I was raised to believe that America was the best of the best. What an obvious lie that turned out to be. Once I deprogrammed the flaws became crystal clear. It only took three decades to get out of the disinformation.
Population: 300 million+. Life expectancy: 76 years. GDP: $27 trillion. Human inequality: astronomical. Incomes stagnate while inflation runs rampant.
American history is the history of humans. That means cruelty without bounds. The country was born in cruelty and the echoes of that cruelty are still bouncing off every aspect of our lives. Chattel slavery is legally prohibited now, but economic slavery certainly isn’t.
Systemic racism still has deep roots in the USA. The wealthy have the advantage, as it has been since the inception of this nation-state.
Income and wealth inequality in the United States is substantially higher than in almost any other developed nation, and it is on the rise, sparking an intensifying national debate. The 2008 global financial crisis, the slow and uneven recovery, and the economic shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have deepened these trends and challenged policymakers to respond.1
Policymakers have utterly failed. If you are most of us, you feel less secure and less hopeful than you did 20 years ago. I am pulling a number out of a hat, but realistically, most people are worse off than they were last year, the year before, or for the last two decades.
The ways we become subservient shift and mutate over time. First, we pitted tribes against one another based on levels of melanin. Now, we are more nuanced. The categories and taxonomies are taxing. Especially when the economy does not support a single earner family. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I do believe in human plots.
The American plot is currently thus: some tribes want slow, measured progress. These tribes tend to believe everyone is honest, and everyone wants human equity. Bullshit. Some tribes want the opposite of that. The Trump cult is a salient example of this. Monkeys with grudges are feral and sometimes lethal.
Am I calling “white” people monkeys. You bet your ass I am. The Trumpkin Morons are definitely monkey tribes. They might feel sincere, but they are just following the monkey they think is toughest. TRUMP = NOT TOUGH.
Cults are real. Delusions are endemic to the species. DJT is an idiot bent on gathering power no matter what it costs the rest of us.
And. Big and. The monsters have control of the legislative and judicial branches. Zealots and traitors occupy many of the nexus points of power in this place now called USA.
Biden didn’t fight back hard enough. Not even close. Planet of the Apes isn’t fiction if you have a little bit of imagination. Neither is Gilead.
The usual suspects haven’t changed. They include the whole species. Whether you care about equality or don’t: act before you are destroyed by a more dominant ape. Then celebrate being alive.
Bibles and con men are inextricably intertwined. The American story cannot be extricated from the long history of human cruelty. Until apes can have an honest discussion of this reality, we cannot possibly evolve.
Thus, we slowly bow to our own self-extinction. A few billionaires decide the fate of all of us unless we decide to eat the billionaires and then prohibit more from deciding our species’ fate.
I agree with your premise.
It IS time to claw back the trillions of stolen national treasure - pay down some Federal debt, feed some kids, provide healthcare and education for all. The richest nation to have ever existed owes it to it's citizens to redistribute wealth.
Hope all is OK with the dogs you are caring for.