I don't know how successful they'd be nationally but I know that they were extremely successful in Louisiana. Some of his stuff seems rather like Roosevelt's 'New Deal' but more practical.
DominusNovus said:Well, I can't speak for foreign nations, but labor unions in the US tend to be pretty bad and corrupt on their own, and kinda deserve to be looked down upon. My mother used to have union fees that were about equal to her paycheck (after insurance was taken out). This same union promotes poltical candidates that my mother doesn't support. Hell, my grandfather was a union leader and even he hated unions.
Then there's the mob ties...
I think this (and the great hostility of Americans to antipoverty programs) is ultimately due to racism. The US has a large, poor, and thus disproportionately violence-prone black minority.
Ian, I honestly wonder if you're just unlucky in the people you have met, or whether you had a hostile opinion of the US to begin with and deliberately ignore Americans you meet who don't conform to that opinion. I hate to rain on your parade, but the fact is that most people in the US just don't particularly like people who do things like murder and rape, regardless of whether they're white, black, or whatever shade of color.
Ian Montgomerie said:But while such reactions are found to some extent all over the place, it is the US which actually has a large, obvious racial minority that remains highly segregated and impoverished at the end of the 20th century.
Ian Montgomerie said:Basically race continues to have a big and obvious presence in US society in a way which it doesn't elsewhere.
Ian Montgomerie said:Most Americans think of criminals and poor people as being more different from themselves - darker colored, for starters, though also more urban - than people in other countries do.
Walter_Kaufmann said:Races in America are not segregated. Segregation implies enforcement. Races in America are seperated a lot of the time, yes, but they are not segregated. Also, as for that seperation, it is an almost natural occurence. As long as it doesn't get out of hand (i.e. forced segregation, unjust bias, etc., etc.), it is only natural for human beings (and all natural species for that matter) to congregate into groups based on similarities. Your psychological examples prove this. Just because they congregate into seperate groups, that does not make either "group" racist. .
Walter_Kaufmann said:Nope. That's where your wrong. Every nation has conflict between races simply because those races, generally, have different goals and agendas. Stick two groups with different objectives together for long enough, and you're going to get a fight. It's unstoppable and natural. No matter which group is in the right, they will come into conflict. .
DominusNovus said:Here's an interesting statistic for you guys:
10 years ago,
40% of Americans identified with the Republican Party
49% identified with the Democrat Party
Now,
45.5% of Americans identify with the Republican Party
45.2% of Americans identify with the Democrat Party
Really interesting, considering that the Republicans won Congress 10 years ago.