When you have to have the capability to change you might then qualify to criticize another countries politics.
Voting isn’t compulsory in the USA that means we don’t get by on donkey vote like Australia, we actually care to vote.
Local government does the largest amount of work in the states not I the backhanded gimme a dollar for my junket to investigate the truth that Bali’s hotels are better than Australia’s manipulation of the council powers, prevalent in oz.
Local council is televised to ensure that everything’s above board. You know like transparency of government.
When a bill is accepted it goes to the people for ratification, not the immediate rush it through parliament during the 44 days a year that they sit, and then tack every other unpopular law with it they can.
You want change in Australia?
you will be holding your breath longer than I. FACT not opinion!

America has its own special problems, these problems are embedded in their own constitution. Not even Obama can fix the problems they face.
Low wages for afros; well that is up to their employer to address, but people being people that won't happen.
The forfront of American problems is being to free. They can not make laws that even out, the difference between black and white wages. It's against the constitution.
They didn't think black Americans would ever be free people at the time of making the constitution.

We must not be upset by tomasfromtacoma, like others he comes here loaded for bear, to insult and shout.
See no one in real life will stay long in conversation, just walking away.
We are his/her captured audience, we bound by manners, and intent on open discussion are fuel for the fire.
Say something controversial bloke, we can then have an augment.
Well no, we cannt, not worth the effort.

Sociologist Ian Robertson in his text, "Sociology,"
offers the following facts:

"Blacks are unique among minorities in that
they came to the US as slaves and were denied
basic civil rights until the 1960s."

"Moreover, they have traditionally been a people
of the rural South who began to migrate to large
cities, mostly in the North, only a generation or so
ago."

"Blacks have thus been isolated from the economic
mainstream for most of their history in the US, and
in this sense are relatively "recent," unskilled
immigrants to the industrialized areas of the nation."

"But, unlike immigrants earlier in this century, blacks
arrived at a time when the manufacturing base of the
cities was disappearing as some blue-collar jobs
vanished altogether and others were relocated to the
suburbs. Informal barriers, such as racial prejudice
and a lack of skills, kept most of the new arrivals
from the opportunities beyond the ghetto."

Robertson says:

"Despite the success of many blacks, the great majority
have been left behind, and a hard core of these form
an 'underclass' of impoverished people who have little
hope that their lives will ever improve...almost one-third
of all blacks live below the poverty line - a rate three
times that of the white population. Many are trapped in an
unending cycle of broken homes, welfare, joblessness,
violence, crime, and drug abuse. Half of the black births
in the US today are to unmarried women. One in every two
black children lives in poverty, and one in every two
lives in a home without a father. one in six black males
is arrested by the age of nineteen, and homicide is
the leading cause of death of black males between the
ages of fifteen and nineteen. Unemployment rates for
blacks are typically double those of whites, and in some
urban areas the rate for black teenagers is over 50 percent..."

All this presents a very different picture to the
proclaimed ideals of the US, as Thinker 2 stated in his
opinion post, the facts speak for themselves.

These facts remain a powder keg in the society's future.

Tom from tecoma

Yes to both, those even more recent than to 'the states'. Port Agutta as the locals call it, Wilcania and Alice in all three the prejudice is both palpable and absolutely shameful, as is the conditions.

I most certainly can and have waxed critical to the appalling state of the aborigines. If you check some of my posts on *relevant* topic I have done so there , at length. in fact I was very involved in getting voting rights for them in the late sixties.

I wasn't attacking you or US merely stating facts. Given what I saw of the country and particularly what I've read, what my son has said I'm in no hurry to move to places like rural Louisiana.

The original post was merely stating a fact not criticising the country per se.
If you have a desire to put up a critical topic of Australia , providing it's factually correct I'll comment.

I'm not that crazy about some places in Australia either(again several of my posts have said so and explained why).

NB I am in no way jingoistic. There are good and bad in every country. To me there are too many negative of the type that bother me in the US to want to migrate there.

thomasfromtacoma,

<You know like transparency of government>.
Is that like the transparency of the Democrat controlled US congress where trillion dollar stimulus bills get rammed through at 1am Sunday morning by people who haven't read it, let alone understood its implications.
FACT not opinion!

<When a bill is accepted it goes to the people for ratification>
Like the 2000 page Obamacare bill, which is opposed by the majority of people according to all the polling.
When the 2000 page healthcare bill scraped through congress only because of the Stupak amendment (219-215 where the Democrats hold 258 to the Republicans 177), Harry Reid immediately stripped it from the Senate version. This bill is about as far removed from being ratified by the people as is possible.
FACT not opinion!

<not the immediate rush it through parliament>
refer above

<then tack every other unpopular law with it they can.>
You mean like the U.S. federal hate crimes bill which was was tacked onto a defence bill so that if it didn't get passed the troops wouldn't get funding.
FACT not opinion!

The US probably has one of the best systems of government in the world but it is fast being subverted by Obama and his radical, tax-cheating cronies.
Opinion based on facts!