Friday, November 21st, 2014
Stephan: This is one of the best and most unvarnished assessments of what is happening in the United States I have read in some time. I urge you to read it and think about what it is saying. The great irony and tragedy is that the suggestions this essay contains are what Americans just voted NOT TO DO. By electing Republicans voters have assured that nothing substantive will be done about climate change. Nothing will be done about ocean acidification. Far too little will be done ending the era of carbon energy, and there is an excellent chance that even the modest benefits arising from the ACA, a Rube Goldberg structure of healthcare designed to assure profit continues as the main priority will be undermined, if not eliminated. Our schools will continue to deteriorate and be privatized. The Gulag will continue privatizing. More children will be homeless and hungry. And inequity will almost certainly increase as subsidies for the rich and corporations are increased and taxes on them decreased. Just look at Kansas for a glimpse of the future. And it was all voted for by those who bothered to vote at all.
Credit: Washington Monthly
A rich country with millions of poor people. A country that prides itself on being the land of opportunity, but in which a child’s prospects are more dependent on the income and education of his or her parents than in other advanced countries. A country that believes in fair play, but in which the richest often pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than those less well off. A country in which children every day pledge allegiance to the flag, asserting that there is “justice for all,” but in which, increasingly, there is only justice for those who can afford it. These are the contradictions that the United States is gradually and painfully struggling to come to terms with as it begins to comprehend the enormity of the inequalities that mark its society—inequities that are greater than in any other advanced country.
Those who strive not to think about this issue suggest that this is just about the “politics of envy.” Those who discuss the issue are accused of fomenting […]
