America is a pretty god place to live, great and good for a lot of people. Many other countries are seriously flawed, but are we "settling?"
Even organized religion has serious flaws. History tells tales of the Catholic Church doing harm to indigenous children in several [Canada, Australia, Ireland] countries that the Governments of those countries allowed the church to do so.
But America is supposed ot be special so deserves close attention.
America is often VERY prejudiced and defensive about how "great" it is/we are. But that is to be expected since we live here.
Can we be objective about our significant and harmful flaws, or do we have to close our eyes to our flaws? We cannot truly achieve the American dream unless we are self-critical. Examine your country, fix its flaws.
If we fail to recognize our flaws, true American flaws, choose to be arrogant and "holier than thou," the American dream is dead in my opinion. Our culture will rot and America will NEVER BE GREAT AGAIN.
Democracy rules by privilege, the richest 1%, PERIOD. In the article here:
"The most privileged were helped further by laws like the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which required Native Americans to leave their land, and the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, which required runaway slaves to be returned to their masters. Far from earning the fruits of their labor purely on their own, many early Americans had the means of self-improvement handed to them on a silver platter—one branded with the insignia of the federal government."
"Why Is American Democracy So Broken, and Can It Be Fixed?"
The 1 percent never took over American politics. They had control all along.
By Roslyn Fuller
June 9, 2016
https://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-american-democracy-so-broken-and-can-it-be-fixed/
"Ancient democracies drew the balance of power between the individual and the community very differently than we do now. In ancient democracies, decision-making power resided in the collective. In fact, this was what democracy was all about: Only a state in which the people rendered decisions collectively could the people be said to hold power. This was not, as Madison would later allege, a chaotic experience, but rather a structured exercise in civil responsibility.
Modern republics are bereft of institutions for exercising the collective will. They were intentionally left out of the grand American design, as Madison openly acknowledged, because the founders wanted to ensure that the people could never exercise their will, lest they overturn the privileges of the few. But that left the United States with little ability to act as a single nation; instead, it was a collection of individuals and factions who got along more or less well while the going was good, but whose relations are rapidly beginning to deteriorate now that things have gotten a little tougher."
More . . .
"The only thing that has recently changed with this picture is that many of the previously favored people stopped being so useful. Continued immigration, automation, and relocation of labor overseas have rendered economically superfluous many Americans who had previously benefited from these policies of state-sponsored protection. Many Americans suddenly discovered that hard work alone didn’t get them anywhere, and that their influence on politics was limited. Only the practice of faction-based election and protection for civil liberties had ever been written into the social contract. Upward mobility and collective action had never been part of the deal. They were just incidentals.
This brought to the surface the long-suppressed truth about the American political and economic system: namely, that the United States was designed to be a collection of elite interests fighting among themselves to govern a mass of proletarians that could be used for whatever purpose they were good for as long as they were good for it
The truth is that the 1 percent never took over American politics. They had control all along."
"America’s new aristocracy"
As the importance of intellectual capital grows, privilege has become increasingly heritable
Jan 22nd 2015
Allegedly rich kind's "BRAINS" are better than poor people's brains, so the rich kinds are the new aristocracy.
"Intellectual capital drives the knowledge economy, so those who have lots of it get a fat slice of the pie. And it is increasingly heritable."
Foretelling the future . . .
"Loosening the link between birth and success would make America richer—far too much talent is currently wasted. It might also make the nation more cohesive. If Americans suspect that the game is rigged, they may be tempted to vote for demagogues [Tweety!}of the right or left—especially if the grown-up alternative is another Clinton or yet another Bush."
Capitalism in America is rigged to help the rich get richer, and keep poor people poor.
"The poor are paying more and more for everyday purchases, a new study warns"
By Max Ehrenfreund By Max Ehrenfreund Wonkblog
May 20, 2016
America has spent ~$783billion in war in Afghanistan and sending more troops as I write this. Yet ISIS and other terror group continue to grow in strength for far less money. America wants to spend money on war, but not health care? How twisted is that?
"As Trump Built His Real Estate Empire, Tax Breaks Played A Pivotal Role"
Jim Zarroli, May 18, 20174:48 PM ET
"His own frequent use of tax breaks in his business dealings suggest he's not above taking advantage of those breaks.
"For a candidate who has espoused the many virtues of the free market," O'Brien says, "Donald Trump's business wouldn't be possible but for major government subsidies.""
"Affordable Housing Program Costs More, Shelters Fewer"
Laura Sullivan and Meg Anderson 9 May 2017
http://www.npr.org/2017/05/09/527046451/affordable-housing-program-costs-more-shelters-less
"On the south side of Dallas, Nena Eldridge lives in a sparse but spotless bungalow on a dusty lot. At $550 each month, her rent is just about the cheapest she could find in the city.
After an injury left her unable to work, the only income she receives is a $780 monthly disability check. So she has to make tough financial choices, like living without running water."
"The High Cost of Poverty: Why the Poor Pay More"
By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 18, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051702053.html
""The poor pay more for a gallon of milk; they pay more on a capital basis for inferior housing," says Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). "The poor and 100 million who are struggling for the middle class actually end up paying more for transportation, for housing, for health care, for mortgages. They get steered to subprime lending. . . . The poor pay more for things middle-class America takes for granted.""
More . . .
"Prices in urban corner stores are almost always higher, economists say. And sometimes, prices in supermarkets in poorer neighborhoods are higher. Many of these stores charge more because the cost of doing business in some neighborhoods is higher. "First, they are probably paying more on goods because they don't get the low wholesale price that bigger stores get," says Bradley R. Schiller, a professor emeritus at American University and the author of "The Economics of Poverty and Discrimination.""
"Then there's credit. The poor don't have it. What they had was a place like First Cash Advance in D.C.'s Manor Park neighborhood, where a neon sign once flashed "PAYDAY ADVANCE." Through the bulletproof glass, a cashier in white eyeliner and long white nails explained what you needed to get an advance on your paycheck -- a pay stub, a legitimate ID, a checkbook. This meant you're doing well enough to have a checking account, but you're still poor. "
More . . .
"Money and time. "I ride the bus to get to work," Nicholas says. It takes an hour. "If I could drive, it would take me 10 minutes. I have to catch two buses." She gets to the bus stop at 6:30 a.m. The bus is supposed to come every 10 or 15 minutes. Sometimes, she says, it comes every 30 minutes. What could you accomplish with the lost 20 minutes standing there in the rain? Waiting. That's another cost of poverty. You wait in lines. You wait at bus stops. You wait on the bus as it makes it way up Georgia Avenue, hitting every stop. No sense in trying to hurry when you are poor.
When you are poor, you wait."
Justice is mostly for white people with money. The number of people in jail is ugly.
Our mass incarceration society is doing harm to Americans.
"Why you can’t blame mass incarceration on the war on drugs"
The standard liberal narrative about mass incarceration gets a lot wrong. A new book breaks through the myths.
Updated by German Lopez, May 30, 2017, 9:00am EDT
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/30/15591700/mass-incarceration-john-pfaff-locked-in
Two statements. Which is true?
"“The impact of the drug war has been astounding. In less than thirty years, the U.S. penal population exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million, with drug convictions accounting for the majority of the increase,” Alexander writes. She later claims that “the uncomfortable reality is that arrests and convictions for drug offenses — not violent crime — have propelled mass incarceration.”
Pfaff demonstrates that this central claim of the Standard Story is wrong. “In reality, only about 16 percent of state prisoners are serving time on drug charges — and very few of them, perhaps only around 5 or 6 percent of that group, are both low level and nonviolent,” he writes. “At the same time, more than half of all people in state prisons have been convicted of a violent crime.”"
More.
"Despite the perennial focus on the federal criminal justice system in the media, most incarceration and law enforcement take place at the local level. “About 87 percent of all prisoners are held in state systems,” Pfaff writes. “The federal government runs the single largest prison system, but several states have systems that are fairly close to the federal one in size, and if we look at total populations under some sort of correctional observation (not just prison, but also jail, parole, and probation), the federal government quickly falls out of first place.”
The focus on the federal prison system may explain why many in the media and other experts think that drug offenses are such a huge driver of incarceration. In the federal system, about half of prisoners are in for drug crimes — more than three times the rate of the state systems."
No matter the source of the mass incarceration, America puts more people in jails than any other country. Period.
"The bottom line: Mass incarceration is about way more than the federal war on drugs
Piece by piece, Pfaff paints a more nuanced picture of the criminal justice systems in America than that of the Standard Story. In the end, it’s not that the war on drugs or the federal system doesn’t matter; it’s that they both play a much smaller role than they are typically given credit for. Pfaff goes through similar data on private prisons, the length of certain prison sentences, and other Standard Story tropes — showing that they all tend to get outsize attention given their actual impact on incarceration.
It all points to one conclusion: To truly eliminate mass incarceration, reformers will have to at some point shift more attention to dealing with the mass incarceration of violent offenders, not just low-level drug offenders, and do so with a focus on the state and local levels, particularly prosecutors in these areas."
Conclusion: imprisoning people at the rate America does will not solve America's crime issues.
"Pfaff tries his hand at some of the messaging that will be needed here: He argues that incarceration is simply an ineffective way to combat crime, while it imposes all sorts of costs on individuals and society that likely outweigh its benefits.
“It’s true that crime is costly — but so, too, is punishment, especially prison,” he writes. “The real costs are much higher than the $80 billion we spend each year on prisons and jails: they include a host of financial, physical, emotional, and social costs to inmates, their families, and communities. Maybe reducing these costs justifies some rise in crime.”"
