Dave,
> i wish that people wouldn't be so down on american citizens
Its a reasonably simple distinction, there are 2 Americas, MAIN street and WALL street, the MAIN street are the vast majority of ordinary Americans while WALL street are a bunch of ruthless greed bastards assett stripping MAIN street, destroying their jobs, driving them out of their houses, shutting down businesses and so on but happy enough to keep sending young Americans off to some sh*thole in the middle east or Africa to get killed just to keep some sh*tty war going to make a buck. To add insult to injury, their profits go overseas to places like Dubai and as the US government gets further into debt, the nation's infrastructure is decaying with bridges falling down and back when New Orleans was flooded, it was foreigners who shelled out a lot of money to try and help the poor to at least have somewhere to live.
The great con that WALL street is selling is that ordinary Americans are responsible for the sh*t that they do when in fact ordinary folks have no voice at all in US foreign policy, WALL street and all that it entails (military/industrial complex) long ago bought and paid for Congress, the Pentagon, CIA and a few others and if ordinary people disagree, they risk brutal police violence or a bullet. For the little that is worth you are not alone, in the UK its worse, Canada may improve after getting rid of Harper and we are at risk here in OZ because our government kisses the same arse as yours.