Do we live in a participatory society

[Deja Q]

Poll question: Do we live in a participatory society

I'll explain my POV later. I wanna hear yours now. A yes or no is cool, but I'd be grateful for your insight and commentary.

Thanks!

[FloridaPat]

1. Depends. I believe everyone has the right and the ability to

participate in everything. Very few people bother. Take voting - 36% of the eligible people voted in 2000. It's been going downhill for decades. Participate in children's education - the schools keep getting worse. Participate in church functions - I think this is on the rise.

I think most people don't participate by choice.

[Deja Q]

3. How about the ability of those to be fair and provide jobs if they want

to be monopolies (e.g. Walmart, Microsoft, et al)?

And not piddle jobs. Good jobs that encourage people to be their all. Not boxed kibble jobs where people can be discarded and replaced on a whim.

A participatory society is where ALL participate (and live to their potential) and as such ALL get to love with reasonable accommodations and improve themselves and each other. If they don't participate they get nothing.

But our society is about lowering costs and the bottom line so the executives can take more home in pay while fleecing their employees for all they're worth and more.

Many homeless people want to work and participate but can't. Or when they get a job, it doesn't even begin to pay enough for themselves to live off of and forget the idea of a family (the latter is okay as we're overpopulated and on the brink of a manmade disaster that will ultimately kill billions.)

We are hardly a participatory society. Nor a free one for that matter. And 'free' as in 'freedom', the word * loves to shovel around. The fact we all need to live off money doesn't make us free. It makes us the next most exploitable commodity since slavery.

[serryjw]

5. NOT true!

52.6% of eligible voters voted!
I find this humorous.....

The number about is the one I always use....BUT not everyone agrees

US census puts it at 54.7
http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/voting/p20-542/tab04b.pdf

BUT FEC has it at 51.3?http://www.fec.gov/pages/2000turnout/reg&to00.htm

ISSUES 200 has it at ABOUT 52%
http://www.issues2000.org/askme/Percentage_voting.htm

In the age of computers why can't we all agree?

[ulysses]

2. nope.

Most of us prefer to be spectators.

[TWiley]

4. I heard an interesting commentary

by a doctor from the Chicago School of Divinity who said that any perceived threat to the "Patriarchal" society is sure to outrage and drive the "fundamentalists" to the polls. Demonstrate an attack on patriarchy, and reap many sure votes for bush and the "fatherland"

I think the concept of a "matriarchal" society is implicitly true.

Warriors need to promote a society that justifies and honors their nasty temperaments. The concept of a patriarchal society is necessary to accomplish this. However, what they actually sell is a mafia style concept of "insurance"

Give me what I want, and I will protect you from the evil of my own (and others like me) actions. Defy me, and I will unleash the horror of my own psychopathology.

I believe lots of limbaugh "ditto heads" have actually fallen for this and have become mindlessly subservient. They are afraid to criticize the very demons they quote because they will be as mercilessly attacked by them if they don't.

In doing so, they have created the very environment which ultimately justifies their malice, and their existence.