Are you fed up yet?

I've never been much on the whole grass roots activist bandwagon, but then for my generation, we never really had much to scream about. Most of us have been docile good little followers, because we have been lead to believe the world is ours to harvest of it's riches and pillage as needed to fuel our constant need for more stuff.
I include myself in every argument I'm about to make because, I too have been lead by the nose and have been quite content to just take what was offered as the best we can do.
I'm not really clear about when things began going downhill, it just seemed a matter of course. Things get better they get worse and life goes on. It seems however, for several years running now everything about our way of life seems to be steadily sliding into the gutter. Its a sad state really that the only way we notice is when we are hit in the pocketbook. In that case perhaps it is a blessing that the economy has taken such a downturn. I realize that may seem heartless to some of you struggling to get by and making it from paycheck to paycheck, but maybe as a whole this is what we need. I look at it this way, i work as a welder/grinder for an international stainless steel company and I probably have one of the best paying labor type jobs in my area, I have been frugal and made good choices on money matters. I have a mortgage and a car payment but other than that were talking, cable, utilities, phone, stuff like that. I should be able to get along pretty well, but I was better off a few years ago when I was making $5 an hour less. Now I'm sliding by and hoping my entire industry doesn't go down the tubes. Our union votes tomorrow to determine which of the three options our company is going to use to cut costs:
Either
a: we shut down for two weeks and 1200 employees don't get a check for two weeks , or
b: We lay off 280 employees
c: we all get cut back to 32 hours a week

The point is this, I'm not doing this just to gripe and complain,that's the easy way out. I'm hoping perhaps as a collective group we can discuss the pertinent issues, agree/disagree and bounce around ideas the average guy can use to keep his house in order. It may seem overly optimistic in these pessimistic days but i still believe the voice of the people can invoke change in our leadership, our personal habits and our quality of life. Isn't that why we cam over here from England in the first place, because we had hope of a better future. Tell me, what does your future look like right now the way we are going? There are no other unoccupied continents for us to run to this time, we must fix this system or pay dearly the consequences later.

Every time an election comes around i find myself asking the same question "seriously is this the best we can come up with." I voted for Bush so i know all about disappointment, but I'm still unconvinced the alternative would have been any better, of course it couldn't have been much worse but still it begs the question " can't we do better?" If you told your friends you were in the running for a promotion at work that would mean you would be paid $400,000 a year and all you had to do was spend a hundred million dollars to get it what would your friends say to you? Think about that next time someone tells you about checks and balances. The presidency garners too much power, the federal government garners too much power. It's time to stop putting up with the unfair taxation of our wages, the the trampling of our rights under the guise of national security and the constant lies we are fed while the government mortgages not only our future but the future of our children.