corruption of people and corporation in their states.

It has been said many times here, in the US there is socialism for the rich and it will take an armed conflict to end this.

I don't believe that. But, I would predict the continued flight of capital toward places that are less restrictive. So... the problem really is "How to make the US less imperialistic?" I was struck by a quote recently in discussing our interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and looking at our policy toward Iran developing nuclear weapons; "The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims, while incidentally capturing their markets; to civilise savage and senile and paranoid peoples, while blundering accidentally into their oil wells." - Flynn, John T. (1944) As We Go Marching. p.240

It is the same as in Italy....Ok Berlusconi will quit now, but I doubt a lot will change. A proposal to bring down the salaries and pension schemes of parlementarians (they have the highest compensations and work the least in the whole of europe) only got support from a few people from the party (Italia dei Valori) that filed this proposal (not even everybody from that party agreed). So even the (ex) communists voted against this proposal.......and I can tell you.....politicians in Italy make a lot of money......slicing their salaries in half would still be really nice for them.

Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Ireland stand out with very high debt to GDP ratios, made worse by a struggling economy. Our politicians are not necessarily over paid (they are well paid, and have great benefits). For awhile, until the trend is reversed, I would favor term limits to return government to a more service focus (like serving in the military). It would help to disrupt the potential for decades of corruption and favoritism. You would see more exposure of influence peddling (e.g. Blago, Delay, Rangel, or Abramoff), since there would need to be collusion to transfer arrangements from one black sheep to the next.

Can you imagine....the population is being extortioned by the political class and even are brainwashed so much they can't even vote them away!! Well brainwashing plus of course 'the Italian dream' which says that if you support people higher up on the social ladder than you some money will flow your way eventually. I think the American political class is very much comparable with the only difference that in the US they are already rich when the go into politics while in Italy people usually get rich once they go into politics.

Brainwashed? No. Deceived, and propagandized, yes. We all need to scrutinize how "these" people are getting elected, and change what "we" are doing. Unless they are stuffing the ballot boxes (which I wouldn't put past them), they still require us to elect them into office.

The suffering of the people (in the US, Greece, Italy, wherever) will force them to participate in higher numbers. The Tea Party, the Occupy movement, the protests in Greece, and Italy, are a reflection of that pain. Hungry children create revolutionaries, not new ideologies. Abused citizens will eventually take to the streets, and contribute their money and effort to defeating the incumbents. Sometimes incumbents like Rangel, or Berlusconi, are not ousted when they've been caught abusing their power.

Generally, I like to have a vision of how it could be, then figure out what prevents that vision from becoming a reality. Political parties are a part of the problem in that they tend to put forward a candidate who is best for the party's interests, and not one that is best for the people.