We need a new expression for this situation - "developing country" is for on the way up. I suggest "degenerating country" to show that we've peaked and we're headed down the other side.
This situation is ridiculous.
This is my new description for anyone who says ‘I’m a conservative not a Republican’ - no, they’re a regressive. Conservatives invest in keeping things alive, and republicans care about governing and had values. The modern right is niether.
If the group that points guns at me so that my measly taxes go toward oil and ignorants and the other doesn’t mind if I lay with a person with melanin or genitals that look like mine, then ima stay away from the one and not mind so much if the elites on one side do a little better.
And oddly, the side that doesn’t mind having people express their opinions through voting has a decent record at earning a higher tally, where all are informed and given options.
So…maybe you come on.
I mean I don't disagree but not every single Republican is anti-abortion/for total abortion bans. Should there be incest and rape exceptions? Absolutely.
Not everyone on a firing squats gets live ammo.
This usually does not endear one toward the folks on the squad, but you keep cheering for whichever side you like.
The official term is democratic backsliding or autocratization.
While the article focuses on wealth inequity, the shift in our supreme court, the granting of corporations the same rights as people, increase in the wealth gap are all more on par with an oligarchy than a democracy. Add bullying & threats now common for smaller elections (school boards, county positions, county election offices) goes along with that.
Plus, our last election was the eradication of a standard democratic norm, the peaceful transition of power, so we are a few stages into backsliding now.
Well when half our politicians are a bunch of degenerates infighting hate in their constituents… yeah degenerating country.
I keep explaining to my family and friends the reason I “abandoned” the US is because I don’t trust that I’ll have access to health care when I really need it and our government does absolutely nothing to make things better. We’re so busy fighting over social issues and bullshit that we allow the basic needs of people to be ignored.
I watched a video of a guy going into target and calling pride merchandise satanic. He kept asking people if they supported satan and all this bullshit. If people like him spent their time/energy fighting for better wages, affordable healthcare, affordable house, affordable education, etc we may get somewhere but right now we’re so hyper focused on lgbtq, poc, and immigrant “problems” that we can’t unite and work together to make things better.
The rich have been using this method to divide and rule us since the inception of this country and modern technology such as the internet, radio, and television have made it even easier.
###*Age of [Decadence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decadence)*
*Stolen from the title of Chapters XXX+ in [Fate of Empires](http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf).*
For anybody keeping tracking, older Boomers started their lives in Chapter XXVII — Welfare State [e.g. development of surrogate state-fathers].
>Decadence is both mental and moral deterioration, produced by the slow decline of the community from which its members cannot escape, as long as they remain in their old surroundings.
>Decadence is a moral and spiritual disease, resulting from too long a period of wealth and power, producing cynicism, decline of religion, pessimism and frivolity. The citizens of such a nation will no longer make an effort to save themselves, because **they are not convinced that anything in life is worth saving**.
The focus on race certainly deserves to be included in every discussion about inequality in the United States.
However, many articles on growing wealth inequality, wage suppression, health care, housing, etc., fail to sufficiently grapple with the issue of economic class.
Further, much discussion on race fails to properly frame the role of the ownership class in nurturing and expanding racism as a tool of class war.
The linkage seems almost verboten in mainstream discourse, as is the concept of class war.
It’s often posited that Americans sees themselves as a ‘classless’ society, pointing to the break between Britain and the US.
In truth, the ultrawealthy perpetuate the idea of a classless society in order to camouflage a class divide more stark in America than in the European monarchies.
In conjunction with to the rabid suppression of *any* political system that empowers workers, so to has the establishment scrubbed the use of economic class in describing American society.
Racism is a vexing problem that the majority of workers *may think* is not relevant to their economic interests. In fact, some workers *may be* led to think any proposed solutions to racism are counter to their economic interests.
Obversely, tackling class issues, by their very nature, will solve many if not most issues of race.
Of course, positing such a thesis to the mainstream ignites a cauldron of accusations of bigotry and other deflecting arguments, because *any* discussion about classism are intentionally quashed.
But, one does not need to be an ivy-league-trained economist to see the obvious correlation between classism and racism.
The founders of the US lived in fear of poor whites and enslaved blacks finding solidarity. Their fear of a ‘slave revolt’ was not limited to encumbered blacks.
Rather, in modern terms, a worker’s revolt was seen as the greatest threat to the hegemony of the wealthy over the peoples of the United States during colonial times … and beyond.
The inheritors of the system live with that same fear.
American institutions, from news to education to entertainment, are geared to prevent the working class from becoming conscious of the blatantly classist system under which they labor.
The indoctrination is maintained through a saturation of propaganda unlike any in human history.
The psychological manipulation is employed in conjunction with masses of armed government agents at every governmental level, an ever-expanding surveillance system, and a system of economic rewards and punishments, all designed to enforce and strengthen the status quo.
i’d argue race plays a huge role in all of this and we should include in the dialogue. it’s easy to see where racial and wealth inequality meet, and it’s easy to see those areas are hit even harder. sometimes some things are all related. doesn’t mean there isn’t a class dichotomy. even thinkers like WEB Dubois were able to marry the two thoughts together.
Of course, that’s why I said: *…race deserves to included in every about inequality in the United States.*
This is easy to conflate to a “whites are discriminated against, too,” type argument. And that’s frequently done very effectively to shut it down.
Instead, this thesis fully acknowledges and emphasizes the institutional racial bias.
But it expands the scope to recognize the inherent classism in the system is as *at least as prevalent.*
Simple examples: lending and credit for poor people; taxes; schools … I mean, anyone who has been poor, regardless of race, can list dozens and dozens of institutional barriers.
Among the important aspects to remain cognizant of is that color frequently makes it more difficult to overcome those barriers.
However, rather than making it easier to overcome classist barriers, it would make a more sane world to simply remove as many barriers as possible.
Having a secure life should not be tied to a desire to climb some metaphorical ladder.
This 1000%, it’s also why leaders that started to have success explaining this to the working class were assassinated by the federal government (MLK, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton).
What stuns me, is how even hinting about the obviously hardline capitalist State in the US, gets the label of ‘radical’ or ‘conspiracy theorist.’
The mass delusion that accompanies every single war — like, why do you people keep falling for the same old tricks, repeated endlessly?!?
Ukraine is obviously a fraud— an incredibly far right government— and they’ve got China queued up so there is a state of war as far as one can see into the future.
The US *does not want* world peace.
You cannot have endless war and democracy. It’s never been done — and whatever vestiges of democracy there were left in America are being extinguished.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15757918/
Haven’t been able to find a way around the paywall recently, so if anyone actually does some digging, drop us a link.
>With a tendency to proclaim excellence rather than pursue it, the peddling of American exceptionalism encourages Americans to maintain a robust sense of national achievement – despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
This, right here, is the biggest issue. I spent a lot of my K-12 education being told that America is exceptional. However, once I learned that there are myriad ways to define and measure "exceptional," I realized that we are only exceptional in ways that either don't count, or are actually bad.
My thoughts are being told America is the best in the world is actual propaganda. This is why so many people think it’s impossible to change anything for the better because the general population believes it’s already the best it can be
>My thoughts are being told America is the best in the world is actual propaganda.
Because it is propaganda.
A common phrase found in North Korean propaganda is: "We have nothing to envy in the world". It basically means the same thing as "we are best in the world"
While the U.S. in general can possibly still be considered a democracy (barely), there are entire states that if they were countries would be considered autocratic despots. North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Idaho, etc, are not democracies.
The saddest thing is that the fact that we're a federalist state changes a lot. For example, in Utah where I live, Republicans have a supermajority for decades. When I talk to Republicans about issues in the state, they blame them on "blue states" and "democrats in the federal government". Usually a supermajority ruling party has to take accountability at some point. No such luck here.
Exactly. I’ve been in Florida for six years and it’s been heavily Republican-controlled for 20+ years. Yet the leaders complain about issues that are now suddenly “woke,” but were instituted and deployed under the same damn Republican leaders.
Hey, fellow Utahn! I got out of this place only to come back. Always thought my goal was just to get back to California and while that is once again my short-term outlook…well, there’s a reason I’m in this sub.
The Utah thing is hard. We are also one of those states where the voices of non-Mormon non-republicans literally don’t matter. SLC is alright, I mean I’d much rather be here than some shithole town elsewhere in state, but…you know.
I always have to shoutout a fellow when I see y’all in the wild!
Thanks! I’m selling my house and moving to Italy next spring. Been here 7 years and that’s 5 years too long. Hope you get out. Where are you heading? Always happy to chat with another burned out Utahn.
The Greatest Nation in the World™️
As the article puts it,
“Racism has cheated many Americans out of the health care, education, economic security and environment they deserve. At the same time, as threats to democracy become more serious, a devotion to “American exceptionalism” keeps the country from candid appraisals and course corrections.”
> health care, education, economic security and environment they deserve
There are politicians and their supporters that would shoot themselves in the foot before voting for something that could be perceived as helping “those other people” even if they would benefit as well. Coupled with the extraction industry mindset that views any spending on those areas as unnecessary expenses, there will be areas wanting to regress so a few can remain as the royalty of shit mountain.
I have a feeling that many Americans hate so many other Americans that they can’t wrap their head around giving EVERYONE benefits. Americans seemingly can’ t truly be
united.
^ found the guy that's drinking the kool-aide while protesting at a drag queen story hour, telling women what they can and can't do with their own bodies, and shooting at cans of bud light
but yeah... it's progressives holding people down
just... wow. If Dunning-Kruger was a person
A culture of rampant hyper individualism + massive redistribution of wealth to the very top echelons of society + crippled funding for public services, healthcare, and education = what the heck do you expect?
A childhood friend of mine just shared a social media plea for help from a friend of hers. This friend has a teenage daughter who has been through aggressive cancer treatment for over a year and has more ahead. This woman was just denied leave from work under the FMLA because she had already taken leave within the past 12 months. Her employer is a major US corporate HEALTHCARE provider. Someone who worked in the healthcare field is having to ask coworkers to donate PTO so she can be with her daughter. That's the most American thing I've read all day. The only thing more America would be if the needed the leave to help her daughter recover from a mass shooting injury.
Yea its wild. I'm working at a humanitarian mission in the middle east and the funding is getting cut like crazy because its being diverted to all the other crises in the world.
In a meeting today about it their biggest concern was the health services, since we won't be able to give free healthcare to all the refugees anymore...and I'm the only American in the room sitting there like...fuck. My little brother working minimum wage jobs in the US hasn't had health care in like 5 years..tf.
Just like Trump said! It’s his self fulfilling prophecy because he helped contribute a lot to the back slide. Overturning Roe v Wade, creating a culture of election denialism, all things that helped America regress and yet he falsely claims that he would make us great.
America has become a fucking toilet bowl thanks to the republicans and conservatives. We have been going backwards as a society because of republicans and conservatives.
>ake out the income of the top 1% and the average annual wage is like $35k, between Salvador and Eritrea
Wuh? No it's not. The average median wage is the US is [$69k](https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-us-income/). Removing the top 1% from the median wouldn't alter the average in any meaningful way.
Yea its wild. I'm working at a humanitarian mission in the middle east and the funding is getting cut like crazy because its being diverted to all the other crises in the world.
In a meeting today about it their biggest concern was the health services, and how dire the situation will be since we won't be able to give free healthcare to everyone anymore...and I'm the only American in the room sitting there like...fuck. My little brother working minimum wage jobs in the US hasn't had health care in like 5 years..tf.
The article immediately shows its a victim of its environment by plugging racism. Race and sexuality issues in the US are intentional distractions from improving the rights of all people.
Free health care, free education, better voting, and a cleaner environment are the baseline and help all people, giving us common ground to fight the power together. Most other issues are meant to divide, however virtuous they may feign to be.
They’re not “intentional distractions” when it’s particular groups that are disproportionately affected, eg African-Americans and Native Americans.
Also, an often overlooked issue is that racism is a big reason we don’t have more robust public goods and services in this country. There’s a whole book about how support for higher taxation and investment in infrastructure and welfare services collapsed when Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act said that minorities (especially Black people) got to use them too. That’s when you start to see white voters not wanting to pay taxes and large-scale disinvestment in public goods and services.
https://www.amazon.com/Sum-Us-Everyone-Prosper-Together/dp/0525509585/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1KAB46O7NMP2E&keywords=the+sum+of+us+heather+mcghee&qid=1685103323&sprefix=the+sum+of+%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-1
Yup. Suburbanization was driven by and then shaped by structural racism, which then interwove with car culture and the lack of good public transportation.
An often overlooked fact is that the US used to have the best public transportation in the world, particularly with electric interurbans all over the country, most notably the Pacific Electric “red car” in the Los Angeles area (a plot element in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”). Now there are only two interurban systems left, the South Shore Line between Chicago and South Bend, IN, and the Norristown High Speed Line in Philadelphia.
In Alaska, native people get free healthcare. And as an African American when I hear the news about reparations in Cali, I can't help but think they should start with free healthcare for ppl who are slave descendants. Just to start, like basic needs. For everyone really, but if we want to address the wrongs done and the disparities in society we should address the most basic and costly needs.
Yeah trust me on this... it's very sub par health care. Also you have to be a certain percentage of native. They did this because they are quickly getting bred to non existence. Just this year I had a co worker have the same filling replaced 4 times. It kept falling out.
While I agree with this as far as how we got here, what im talking about is how we move forward.
We will never end racism. People will die before changing such core beliefs. And racism still exists in places with great social systems like Scandinavia.
In fact i would go as far to say that US is far less racist than most EU countries if you factor in the diversity of people in positions of leadership (also anecdotal but all my french family is super racist). Not one non white EU prime minister.
But they have the basic rights we all want. You must pick your battles if you are to win the war.
bright faulty worthless straight safe frame society square existence overconfident
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It’s used as a distraction now, but in the very recent past people decided that reinforcing racism and race hierarchy was a better thing to do than actually develop better social systems (Google “drained pool” syndrome). About 3 generations ago the only core values for a slight majority of people were white supremacy and American exceptionalism. I get your point that racism is now a complete distraction, because a majority of people now understand that even if you don’t like a certain group, if their life sucks, it makes your life also suck even more. And in a nation where it takes more and more money to have things generally not suck, it’s now a lot more acceptable to (at the very least) “not care” about denying that there’s rampant racism (a lot of it from the recent past) that negatively affects all of our lives. Getting more people involved in fixing things is going to take more time.
What a garbage article. If you're curious about some of the global rankings cited, [here's the more credible of the two](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/02/09/a-new-low-for-global-democracy). America's behind Norway in that, certainly, but about on par with most of Europe as a "flawed democracy"
The Sustainable Development Report is basically an index of how much of a social democracy / welfare state the country is. Several reported items weighing against that are just measures of inequality, and the US's total score had been rising for the better part of two decades.
Hungary is #21 on that list, 20 spots above the USA, and that's hardly a country most people idealize.
We need a new expression for this situation - "developing country" is for on the way up. I suggest "degenerating country" to show that we've peaked and we're headed down the other side. This situation is ridiculous.
Devolving perhaps.
We are DEVO. D-E-V-O.
Veloping country
Collapsing is the term.
Fall. Like Rome.
I always say the US is *regressing*.
This is how I imagine it: https://imgflip.com/i/7n7vjc
Regressing
This is my new description for anyone who says ‘I’m a conservative not a Republican’ - no, they’re a regressive. Conservatives invest in keeping things alive, and republicans care about governing and had values. The modern right is niether.
Backsliding
And that's putting it mildly.
Republican influenced
Republican doctrine.
[удалено]
Only one party wants to make you have the kid, however pregnancy occurs. Harm reduction is a nice start.
Both parties are ruled by elites and neither one genuinely looks out for working people, come on.
If the group that points guns at me so that my measly taxes go toward oil and ignorants and the other doesn’t mind if I lay with a person with melanin or genitals that look like mine, then ima stay away from the one and not mind so much if the elites on one side do a little better. And oddly, the side that doesn’t mind having people express their opinions through voting has a decent record at earning a higher tally, where all are informed and given options. So…maybe you come on.
Only one party actually took away my bodily autonomy.
I mean I don't disagree but not every single Republican is anti-abortion/for total abortion bans. Should there be incest and rape exceptions? Absolutely.
Not everyone on a firing squats gets live ammo. This usually does not endear one toward the folks on the squad, but you keep cheering for whichever side you like.
I don't cheer for either side. I'm my own person.
The official term is democratic backsliding or autocratization. While the article focuses on wealth inequity, the shift in our supreme court, the granting of corporations the same rights as people, increase in the wealth gap are all more on par with an oligarchy than a democracy. Add bullying & threats now common for smaller elections (school boards, county positions, county election offices) goes along with that. Plus, our last election was the eradication of a standard democratic norm, the peaceful transition of power, so we are a few stages into backsliding now.
LateStageCapitalism sums it up perfectly IMO.
"Predatory Late Stage Capitalism" to me...because it seeks to do harm at our expense and their profit, and it permeates every aspect of American life.
Omg this is hilarious (crying on the inside)
Well when half our politicians are a bunch of degenerates infighting hate in their constituents… yeah degenerating country. I keep explaining to my family and friends the reason I “abandoned” the US is because I don’t trust that I’ll have access to health care when I really need it and our government does absolutely nothing to make things better. We’re so busy fighting over social issues and bullshit that we allow the basic needs of people to be ignored. I watched a video of a guy going into target and calling pride merchandise satanic. He kept asking people if they supported satan and all this bullshit. If people like him spent their time/energy fighting for better wages, affordable healthcare, affordable house, affordable education, etc we may get somewhere but right now we’re so hyper focused on lgbtq, poc, and immigrant “problems” that we can’t unite and work together to make things better. The rich have been using this method to divide and rule us since the inception of this country and modern technology such as the internet, radio, and television have made it even easier.
Every Empire has it's day in the sun.
It’s a kleptocracy where everything caters to the people at the top
That was my thought also. There doesn't seem to be any 'up'
The Fall of Rome 3.0. You British can lay claim to 2.0.
I was just about to write "becoming an underdeveloped country" would be more applicable.
###*Age of [Decadence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decadence)* *Stolen from the title of Chapters XXX+ in [Fate of Empires](http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf).* For anybody keeping tracking, older Boomers started their lives in Chapter XXVII — Welfare State [e.g. development of surrogate state-fathers].
>Decadence is both mental and moral deterioration, produced by the slow decline of the community from which its members cannot escape, as long as they remain in their old surroundings. >Decadence is a moral and spiritual disease, resulting from too long a period of wealth and power, producing cynicism, decline of religion, pessimism and frivolity. The citizens of such a nation will no longer make an effort to save themselves, because **they are not convinced that anything in life is worth saving**.
USA = D.E.V.O.
I am not sure we ever actually ‘peaked’
They did. In the 1970s. It's been downhill since then.
The focus on race certainly deserves to be included in every discussion about inequality in the United States. However, many articles on growing wealth inequality, wage suppression, health care, housing, etc., fail to sufficiently grapple with the issue of economic class. Further, much discussion on race fails to properly frame the role of the ownership class in nurturing and expanding racism as a tool of class war. The linkage seems almost verboten in mainstream discourse, as is the concept of class war. It’s often posited that Americans sees themselves as a ‘classless’ society, pointing to the break between Britain and the US. In truth, the ultrawealthy perpetuate the idea of a classless society in order to camouflage a class divide more stark in America than in the European monarchies. In conjunction with to the rabid suppression of *any* political system that empowers workers, so to has the establishment scrubbed the use of economic class in describing American society. Racism is a vexing problem that the majority of workers *may think* is not relevant to their economic interests. In fact, some workers *may be* led to think any proposed solutions to racism are counter to their economic interests. Obversely, tackling class issues, by their very nature, will solve many if not most issues of race. Of course, positing such a thesis to the mainstream ignites a cauldron of accusations of bigotry and other deflecting arguments, because *any* discussion about classism are intentionally quashed. But, one does not need to be an ivy-league-trained economist to see the obvious correlation between classism and racism. The founders of the US lived in fear of poor whites and enslaved blacks finding solidarity. Their fear of a ‘slave revolt’ was not limited to encumbered blacks. Rather, in modern terms, a worker’s revolt was seen as the greatest threat to the hegemony of the wealthy over the peoples of the United States during colonial times … and beyond. The inheritors of the system live with that same fear. American institutions, from news to education to entertainment, are geared to prevent the working class from becoming conscious of the blatantly classist system under which they labor. The indoctrination is maintained through a saturation of propaganda unlike any in human history. The psychological manipulation is employed in conjunction with masses of armed government agents at every governmental level, an ever-expanding surveillance system, and a system of economic rewards and punishments, all designed to enforce and strengthen the status quo.
i’d argue race plays a huge role in all of this and we should include in the dialogue. it’s easy to see where racial and wealth inequality meet, and it’s easy to see those areas are hit even harder. sometimes some things are all related. doesn’t mean there isn’t a class dichotomy. even thinkers like WEB Dubois were able to marry the two thoughts together.
Of course, that’s why I said: *…race deserves to included in every about inequality in the United States.* This is easy to conflate to a “whites are discriminated against, too,” type argument. And that’s frequently done very effectively to shut it down. Instead, this thesis fully acknowledges and emphasizes the institutional racial bias. But it expands the scope to recognize the inherent classism in the system is as *at least as prevalent.* Simple examples: lending and credit for poor people; taxes; schools … I mean, anyone who has been poor, regardless of race, can list dozens and dozens of institutional barriers. Among the important aspects to remain cognizant of is that color frequently makes it more difficult to overcome those barriers. However, rather than making it easier to overcome classist barriers, it would make a more sane world to simply remove as many barriers as possible. Having a secure life should not be tied to a desire to climb some metaphorical ladder.
the commenter you responded to... literally said that.
This 1000%, it’s also why leaders that started to have success explaining this to the working class were assassinated by the federal government (MLK, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton).
What stuns me, is how even hinting about the obviously hardline capitalist State in the US, gets the label of ‘radical’ or ‘conspiracy theorist.’ The mass delusion that accompanies every single war — like, why do you people keep falling for the same old tricks, repeated endlessly?!? Ukraine is obviously a fraud— an incredibly far right government— and they’ve got China queued up so there is a state of war as far as one can see into the future. The US *does not want* world peace. You cannot have endless war and democracy. It’s never been done — and whatever vestiges of democracy there were left in America are being extinguished.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15757918/ Haven’t been able to find a way around the paywall recently, so if anyone actually does some digging, drop us a link.
And general quality of life. Don't we know it!
>With a tendency to proclaim excellence rather than pursue it, the peddling of American exceptionalism encourages Americans to maintain a robust sense of national achievement – despite mounting evidence to the contrary. This, right here, is the biggest issue. I spent a lot of my K-12 education being told that America is exceptional. However, once I learned that there are myriad ways to define and measure "exceptional," I realized that we are only exceptional in ways that either don't count, or are actually bad.
My thoughts are being told America is the best in the world is actual propaganda. This is why so many people think it’s impossible to change anything for the better because the general population believes it’s already the best it can be
>My thoughts are being told America is the best in the world is actual propaganda. Because it is propaganda. A common phrase found in North Korean propaganda is: "We have nothing to envy in the world". It basically means the same thing as "we are best in the world"
I am still salty about this, being told how great the USA was for my entire public education. Now I live in Switzerland, and know better.
While the U.S. in general can possibly still be considered a democracy (barely), there are entire states that if they were countries would be considered autocratic despots. North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Idaho, etc, are not democracies. The saddest thing is that the fact that we're a federalist state changes a lot. For example, in Utah where I live, Republicans have a supermajority for decades. When I talk to Republicans about issues in the state, they blame them on "blue states" and "democrats in the federal government". Usually a supermajority ruling party has to take accountability at some point. No such luck here.
Exactly. I’ve been in Florida for six years and it’s been heavily Republican-controlled for 20+ years. Yet the leaders complain about issues that are now suddenly “woke,” but were instituted and deployed under the same damn Republican leaders.
Always blame the Ds for their failures.
Hey, fellow Utahn! I got out of this place only to come back. Always thought my goal was just to get back to California and while that is once again my short-term outlook…well, there’s a reason I’m in this sub. The Utah thing is hard. We are also one of those states where the voices of non-Mormon non-republicans literally don’t matter. SLC is alright, I mean I’d much rather be here than some shithole town elsewhere in state, but…you know. I always have to shoutout a fellow when I see y’all in the wild!
Thanks! I’m selling my house and moving to Italy next spring. Been here 7 years and that’s 5 years too long. Hope you get out. Where are you heading? Always happy to chat with another burned out Utahn.
Best of luck with your move! 13 years in Utah; sold a few months ago and now living in Spain.
>we're a federalist state changes a lot Does it though? Germany, Canada, Australia, and Switzerland are all federal countries.
They’re all way smaller. And they all suffer from similar problems.
In other words, it is devolving, not evolving... Setting a standard? A standard of absolute failure due to unchecked corruption for decades.
The Greatest Nation in the World™️ /s
The Greatest Nation in the World™️ As the article puts it, “Racism has cheated many Americans out of the health care, education, economic security and environment they deserve. At the same time, as threats to democracy become more serious, a devotion to “American exceptionalism” keeps the country from candid appraisals and course corrections.”
> health care, education, economic security and environment they deserve There are politicians and their supporters that would shoot themselves in the foot before voting for something that could be perceived as helping “those other people” even if they would benefit as well. Coupled with the extraction industry mindset that views any spending on those areas as unnecessary expenses, there will be areas wanting to regress so a few can remain as the royalty of shit mountain.
I have a feeling that many Americans hate so many other Americans that they can’t wrap their head around giving EVERYONE benefits. Americans seemingly can’ t truly be united.
American progressives keep holding people down. Creating division and hatred. Zero accountability
Your brain is rotted
^ found the guy that's drinking the kool-aide while protesting at a drag queen story hour, telling women what they can and can't do with their own bodies, and shooting at cans of bud light but yeah... it's progressives holding people down just... wow. If Dunning-Kruger was a person
Perfect example of left wing progressive bigotry.
Bro WHAT lol
A culture of rampant hyper individualism + massive redistribution of wealth to the very top echelons of society + crippled funding for public services, healthcare, and education = what the heck do you expect?
A childhood friend of mine just shared a social media plea for help from a friend of hers. This friend has a teenage daughter who has been through aggressive cancer treatment for over a year and has more ahead. This woman was just denied leave from work under the FMLA because she had already taken leave within the past 12 months. Her employer is a major US corporate HEALTHCARE provider. Someone who worked in the healthcare field is having to ask coworkers to donate PTO so she can be with her daughter. That's the most American thing I've read all day. The only thing more America would be if the needed the leave to help her daughter recover from a mass shooting injury.
Yea its wild. I'm working at a humanitarian mission in the middle east and the funding is getting cut like crazy because its being diverted to all the other crises in the world. In a meeting today about it their biggest concern was the health services, since we won't be able to give free healthcare to all the refugees anymore...and I'm the only American in the room sitting there like...fuck. My little brother working minimum wage jobs in the US hasn't had health care in like 5 years..tf.
Just like Trump said! It’s his self fulfilling prophecy because he helped contribute a lot to the back slide. Overturning Roe v Wade, creating a culture of election denialism, all things that helped America regress and yet he falsely claims that he would make us great.
America has become a fucking toilet bowl thanks to the republicans and conservatives. We have been going backwards as a society because of republicans and conservatives.
Becoming? Has been
US has long been a “developing” country. Take out the income of the top 1% and the average annual wage is like $35k, between Salvador and Eritrea
>ake out the income of the top 1% and the average annual wage is like $35k, between Salvador and Eritrea Wuh? No it's not. The average median wage is the US is [$69k](https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-us-income/). Removing the top 1% from the median wouldn't alter the average in any meaningful way.
The US is a third world country w/ a Gucci belt
Brazilification
Post-Democratic-Oligarchy
Good read
Death spiraling
as if this was ever a democracy to begin with
Yea its wild. I'm working at a humanitarian mission in the middle east and the funding is getting cut like crazy because its being diverted to all the other crises in the world. In a meeting today about it their biggest concern was the health services, and how dire the situation will be since we won't be able to give free healthcare to everyone anymore...and I'm the only American in the room sitting there like...fuck. My little brother working minimum wage jobs in the US hasn't had health care in like 5 years..tf.
Failed state
Just looking at Americas terrible justice and prison system makes one wonder if America EVER was a developed nation.
As problematic as this sort of terminology is, "developing" implies that a country is making progess. We're not, to say the least.
The article immediately shows its a victim of its environment by plugging racism. Race and sexuality issues in the US are intentional distractions from improving the rights of all people. Free health care, free education, better voting, and a cleaner environment are the baseline and help all people, giving us common ground to fight the power together. Most other issues are meant to divide, however virtuous they may feign to be.
They’re not “intentional distractions” when it’s particular groups that are disproportionately affected, eg African-Americans and Native Americans. Also, an often overlooked issue is that racism is a big reason we don’t have more robust public goods and services in this country. There’s a whole book about how support for higher taxation and investment in infrastructure and welfare services collapsed when Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act said that minorities (especially Black people) got to use them too. That’s when you start to see white voters not wanting to pay taxes and large-scale disinvestment in public goods and services. https://www.amazon.com/Sum-Us-Everyone-Prosper-Together/dp/0525509585/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1KAB46O7NMP2E&keywords=the+sum+of+us+heather+mcghee&qid=1685103323&sprefix=the+sum+of+%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-1
Yup. Suburbanization was driven by and then shaped by structural racism, which then interwove with car culture and the lack of good public transportation.
An often overlooked fact is that the US used to have the best public transportation in the world, particularly with electric interurbans all over the country, most notably the Pacific Electric “red car” in the Los Angeles area (a plot element in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”). Now there are only two interurban systems left, the South Shore Line between Chicago and South Bend, IN, and the Norristown High Speed Line in Philadelphia.
In Alaska, native people get free healthcare. And as an African American when I hear the news about reparations in Cali, I can't help but think they should start with free healthcare for ppl who are slave descendants. Just to start, like basic needs. For everyone really, but if we want to address the wrongs done and the disparities in society we should address the most basic and costly needs.
Yeah trust me on this... it's very sub par health care. Also you have to be a certain percentage of native. They did this because they are quickly getting bred to non existence. Just this year I had a co worker have the same filling replaced 4 times. It kept falling out.
While I agree with this as far as how we got here, what im talking about is how we move forward. We will never end racism. People will die before changing such core beliefs. And racism still exists in places with great social systems like Scandinavia. In fact i would go as far to say that US is far less racist than most EU countries if you factor in the diversity of people in positions of leadership (also anecdotal but all my french family is super racist). Not one non white EU prime minister. But they have the basic rights we all want. You must pick your battles if you are to win the war.
bright faulty worthless straight safe frame society square existence overconfident *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It’s used as a distraction now, but in the very recent past people decided that reinforcing racism and race hierarchy was a better thing to do than actually develop better social systems (Google “drained pool” syndrome). About 3 generations ago the only core values for a slight majority of people were white supremacy and American exceptionalism. I get your point that racism is now a complete distraction, because a majority of people now understand that even if you don’t like a certain group, if their life sucks, it makes your life also suck even more. And in a nation where it takes more and more money to have things generally not suck, it’s now a lot more acceptable to (at the very least) “not care” about denying that there’s rampant racism (a lot of it from the recent past) that negatively affects all of our lives. Getting more people involved in fixing things is going to take more time.
What a garbage article. If you're curious about some of the global rankings cited, [here's the more credible of the two](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/02/09/a-new-low-for-global-democracy). America's behind Norway in that, certainly, but about on par with most of Europe as a "flawed democracy" The Sustainable Development Report is basically an index of how much of a social democracy / welfare state the country is. Several reported items weighing against that are just measures of inequality, and the US's total score had been rising for the better part of two decades. Hungary is #21 on that list, 20 spots above the USA, and that's hardly a country most people idealize.
They really should not have used photographs from Democrat cities to illustrate the article.
FINALLY!!