One can only hope...

How do we know the crack head attacked you? Because you say so?

I don't know what to say to Americans either, and I am one. Most of my fellow citizens have no idea what is happening. They think the world is just as it is presented on the news. And they are so conditioned that America = Awesome, and so take their rights and liberties for granted, they are blind to the state trying to take them away. As I have said before, people think fascism has to look like Nazi Germany and even then it has to look like it does in the movies. It's frustrating and scary to me.

Contrary to popular perception, the DHS can also be used for political control. Remember when the Occupy Wall Street movement was considered a terrorist threat? Remember when students staging a sit-in were pepper sprayed by the police? That's political control right there.

He's been conditioned into a state of fear, just like so many of our fellow citizens. Now everyone is watching what they say and do and jumping at their own shadows. You know, like in any free country...

Legalizing marijuana and hemp would actually solve a lot of problems though. As you say we could stop locking all these people up for a mostly harmless activity. But it would also open up hemp as an industrial resource. As I'm sure you know hemp is useful for all kinds of stuff from textiles to paper to seed oil and meal. It grows fast and has little need for pesticides. But we can't grow it domestically because of our stupid prohibition.

The US cannot go the way of Greece because the US can print it's own money. Greece can go bankrupt while the US cannot. On the other hand, the US can inflate its currency into oblivion.

Right, because everyone is, or should have been an investor. Or do you realize that not everyone has an extra $137 a month or the wherewithal to invest it successfully? Douchebag...

Do you know the purpose of the House of Representatives?

And then they blame the "liberals"...

I can understand your sentiment, but I have news for you. We are being managed by an elite already. They are the people sit on corporate boards and in executive suites and make decisions about what will be made, marketed and sold and how it will be done. They lobby congress and write "draft" legislation. They fund think tanks and foundations to shape policy and public opinion. They move in and out of government to make sure government and industry play nicely together.

Through PR and advertising you are already being told what to buy and eat, what to value and who to vote for. You are given a limited range of ideas to choose from in politics and can vote for Coke or Pepsi in every election. The major news media tell you about what goes on in the world, and you have no choice but to trust them even though you know that the message is being spun and massaged and they are leaving out the parts that are embarrassing to our government or against the narrative. I mean, do we really know who the rebels are in Syria and why we are supporting them?

The difference between this and what is envisioned in Zeitgeist (for the record, I find the idea of a resource based economy intriguing, but do not fully endorse it) is that in Zeitgeist they are open about what they are doing and why. And they advocate it for the betterment of everyone. You may not agree, and I don't agree with all of it either. But what we have now is a covert means of manipulating and influencing people's thoughts and opinions. It is being done for the benefit of a very few, not for everyone. And most people, by design, aren't aware that it is going on. We are already being managed. But instead of doing it by sustainable scientific principles, it's being done for power and profit.

Clearly he needs to contact John Titor. I hear he's good at retrieving obsolete hardware.

Stopping the Holocaust was not really the reason the US entered the war. The public reason was that we were attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. The real reasons are up for debate. But this is a good object lesson in the use of history classes to reinforce the idea that America = Awesome. Unfortunately history is as often about making one's country look good as relating what really happened way back when.

You may be sure, but if that's the case I will be calling bullshit along with the rest of the AARP. I have been paying into SS, and I'd better get the benefit when I'm older. I know there's this meme out there that SS is unfunded and unaffordable, but that too is bullshit. It's a choice. We can easily fund SS indefinitely and pay the promised benefits if we choose to.

New York has a city tax as well. I don't know the current rate, as I haven't lived there in a while. But the parent likely pays that as well.