The USA has the best medicine in the world if you can pay for it, and worse than anywhere in the developed world if you can't. A lot of poor Americans would be grateful to be able to afford '50s medicine.
Yep... for all the "boomers ruined everything" attitude, I can't think of anything that was better in 1950 than it is now except
- macro climate
- wage gap
Student loans?
The housing crisis?
Drug epidemic amongst the midwesterners?
The death of rural america’s economy?
Health care?
You ain’t thinking too hard my dude.
Health care now is waaay better than it was in the 50s. The leaps in health care technology have been astounding. Next time you get sick, you're going to get a prescription for an antibiotic other than penicillin. If you need surgery, you're likely to get it orthoscopically, you'll get anesthesia other than laughing gas, you're going to get a mix of plasma and whole blood - and more of it too - that's been better typed and screened.
Yes, a lot of people still die of medical causes, in particular heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, but that's not because cancer didn't exist back in the 50s; it's because people died before cancer got them.
Yes, and we get to go bankrupt if we get sick. In Canada, things are different.
Styrofoam Sammich's point about whether this question is meaningful is well taken, and certainly the fact that these gains have been made shouldn't preclude anyone from saying that things could, and should, be better, but when we're talking about Trumpism and the desire of some Americans to light everything on fire and return it all to an idealistic 1950s world state (or whatever), a good part of it is taking stuff like this for granted AND not recognizing/understanding that many of the gains we've made since the 1950s came hand-in-hand with the stuff they hate. One reason they reject progress because all they can see are the downsides of progress and none of the upsides, and this is an viewpoint that (political) progressives have often struggled to make. Where they maybe should be fighting inequity and inequality, the barring of their access to these gains, they instead reject the gains as even existing, and this is key to why their sought policies are destroying America rather than reforming it.
E.g. they may hate the coastal elites, the intellectuals, the experts, the academy and its political correctness, the immigrants coming to steal their jobs, but it's the lower-class, queer, Indian cancer researcher coming and "stealing" their spot at Harvard Medical who's going to discover how to use CRISPR to eliminate neuroblastoma and save their future grandchild.
Rural America in 1950 makes rural America in 2018 look like a picnic.
I thought the differences now is that most of those towns are literally starting to cease to exist? And the heroin epidemic killing those that remain.
Well and that your cost of living and wage disparity between rural and urban areas barely matters anymore. I may have low wages and cheap rent but I still pay the same price for most goods as someone in NYC, and the cheap rent keeps getting higher while my wages stay the same.
We needed a minimum wage hike badly.
I have wanted to move from the rural town I'm in to a city located about an hour away for about five years now. I absolutely hate being stuck in a small town with nothing to do and no likeminded people to associate with.
But my student loans make it too expensive to live in the city where the jobs I would want to take are. Plus I actually do currently have one of those fabled high-paying factory jobs (about $600/week for a position requiring only a high school diploma), so even if I did get a job in the city I probably wouldn't be making as much. I at least don't have to worry too much financially because I don't have any children to take care of, chronic illnesses to treat, etc, so I feel like I shouldn't complain, but the social isolation and difficulty relating to co-workers is a big thing that gets to me (it was really bad for much of last year, too).
I hope I'll at least be able to pay off one of my two loans within the next year, which should help. But I hate feeling like I've missed out on most of my twenties (I'll be turning 30 in a few months).
Have we ever had a thread about the student loan crisis? Because I feel like the insanity we’re experiencing now is going to magnify by a million when it pops.
It won't really pop
The way the loans work the only way it pops is if a massive number of folks elect outright poverty after the loans come due.
Student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy, and servicers can garnish your wages till they've been paid off, they come for your family after you die in some cases. Student loans get paid.
Seemingly the only reason folks trade em around all the time is because they are really valuable debt and they need the fractional dollars now to overcome a shortfall of one kind or another.
Literally the only option to not pay the loans is to be poor forever... I've considered this path before.
It's got to be a drag on any sector of the economy not vested in making money off of the loans however.
It's just a chunk of income that disappears every month for something that is often over priced that barely has any wake in the larger economy.
Yeah Its a drag on literally every sector of the economy. That concentrates the product of everyone's labors into the pockets of a very few.
Rural America in 1950 makes rural America in 2018 look like a picnic.
I thought the differences now is that most of those towns are literally starting to cease to exist? And the heroin epidemic killing those that remain.
Well and that your cost of living and wage disparity between rural and urban areas barely matters anymore. I may have low wages and cheap rent but I still pay the same price for most goods as someone in NYC, and the cheap rent keeps getting higher while my wages stay the same.
We needed a minimum wage hike badly.
I have wanted to move from the rural town I'm in to a city located about an hour away for about five years now. I absolutely hate being stuck in a small town with nothing to do and no likeminded people to associate with.
But my student loans make it too expensive to live in the city where the jobs I would want to take are. Plus I actually do currently have one of those fabled high-paying factory jobs (about $600/week for a position requiring only a high school diploma), so even if I did get a job in the city I probably wouldn't be making as much. I at least don't have to worry too much financially because I don't have any children to take care of, chronic illnesses to treat, etc, so I feel like I shouldn't complain, but the social isolation and difficulty relating to co-workers is a big thing that gets to me (it was really bad for much of last year, too).
I hope I'll at least be able to pay off one of my two loans within the next year, which should help. But I hate feeling like I've missed out on most of my twenties (I'll be turning 30 in a few months).
Have we ever had a thread about the student loan crisis? Because I feel like the insanity we’re experiencing now is going to magnify by a million when it pops.
It won't really pop
The way the loans work the only way it pops is if a massive number of folks elect outright poverty after the loans come due.
Student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy, and servicers can garnish your wages till they've been paid off, they come for your family after you die in some cases. Student loans get paid.
Seemingly the only reason folks trade em around all the time is because they are really valuable debt and they need the fractional dollars now to overcome a shortfall of one kind or another.
Literally the only option to not pay the loans is to be poor forever... I've considered this path before.
It's got to be a drag on any sector of the economy not vested in making money off of the loans however.
It's just a chunk of income that disappears every month for something that is often over priced that barely has any wake in the larger economy.
Yeah Its a drag on literally every sector of the economy. That concentrates the product of everyone's labors into the pockets of a very few.
One of the important things it does is make it very hard for educated people to have kids when they are young, leading to a lower birth rate overall.
Rural America in 1950 makes rural America in 2018 look like a picnic.
I thought the differences now is that most of those towns are literally starting to cease to exist? And the heroin epidemic killing those that remain.
Well and that your cost of living and wage disparity between rural and urban areas barely matters anymore. I may have low wages and cheap rent but I still pay the same price for most goods as someone in NYC, and the cheap rent keeps getting higher while my wages stay the same.
We needed a minimum wage hike badly.
I have wanted to move from the rural town I'm in to a city located about an hour away for about five years now. I absolutely hate being stuck in a small town with nothing to do and no likeminded people to associate with.
But my student loans make it too expensive to live in the city where the jobs I would want to take are. Plus I actually do currently have one of those fabled high-paying factory jobs (about $600/week for a position requiring only a high school diploma), so even if I did get a job in the city I probably wouldn't be making as much. I at least don't have to worry too much financially because I don't have any children to take care of, chronic illnesses to treat, etc, so I feel like I shouldn't complain, but the social isolation and difficulty relating to co-workers is a big thing that gets to me (it was really bad for much of last year, too).
I hope I'll at least be able to pay off one of my two loans within the next year, which should help. But I hate feeling like I've missed out on most of my twenties (I'll be turning 30 in a few months).
Have we ever had a thread about the student loan crisis? Because I feel like the insanity we’re experiencing now is going to magnify by a million when it pops.
It won't really pop
The way the loans work the only way it pops is if a massive number of folks elect outright poverty after the loans come due.
Student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy, and servicers can garnish your wages till they've been paid off, they come for your family after you die in some cases. Student loans get paid.
Seemingly the only reason folks trade em around all the time is because they are really valuable debt and they need the fractional dollars now to overcome a shortfall of one kind or another.
Literally the only option to not pay the loans is to be poor forever... I've considered this path before.
It's got to be a drag on any sector of the economy not vested in making money off of the loans however.
It's just a chunk of income that disappears every month for something that is often over priced that barely has any wake in the larger economy.
Yeah Its a drag on literally every sector of the economy. That concentrates the product of everyone's labors into the pockets of a very few.
One of the important things it does is make it very hard for educated people to have kids when they are young, leading to a lower birth rate overall.
Yeah I easily pay the monthly cost of raising a child in student loan payments every month and will be doing so for some time.
Rural America in 1950 makes rural America in 2018 look like a picnic.
I thought the differences now is that most of those towns are literally starting to cease to exist? And the heroin epidemic killing those that remain.
Well and that your cost of living and wage disparity between rural and urban areas barely matters anymore. I may have low wages and cheap rent but I still pay the same price for most goods as someone in NYC, and the cheap rent keeps getting higher while my wages stay the same.
We needed a minimum wage hike badly.
I have wanted to move from the rural town I'm in to a city located about an hour away for about five years now. I absolutely hate being stuck in a small town with nothing to do and no likeminded people to associate with.
But my student loans make it too expensive to live in the city where the jobs I would want to take are. Plus I actually do currently have one of those fabled high-paying factory jobs (about $600/week for a position requiring only a high school diploma), so even if I did get a job in the city I probably wouldn't be making as much. I at least don't have to worry too much financially because I don't have any children to take care of, chronic illnesses to treat, etc, so I feel like I shouldn't complain, but the social isolation and difficulty relating to co-workers is a big thing that gets to me (it was really bad for much of last year, too).
I hope I'll at least be able to pay off one of my two loans within the next year, which should help. But I hate feeling like I've missed out on most of my twenties (I'll be turning 30 in a few months).
Have we ever had a thread about the student loan crisis? Because I feel like the insanity we’re experiencing now is going to magnify by a million when it pops.
It won't really pop
The way the loans work the only way it pops is if a massive number of folks elect outright poverty after the loans come due.
Student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy, and servicers can garnish your wages till they've been paid off, they come for your family after you die in some cases. Student loans get paid.
Seemingly the only reason folks trade em around all the time is because they are really valuable debt and they need the fractional dollars now to overcome a shortfall of one kind or another.
Literally the only option to not pay the loans is to be poor forever... I've considered this path before.
It's got to be a drag on any sector of the economy not vested in making money off of the loans however.
It's just a chunk of income that disappears every month for something that is often over priced that barely has any wake in the larger economy.
Yeah Its a drag on literally every sector of the economy. That concentrates the product of everyone's labors into the pockets of a very few.
One of the important things it does is make it very hard for educated people to have kids when they are young, leading to a lower birth rate overall.
I am literally one of these people the only reason i don't have a kid right now is because we spend 3000 a month on fuckin student loans.
Stuff like the rightward shift in Denmark makes me suspicious of claims that racism in the USA is primarily because of the USA's unusually weak unions, social safety net, etc.
Starting at the age of 1, “ghetto children” must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in “Danish values,” including the traditions of Christmas and Easter, and Danish language. Noncompliance could result in a stoppage of welfare payments. Other Danish citizens are free to choose whether to enroll children in preschool up to the age of six.
Denmark’s government is introducing a new set of laws to regulate life in 25 low-income and heavily Muslim enclaves, saying that if families there do not willingly merge into the country’s mainstream, they should be compelled.
For decades, integrating immigrants has posed a thorny challenge to the Danish model, intended to serve a small, homogeneous population. Leaders are focusing their ire on urban neighborhoods where immigrants, some of them placed there by the government, live in dense concentrations with high rates of unemployment and gang violence.
Politicians’ description of the ghettos has become increasingly sinister. In his annual New Year’s speech, Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen warned that ghettos could “reach out their tentacles onto the streets” by spreading violence, and that because of ghettos, “cracks have appeared on the map of Denmark.” Politicians who once used the word “integration” now call frankly for “assimilation.”
Recent elections in Sweden and Finland are of note for contemporary politics. They confirm that the rightward shift in Nordic politics is not confined to Norway and Denmark but forms a more general trend. This includes increased appeal of both mainstream conservatives and populist radical right forces. This article contextualises this phenomenon within broader European developments. In accounting for the shift in question, the article stresses the cumulative effects of choices made by erstwhile centre-left hegemonic agents, most notably the consequences of the so-called Third Way. This perspective has the merit of providing a way for holding politicians accountable, and it avoids the fatalism entailed in invoking ‘inevitable’ structural developments.
Last week’s election, which resulted in a shift towards the right, signals a crisis of identity and dissatisfaction with Denmark’s political governance, according to Global Risks Insights and Seven59.dk.
Winning more votes than ever in the party’s history, the Danish People’s Party (DPP) soared to new heights in the latest election, amassing 21.1 per cent of the vote and surpassing The Liberals as the second largest’s party.
The DPP mixes a pro-welfare stance and socialist objectives with a fierce hostility towards immigration and threats to “authentic” Danish culture. The party advocates both a tougher immigration stance and renegotiation of Denmark’s European Union participation.
This approach extends to some unconventional propositions to combat internationalisation in Denmark, such as imposing a tax on English-language advertisements and banning university degrees in English, writes Global Risks Insights.
“Syriza and the Danish People’s Party are mirror images of one another, part of the same megatrend now in many European countries,” said Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “There is a remaking of the political order, with centrist parties that have run politics over the last few decades being hollowed out and replaced by parties appealing to the fringes.”
To Mr. Leonard, the shift appears structural, similar to the way that liberal parties were weakened a century ago and then surpassed by socialist parties, like the Labour Party in Britain.
“Globalization produces winners and losers, and large groups feel they’ve been left behind, no longer represented by mainstream parties,” Mr. Leonard said. “The parties of the left have become representatives of public-sector workers and the creative industries, while the right represents big business and finance, and both are rather liberal in social values. That leaves large segments of the population feeling angry and unrepresented, and new parties are emerging with a different language.”
For Daniela Schwarzer, the director of the German Marshall Fund’s Berlin office, the failures to deal with Greece have exacerbated polarization in other member states.
“The parties gain ground who want to unravel the system, and the moderate parties never understood that you can be critical of the E.U. and still pro-European — they’ve missed that window,” she said. “Now a huge gap has been left open, without a positive narrative about the future and without the necessary review and criticism of the functioning of the system.”
The danger is the accumulation of these political events “in a trend with common roots, which is a loss of trust in government by increasing numbers of European voters,” said Robin Niblett, the director of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
those two both 2015
But again: The problem is these are not unicausal issues, but instead are multi-causal, systemic failures.
Racial Supremacy, an Economy that exploits the masses in favor of further enriching the Capital class, Nationalism/Jingoism etc. and so on form together to form a nasty social mechanism where the interconnected systems are easily able to reinforce each other to the detriment of the vulnerable.
I think it's interesting the amount to which it does seem universal and fairly unicausal. You see it in the UK and in the examples above and it seems to be a force in Germany too these days from what I've read. The core issue is appeals to anti-immigrant/anti-diversity/anti-refugee/etc. The inability of the established party systems to properly represent broad anti-multiculturalism and ethno-nationalist sentiment and the subsequent hollowing out or take-over of one or more of those established parties as those sentiments begin to express themselves more strongly.
I'm not really sure we can discount the factor of austerity economics in providing fertile ground for far right-wing radicalization. I fear there is a certain level of comfort at play with the unsound economic policies that are an exacerbating factor in this unrest, which leads liberals to discount the economic policies also at play that pair toxicly with white supremacy.
Like again: I am not discounting white supremacy as a factor. But it is not the sole factor at play, and to ignore other factors in favor of just one will inevitably result in a failure of reforms and will lead to targeted non-whites being harmed, along with whoever else the far-right decides to scapegoat for the problems alongside them.
I think there is a real overestimation of how much this is really all about economics, given how similarly ethno-nationalistic the politics seem to be regardless of the state and character of the country in question. I think we can look to the economic situation as helping to delegitimize the current system and encourage the ever popular "vote the bums out" politics but ultimately I think we are seeing the exertion of influence by anti-multicultural forces that have been brewing under the surface for a long time.
I think a focus on economics is what will actually fail to create meaningful reform because as the american situation that is the impetus of this thread demonstrates, economic prosperity doesn't solve anything, it merely papers over the issue for a time.
Stuff like the rightward shift in Denmark makes me suspicious of claims that racism in the USA is primarily because of the USA's unusually weak unions, social safety net, etc.
Starting at the age of 1, “ghetto children” must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in “Danish values,” including the traditions of Christmas and Easter, and Danish language. Noncompliance could result in a stoppage of welfare payments. Other Danish citizens are free to choose whether to enroll children in preschool up to the age of six.
Denmark’s government is introducing a new set of laws to regulate life in 25 low-income and heavily Muslim enclaves, saying that if families there do not willingly merge into the country’s mainstream, they should be compelled.
For decades, integrating immigrants has posed a thorny challenge to the Danish model, intended to serve a small, homogeneous population. Leaders are focusing their ire on urban neighborhoods where immigrants, some of them placed there by the government, live in dense concentrations with high rates of unemployment and gang violence.
Politicians’ description of the ghettos has become increasingly sinister. In his annual New Year’s speech, Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen warned that ghettos could “reach out their tentacles onto the streets” by spreading violence, and that because of ghettos, “cracks have appeared on the map of Denmark.” Politicians who once used the word “integration” now call frankly for “assimilation.”
Recent elections in Sweden and Finland are of note for contemporary politics. They confirm that the rightward shift in Nordic politics is not confined to Norway and Denmark but forms a more general trend. This includes increased appeal of both mainstream conservatives and populist radical right forces. This article contextualises this phenomenon within broader European developments. In accounting for the shift in question, the article stresses the cumulative effects of choices made by erstwhile centre-left hegemonic agents, most notably the consequences of the so-called Third Way. This perspective has the merit of providing a way for holding politicians accountable, and it avoids the fatalism entailed in invoking ‘inevitable’ structural developments.
Last week’s election, which resulted in a shift towards the right, signals a crisis of identity and dissatisfaction with Denmark’s political governance, according to Global Risks Insights and Seven59.dk.
Winning more votes than ever in the party’s history, the Danish People’s Party (DPP) soared to new heights in the latest election, amassing 21.1 per cent of the vote and surpassing The Liberals as the second largest’s party.
The DPP mixes a pro-welfare stance and socialist objectives with a fierce hostility towards immigration and threats to “authentic” Danish culture. The party advocates both a tougher immigration stance and renegotiation of Denmark’s European Union participation.
This approach extends to some unconventional propositions to combat internationalisation in Denmark, such as imposing a tax on English-language advertisements and banning university degrees in English, writes Global Risks Insights.
“Syriza and the Danish People’s Party are mirror images of one another, part of the same megatrend now in many European countries,” said Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “There is a remaking of the political order, with centrist parties that have run politics over the last few decades being hollowed out and replaced by parties appealing to the fringes.”
To Mr. Leonard, the shift appears structural, similar to the way that liberal parties were weakened a century ago and then surpassed by socialist parties, like the Labour Party in Britain.
“Globalization produces winners and losers, and large groups feel they’ve been left behind, no longer represented by mainstream parties,” Mr. Leonard said. “The parties of the left have become representatives of public-sector workers and the creative industries, while the right represents big business and finance, and both are rather liberal in social values. That leaves large segments of the population feeling angry and unrepresented, and new parties are emerging with a different language.”
For Daniela Schwarzer, the director of the German Marshall Fund’s Berlin office, the failures to deal with Greece have exacerbated polarization in other member states.
“The parties gain ground who want to unravel the system, and the moderate parties never understood that you can be critical of the E.U. and still pro-European — they’ve missed that window,” she said. “Now a huge gap has been left open, without a positive narrative about the future and without the necessary review and criticism of the functioning of the system.”
The danger is the accumulation of these political events “in a trend with common roots, which is a loss of trust in government by increasing numbers of European voters,” said Robin Niblett, the director of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
those two both 2015
But again: The problem is these are not unicausal issues, but instead are multi-causal, systemic failures.
Racial Supremacy, an Economy that exploits the masses in favor of further enriching the Capital class, Nationalism/Jingoism etc. and so on form together to form a nasty social mechanism where the interconnected systems are easily able to reinforce each other to the detriment of the vulnerable.
I think it's interesting the amount to which it does seem universal and fairly unicausal. You see it in the UK and in the examples above and it seems to be a force in Germany too these days from what I've read. The core issue is appeals to anti-immigrant/anti-diversity/anti-refugee/etc. The inability of the established party systems to properly represent broad anti-multiculturalism and ethno-nationalist sentiment and the subsequent hollowing out or take-over of one or more of those established parties as those sentiments begin to express themselves more strongly.
I'm not really sure we can discount the factor of austerity economics in providing fertile ground for far right-wing radicalization. I fear there is a certain level of comfort at play with the unsound economic policies that are an exacerbating factor in this unrest, which leads liberals to discount the economic policies also at play that pair toxicly with white supremacy.
Like again: I am not discounting white supremacy as a factor. But it is not the sole factor at play, and to ignore other factors in favor of just one will inevitably result in a failure of reforms and will lead to targeted non-whites being harmed, along with whoever else the far-right decides to scapegoat for the problems alongside them.
I think there is a real overestimation of how much this is really all about economics, given how similarly ethno-nationalistic the politics seem to be regardless of the state and character of the country in question. I think we can look to the economic situation as helping to delegitimize the current system and encourage the ever popular "vote the bums out" politics but ultimately I think we are seeing the exertion of influence by anti-multicultural forces that have been brewing under the surface for a long time.
I think a focus on economics is what will actually fail to create meaningful reform because as the american situation that is the impetus of this thread demonstrates, economic prosperity doesn't solve anything, it merely papers over the issue for a time.
How many times do I have say "multi-causal systemic failure" before people realize I'm suggesting the problem is a Multi-Causal Systemic Failure with multiple systems at play that reinforce and effect one another before people stop going "Why do you think this is all about economics?!"
Yep... for all the "boomers ruined everything" attitude, I can't think of anything that was better in 1950 than it is now except
- macro climate
- wage gap
Student loans?
The housing crisis?
Drug epidemic amongst the midwesterners?
The death of rural america’s economy?
Health care?
You ain’t thinking too hard my dude.
Health care now is waaay better than it was in the 50s.* The leaps in health care technology have been astounding. Next time you get sick, you're going to get a prescription for an antibiotic other than penicillin. If you need surgery, you're likely to get it orthoscopically, you'll get anesthesia other than laughing gas, you're going to get a mix of plasma and whole blood - and more of it too - that's been better typed and screened, and you're way way way less likely to die.
Yes, a lot of people still die of medical causes, in particular heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, but that's not because cancer didn't exist back in the 50s; it's because people died before the cancer got them. Prostate cancer is emerging as a new focus in medical research for the first time ever, not because men are getting prostate cancer more - in fact, most men have prostate cancer when they die and this has always been true; it's only now that they're living long enough for prostate cancer to kill them, and even then, only because we've taken a lot of the other cancers off the list (or, at least, knocked them down the list).
I think a distinction needs to be drawn between the question of whether our life(styles) are better or worse, and whether our life(styles) are more or less fragile, more or less aspirational, more or less empowered. It seems undeniable to me that life is better, especially for those of us who aren't healthy, straight, white males, but it may also be true that we feel like those gains are always at risk all the time, and that imposes a psychological toll on us that's not really quantifiable or comparable.
* Disclaimer: if in 20 years, pathogenic multidrug-resistant bacteria kill us all, I'll retract this claim.
The USA has the best medicine in the world if you can pay for it, and worse than anywhere in the developed world if you can't. A lot of poor Americans would be grateful to be able to afford '50s medicine.
Awful scene on the orange line. A woman’s leg got stuck in the gap between the train and the platform. It was twisted and bloody. Skin came off. She’s in agony and weeping. Just as upsetting she begged no one call an ambulance. “It’s $3000,” she wailed. “I can’t afford that.”
The USA has the best medicine in the world if you can pay for it, and worse than anywhere in the developed world if you can't. A lot of poor Americans would be grateful to be able to afford '50s medicine.
This is only true if you believe that the numbers the US produces are, in any sense, accurate.
I know people who had bacteriological infections, broken bones, etcetera that went untreated for years, meanwhile, the last free country on Earth, Cuba, is next door.
History is a story of people not being able to deal with those different to themselves. If no-one foreign is available, people will make their own minorities to abuse (e.g. Catholic vs Protestant, Hutu vs Tutsi, oppression of LGBT)
Politicians need to think about how we can deal with this fact of human nature in light of the invention of the airplane to get them there, and the TV to know that there is a "there" to go to. You can't put that genie back in the bottle. People can travel, they want to travel, so they will. Even Japan, famously hostile to immigrants, has immigrants.
Human nature, or the latest form of crackpot realism promoted on every commercial frequency by a vile nation that doesn't want any alternatives to be heard? Because I'm reasonably sure that there was a sort of organization of council egalitarian republics that stopped the Romanians from operating slaughterhouses where the primary product was human beings, that was actually decent to ethnic minorities, and didn't, say, prop the fascists back up, break the peace, and support C-list nazis for half a century only to be left completely ass-blasted when fascism began breaking out at home.
Yet, as sociologist Michael Harrington (1962) demonstrated eloquently in his own best-seller in 1962, the highest mass standard of living in the world was definitely not shared by all. There was “another America”: 40 to 50 million citizens who were poor, who lacked adequate medical care, and who were “socially invisible” to the majority of the population. Within this poverty-stricken group were more than 8 million of the 18 million Americans who were 65 years of age and over, suffering from a “downward spiral” of sickness and isolation. And although there were half a million Americans in nursing homes, less than 60 percent of the homes were considered acceptable (Harrington, 1962). Medicare was formed in a society with idealistic expectations of wealth for all—at least for all of those who “deserved” it—yet increasingly isolated its minorities and its poor.
I get it, you look at something like this and you go, this is horrific, how could this ever be, and you think that this is so insane that it must never have been like this any other time anywhere else. But it was. Things were this insane.
Someone else mentioned earlier in the thread, briefly, that the world isn't better now because a whole city just found that there was lead in their water. Well, there was lead in everybody's water back then; we just didn't know about it. It wasn't until 1986 that the US banned the use of lead water pipes. (Though the turning point against lead water pipes occurred earlier, and the decline in their usage started in the 30s. Still, full-scale replacement took decades, when it did take, as it obviously did not in Flint. Toronto still has a program to subsidize homeowners interested in replacing their lead pipes!) Shit really was that awful not that long ago; people were just ignorant/tolerant of it all.
This doesn't at all reduce the moral failings of the Boomer generation though, in their failure to spread the gains in progress far and wide. Because we do know that there's lead in the water in Flint now, and we do know that it's awful, and there is no lead industry lobbying group holding things up, so wtf?
This doesn't at all reduce the moral failings of the Boomer generation though, in their failure to spread the gains in progress far and wide. Because we do know that there's lead in the water in Flint now, and we do know that it's awful, and there is no lead industry lobbying group holding things up, so wtf?
The majority of Flint's citizens are black, and then it's not wtf anymore.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
If the Tuition Price Arms Race continues then eventually the student loan bubble will at least sort of pop, once the average debt-at-time-of-death becomes large enough that losses due to people dying before they finish paying off their loans exceeds the bottom lines of the loan and deb-collection companies. I know the debt-collectors go after next-of-kin but they don't have any legal basis to do so unless said next-of-kin was a cosigner. And pretty soon nobody's going to be cosigning student loans because they all have too many student loans for their credit score to justify them as a cosigner.
Stuff like the rightward shift in Denmark makes me suspicious of claims that racism in the USA is primarily because of the USA's unusually weak unions, social safety net, etc.
Starting at the age of 1, “ghetto children” must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in “Danish values,” including the traditions of Christmas and Easter, and Danish language. Noncompliance could result in a stoppage of welfare payments. Other Danish citizens are free to choose whether to enroll children in preschool up to the age of six.
Denmark’s government is introducing a new set of laws to regulate life in 25 low-income and heavily Muslim enclaves, saying that if families there do not willingly merge into the country’s mainstream, they should be compelled.
For decades, integrating immigrants has posed a thorny challenge to the Danish model, intended to serve a small, homogeneous population. Leaders are focusing their ire on urban neighborhoods where immigrants, some of them placed there by the government, live in dense concentrations with high rates of unemployment and gang violence.
Politicians’ description of the ghettos has become increasingly sinister. In his annual New Year’s speech, Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen warned that ghettos could “reach out their tentacles onto the streets” by spreading violence, and that because of ghettos, “cracks have appeared on the map of Denmark.” Politicians who once used the word “integration” now call frankly for “assimilation.”
Recent elections in Sweden and Finland are of note for contemporary politics. They confirm that the rightward shift in Nordic politics is not confined to Norway and Denmark but forms a more general trend. This includes increased appeal of both mainstream conservatives and populist radical right forces. This article contextualises this phenomenon within broader European developments. In accounting for the shift in question, the article stresses the cumulative effects of choices made by erstwhile centre-left hegemonic agents, most notably the consequences of the so-called Third Way. This perspective has the merit of providing a way for holding politicians accountable, and it avoids the fatalism entailed in invoking ‘inevitable’ structural developments.
Last week’s election, which resulted in a shift towards the right, signals a crisis of identity and dissatisfaction with Denmark’s political governance, according to Global Risks Insights and Seven59.dk.
Winning more votes than ever in the party’s history, the Danish People’s Party (DPP) soared to new heights in the latest election, amassing 21.1 per cent of the vote and surpassing The Liberals as the second largest’s party.
The DPP mixes a pro-welfare stance and socialist objectives with a fierce hostility towards immigration and threats to “authentic” Danish culture. The party advocates both a tougher immigration stance and renegotiation of Denmark’s European Union participation.
This approach extends to some unconventional propositions to combat internationalisation in Denmark, such as imposing a tax on English-language advertisements and banning university degrees in English, writes Global Risks Insights.
“Syriza and the Danish People’s Party are mirror images of one another, part of the same megatrend now in many European countries,” said Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “There is a remaking of the political order, with centrist parties that have run politics over the last few decades being hollowed out and replaced by parties appealing to the fringes.”
To Mr. Leonard, the shift appears structural, similar to the way that liberal parties were weakened a century ago and then surpassed by socialist parties, like the Labour Party in Britain.
“Globalization produces winners and losers, and large groups feel they’ve been left behind, no longer represented by mainstream parties,” Mr. Leonard said. “The parties of the left have become representatives of public-sector workers and the creative industries, while the right represents big business and finance, and both are rather liberal in social values. That leaves large segments of the population feeling angry and unrepresented, and new parties are emerging with a different language.”
For Daniela Schwarzer, the director of the German Marshall Fund’s Berlin office, the failures to deal with Greece have exacerbated polarization in other member states.
“The parties gain ground who want to unravel the system, and the moderate parties never understood that you can be critical of the E.U. and still pro-European — they’ve missed that window,” she said. “Now a huge gap has been left open, without a positive narrative about the future and without the necessary review and criticism of the functioning of the system.”
The danger is the accumulation of these political events “in a trend with common roots, which is a loss of trust in government by increasing numbers of European voters,” said Robin Niblett, the director of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
those two both 2015
But again: The problem is these are not unicausal issues, but instead are multi-causal, systemic failures.
Racial Supremacy, an Economy that exploits the masses in favor of further enriching the Capital class, Nationalism/Jingoism etc. and so on form together to form a nasty social mechanism where the interconnected systems are easily able to reinforce each other to the detriment of the vulnerable.
I think it's interesting the amount to which it does seem universal and fairly unicausal. You see it in the UK and in the examples above and it seems to be a force in Germany too these days from what I've read. The core issue is appeals to anti-immigrant/anti-diversity/anti-refugee/etc. The inability of the established party systems to properly represent broad anti-multiculturalism and ethno-nationalist sentiment and the subsequent hollowing out or take-over of one or more of those established parties as those sentiments begin to express themselves more strongly.
I'm not really sure we can discount the factor of austerity economics in providing fertile ground for far right-wing radicalization. I fear there is a certain level of comfort at play with the unsound economic policies that are an exacerbating factor in this unrest, which leads liberals to discount the economic policies also at play that pair toxicly with white supremacy.
Like again: I am not discounting white supremacy as a factor. But it is not the sole factor at play, and to ignore other factors in favor of just one will inevitably result in a failure of reforms and will lead to targeted non-whites being harmed, along with whoever else the far-right decides to scapegoat for the problems alongside them.
I think there is a real overestimation of how much this is really all about economics, given how similarly ethno-nationalistic the politics seem to be regardless of the state and character of the country in question. I think we can look to the economic situation as helping to delegitimize the current system and encourage the ever popular "vote the bums out" politics but ultimately I think we are seeing the exertion of influence by anti-multicultural forces that have been brewing under the surface for a long time.
I think a focus on economics is what will actually fail to create meaningful reform because as the american situation that is the impetus of this thread demonstrates, economic prosperity doesn't solve anything, it merely papers over the issue for a time.
How many times do I have say "multi-causal systemic failure" before people realize I'm suggesting the problem is a Multi-Causal Systemic Failure with multiple systems at play that reinforce and effect one another before people stop going "Why do you think this is all about economics?!"
And I'm saying it's a lot less about economics then you (at least seem to) think. Your reply here is unneeded snark based on something I didn't even say. And specifically I think this really hits home for your second paragraph because that's where reforms that overestimate the extent to which this is about economics will lead to failures. Like I said.
Broad economic prosperity will not solve the underlying issue. And the US through the middle of last century is the perfect example of that.
You really have two groups - one group that is economically well off, but feel their situation is precarious due to being exposed to right wing propaganda, and the another that is economically disadvantaged, and blame their situation on acceptable targets provided by right wing propaganda.
Middle/Upper class Trump voters think minorities, immigrants and the Left are going to steal their earned prosperity.
Lower class Trump voters think minorities, immigrants and the Left are the reason why they're not Middle/Upper class.
The propaganda works on both levels. For one its a perceived threat, for the other its an explanation.
Cultural racism exists of course, but the right wing media is important in spreading that racism to groups that traditionally aren't racist, but are vulnerable to that way of thinking.
Its a racism that is still dressed in dog whistles for the most part, which makes it palatable for someone who doesn't want to associate with the KKK/Neo-Nazis, but triggers fear of the other just the same.
The legal immigrant who is really anti-illegal immigration and voted for Trump or Brexit, or the minority gamer ironically railing against SJWs come to mind.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Yep... for all the "boomers ruined everything" attitude, I can't think of anything that was better in 1950 than it is now except
- macro climate
- wage gap
Student loans?
The housing crisis?
Drug epidemic amongst the midwesterners?
The death of rural america’s economy?
Health care?
You ain’t thinking too hard my dude.
Health care now is waaay better than it was in the 50s. The leaps in health care technology have been astounding. Next time you get sick, you're going to get a prescription for an antibiotic other than penicillin. If you need surgery, you're likely to get it orthoscopically, you'll get anesthesia other than laughing gas, you're going to get a mix of plasma and whole blood - and more of it too - that's been better typed and screened.
Yes, a lot of people still die of medical causes, in particular heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, but that's not because cancer didn't exist back in the 50s; it's because people died before cancer got them.
Yes, and we get to go bankrupt if we get sick. In Canada, things are different.
Before, you were just dead.
Yeah things could be lots better financially but come on. I figure most of us will take bankrupt over dead.
You really have two groups - one group that is economically well off, but feel their situation is precarious due to being exposed to right wing propaganda, and the another that is economically disadvantaged, and blame their situation on acceptable targets provided by right wing propaganda.
Middle/Upper class Trump voters think minorities, immigrants and the Left are going to steal their earned prosperity.
Lower class Trump voters think minorities, immigrants and the Left are the reason why they're not Middle/Upper class.
The propaganda works on both levels. For one its a perceived threat, for the other its an explanation.
Cultural racism exists of course, but the right wing media is important in spreading that racism to groups that traditionally aren't racist, but are vulnerable to that way of thinking.
Its a racism that is still dressed in dog whistles for the most part, which makes it palatable for someone who doesn't want to associate with the KKK/Neo-Nazis, but triggers fear of the other just the same.
The legal immigrant who is really anti-illegal immigration and voted for Trump or Brexit comes to mind.
Well you also have the donor class types who don't believe a word of it but are looking for a tax holiday or a capital gains deduction and think having kids thrown into wood chippers to get it is a modest proposal.
RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Yep... for all the "boomers ruined everything" attitude, I can't think of anything that was better in 1950 than it is now except
- macro climate
- wage gap
Student loans?
The housing crisis?
Drug epidemic amongst the midwesterners?
The death of rural america’s economy?
Health care?
You ain’t thinking too hard my dude.
Health care now is waaay better than it was in the 50s. The leaps in health care technology have been astounding. Next time you get sick, you're going to get a prescription for an antibiotic other than penicillin. If you need surgery, you're likely to get it orthoscopically, you'll get anesthesia other than laughing gas, you're going to get a mix of plasma and whole blood - and more of it too - that's been better typed and screened.
Yes, a lot of people still die of medical causes, in particular heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, but that's not because cancer didn't exist back in the 50s; it's because people died before cancer got them.
Yes, and we get to go bankrupt if we get sick. In Canada, things are different.
Before, you were just dead.
Yeah things could be lots better financially but come on. I figure most of us will take bankrupt over dead.
There is a reason why there is a suicide epidemic among male Americans. Especially among farmers who are financially on the edge.
It turns out that a lot of American men would rather commit suicide than have their pride tarnished by something like bankruptcy.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Yep... for all the "boomers ruined everything" attitude, I can't think of anything that was better in 1950 than it is now except
- macro climate
- wage gap
Student loans?
The housing crisis?
Drug epidemic amongst the midwesterners?
The death of rural america’s economy?
Health care?
You ain’t thinking too hard my dude.
Health care now is waaay better than it was in the 50s. The leaps in health care technology have been astounding. Next time you get sick, you're going to get a prescription for an antibiotic other than penicillin. If you need surgery, you're likely to get it orthoscopically, you'll get anesthesia other than laughing gas, you're going to get a mix of plasma and whole blood - and more of it too - that's been better typed and screened.
Yes, a lot of people still die of medical causes, in particular heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, but that's not because cancer didn't exist back in the 50s; it's because people died before cancer got them.
Yes, and we get to go bankrupt if we get sick. In Canada, things are different.
Before, you were just dead.
Yeah things could be lots better financially but come on. I figure most of us will take bankrupt over dead.
There is a reason why there is a suicide epidemic among male Americans. Especially among farmers who are financially on the edge.
It turns out that a lot of American men would rather commit suicide than have their pride tarnished by something like bankruptcy.
A lot of people choose to die and paper over saying that by saying things like "Chemo is hell, I won't do it (again)" which in some cases may be true but in a lot of others it's really "Chemo sucks and this time ill probably still die and my wife won't be able to afford to bury me".
You say you're dying to save money and people in line at the grocery store will plead for you to do something. People lie.
RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
Come Overwatch with meeeee
You really have two groups - one group that is economically well off, but feel their situation is precarious due to being exposed to right wing propaganda, and the another that is economically disadvantaged, and blame their situation on acceptable targets provided by right wing propaganda.
Middle/Upper class Trump voters think minorities, immigrants and the Left are going to steal their earned prosperity.
Lower class Trump voters think minorities, immigrants and the Left are the reason why they're not Middle/Upper class.
The propaganda works on both levels. For one its a perceived threat, for the other its an explanation.
Cultural racism exists of course, but the right wing media is important in spreading that racism to groups that traditionally aren't racist, but are vulnerable to that way of thinking.
Its a racism that is still dressed in dog whistles for the most part, which makes it palatable for someone who doesn't want to associate with the KKK/Neo-Nazis, but triggers fear of the other just the same.
The legal immigrant who is really anti-illegal immigration and voted for Trump or Brexit comes to mind.
Well you also have the donor class types who don't believe a word of it but are looking for a tax holiday or a capital gains deduction and think having kids thrown into wood chippers to get it is a modest proposal.
The donor class are SUPER racist. Like, individually racist, in addition to their lifetime of support for structural racism.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
You really have two groups - one group that is economically well off, but feel their situation is precarious due to being exposed to right wing propaganda, and the another that is economically disadvantaged, and blame their situation on acceptable targets provided by right wing propaganda.
Middle/Upper class Trump voters think minorities, immigrants and the Left are going to steal their earned prosperity.
Lower class Trump voters think minorities, immigrants and the Left are the reason why they're not Middle/Upper class.
The propaganda works on both levels. For one its a perceived threat, for the other its an explanation.
Cultural racism exists of course, but the right wing media is important in spreading that racism to groups that traditionally aren't racist, but are vulnerable to that way of thinking.
Its a racism that is still dressed in dog whistles for the most part, which makes it palatable for someone who doesn't want to associate with the KKK/Neo-Nazis, but triggers fear of the other just the same.
The legal immigrant who is really anti-illegal immigration and voted for Trump or Brexit comes to mind.
Well you also have the donor class types who don't believe a word of it but are looking for a tax holiday or a capital gains deduction and think having kids thrown into wood chippers to get it is a modest proposal.
The donor class are SUPER racist. Like, individually racist, in addition to their lifetime of support for structural racism.
Well sure it's a Venn Diagram, but the circles don't always line up perfect.
RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Bankruptcy is extremely scary to people who don't actually know how it works, or who don't feel like they have the infrastructure to accomplish it.
Lawyers are terrifying to people who have never dealt with one and declaring bankruptcy requires one. Finding an appropriate lawyer, providing the required documentation, paying them, and going through the whole process can be really daunting. Rationally, undergoing a daunting process is obviously better than dying but for people who are suffering from any degree of depression or anxiety disorder, or who simply believe that their family would be better off if they were dead, that daunting process may be simply unapproachable.
(Edit: not to even mention the tendency of modern American society to so heavily stigmatize going bankrupt that suicide can be an attractive proposition just to avoid the loss of face)
Yes, You're Racist is a Twitter personality managed by Logan James of Progress Now, North Carolina to chronicle the doings of white supremacists on Twitter.
About that last one, didn't Mr. D'souza also retweet a user that said garfield had a bigger dick than him because the body of the tweet was hyping Death of a Nation
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Yep... for all the "boomers ruined everything" attitude, I can't think of anything that was better in 1950 than it is now except
- macro climate
- wage gap
Student loans?
The housing crisis?
Drug epidemic amongst the midwesterners?
The death of rural america’s economy?
Health care?
You ain’t thinking too hard my dude.
Health care now is waaay better than it was in the 50s. The leaps in health care technology have been astounding. Next time you get sick, you're going to get a prescription for an antibiotic other than penicillin. If you need surgery, you're likely to get it orthoscopically, you'll get anesthesia other than laughing gas, you're going to get a mix of plasma and whole blood - and more of it too - that's been better typed and screened.
Yes, a lot of people still die of medical causes, in particular heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, but that's not because cancer didn't exist back in the 50s; it's because people died before cancer got them.
Yes, and we get to go bankrupt if we get sick. In Canada, things are different.
Before, you were just dead.
Yeah things could be lots better financially but come on. I figure most of us will take bankrupt over dead.
Bum's point was that the best choice would be in Canada's system because you're neither bankrupt or dead. Makes me wonder how the right would be today were that system in place, since it would take a lot of the pressure on the financial front as a burden - which would still be fought by these very same people because any kind of socialism or that getting government handouts are a bad thing. Except when it comes to their own social security checks or the government aiding big business, of course.
Your first tweet I have a quarrel with, lumping the establishments reaction to progressives to the GOP or Republicans is bad faith. It's a complicated argument within the left spectrum outside of the scope of this thread. It also muddles the fact that any politician or organisation on the left is treated as the Devil and framed as the extremist left as they can get because being to the left of Genghis Khan is a sin to the right. To them there is literally no difference between Ocasio-Cortez and Obama.
Why do the right think this way? They GOP establishment and the upper class donors, like the Koch's, have spent decades and millions (possibly billions) of dollars setting up a right wing eco-system echo chamber to brainwash as many people as possible into being indoctrinated to their beliefs. Plus eroding education, so people are less inclined to have the appropriate critical thinking skills to fight back (this is why they hate tertiary education or schools in general). As well as making sure its backed up by macro and micro culture networks, like their communities, friends and families which shuns anyone who refuses to fall in line. A part of maintaining that hold is by both having an enemy to stand against and by character assassinating their biggest political rivals (the left/Democrats/Dem presidents).
Makes me wonder how the right would be today were that system in place, since it would take a lot of the pressure on the financial front as a burden - which would still be fought by these very same people because any kind of socialism or that getting government handouts are a bad thing. Except when it comes to their own social security checks or the government aiding big business, of course.
Because they believe there's a secret more generous welfare system for minorities (no, seriously, this is true). Their meager benefits are theirs, dammit.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Rooting for sports teams primes us from a young age to choose a side and support it blindly.
I'd like to see a study done to see the overlap between sports fans and people that have trouble disentangling their identity (tribalism) from their chosen political party (team).
Yep... for all the "boomers ruined everything" attitude, I can't think of anything that was better in 1950 than it is now except
- macro climate
- wage gap
Student loans?
The housing crisis?
Drug epidemic amongst the midwesterners?
The death of rural america’s economy?
Health care?
You ain’t thinking too hard my dude.
Health care now is waaay better than it was in the 50s. The leaps in health care technology have been astounding. Next time you get sick, you're going to get a prescription for an antibiotic other than penicillin. If you need surgery, you're likely to get it orthoscopically, you'll get anesthesia other than laughing gas, you're going to get a mix of plasma and whole blood - and more of it too - that's been better typed and screened.
Yes, a lot of people still die of medical causes, in particular heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, but that's not because cancer didn't exist back in the 50s; it's because people died before cancer got them.
Yes, and we get to go bankrupt if we get sick. In Canada, things are different.
Before, you were just dead.
Yeah things could be lots better financially but come on. I figure most of us will take bankrupt over dead.
We don't, though. People delay medical care until it's an emergency because they can't afford to pay for it, and in the end the care they do receive is both more expensive and less effective. We literally choose to shorten our lives to avoid medical bankruptcy.
Trumpism is another side effect of the GOP establishment, and the American right wing as a whole, not disavowing the Alt-Right. Trump's "both sides" reaction to Charlottesville played into this, as he influenced the GOP/right wing to have less playable deniability with the part of the right wing it pretends doesn't exist, where in the past this relied more on indirect methods of marketing and recruitment like dog whistling. This got so bad the GOP got a open Nazi to run for office under their banner, though at least they had to self awareness to rebuke him in public.
Jones, a health-insurance agent living in Lyons, Illinois, spent eight years as a member of the National Socialist White People’s Party—previously known as the American Nazi Party—and has been active with the America First Committee since the 1980s. Illinois’s third congressional district, which encompasses part of Cook County, has been represented by Democrat Dan Lipinski since 2005 (and by his father, Bill Lipinski, before that). Jones has run unsuccessfully in the primary for the district six times since 1998.
He makes no secret of his views. The Anti-Defamation League has flagged him as a “longtime neo-Nazi.” His campaign website features sections including “News” and “Contribute” and “Holocaust?” He told me that he was disappointed in President Trump for appointing so many Jewish people to his Cabinet. (Plus, he said, “there’s a whole layer of other Jews that you don’t see that actually make the policy.”)
In this atmosphere Nazis are emboldened and why wouldn't they be?
The GOP's relationship with the Nazis is complicated, yet it is one where they'll gladly lie to your face that they even are on the same spectrum - as in, the right - as the Nazis. Which is really an overreaction, and comes off as hollow when Trumpism is in the headlines. Both the left and the right have ties on the political spectrum to terrible people, governments and groups because strums cover a lot of group. This doesn't mean every right winger is a Nazi, however, by arguing they are on the left is a falsehood which needs to die in the fire. Like, sure, the right loved to compare whoever is popular with he left to Communists like Mao and Stalin, and it's bullshit but at least it's consistent since they are on the left axis. Dare throw up the Nazis or other bad groups or figures from the right and they'll act offended and/or disappear from the conversation. The right really needs to step up their distance with the Alt-Right/Nazis in this day and age, you'd think in this day and age it'd be common ground.
Yep... for all the "boomers ruined everything" attitude, I can't think of anything that was better in 1950 than it is now except
- macro climate
- wage gap
Student loans?
The housing crisis?
Drug epidemic amongst the midwesterners?
The death of rural america’s economy?
Health care?
You ain’t thinking too hard my dude.
Health care now is waaay better than it was in the 50s. The leaps in health care technology have been astounding. Next time you get sick, you're going to get a prescription for an antibiotic other than penicillin. If you need surgery, you're likely to get it orthoscopically, you'll get anesthesia other than laughing gas, you're going to get a mix of plasma and whole blood - and more of it too - that's been better typed and screened.
Yes, a lot of people still die of medical causes, in particular heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, but that's not because cancer didn't exist back in the 50s; it's because people died before cancer got them.
Yes, and we get to go bankrupt if we get sick. In Canada, things are different.
Before, you were just dead.
Yeah things could be lots better financially but come on. I figure most of us will take bankrupt over dead.
We don't, though. People delay medical care until it's an emergency because they can't afford to pay for it, and in the end the care they do receive is both more expensive and less effective. We literally choose to shorten our lives to avoid medical bankruptcy.
That's not quite the same. I believe the point being made is a hypothetical one: if you were presented with bankruptcy or death, you would choose bankruptcy, and therefore from that we conclude that death is a worse outcome than bankruptcy. Perhaps the word "would" would be more appropriate than "will" there.
That is generally not what people are doing when they defer treatment, at least not consciously and knowingly. Those do so because they hope their medical problem will go away or because they don't believe it to be serious or don't believe it will worsen or don't believe in medical science, etc.. The state of their finances no doubt plays a role in this calculation, as they weight the possible risk of death, diminished as it is by error, versus the expenditures that would otherwise be made with the treatment money, but I doubt there are many otherwise largely healthy Americans* explicitly choosing death when presented with a stark choice.
Similarly, texting is not more important than life, just because many Americans choose to text while driving due to a variety of errors in their decision-making process.
* Excluding, for example, those with terminal diseases choosing not to slightly prolong their lives, those who are suffering from incurable, debilitating medical disorders, those with mental health disorders, etc..
So I guess this thread is all over the place and swinging wildly from discussions about healthcare to sports fans to the Clinton campaign to basically anything that pops into your heads.
So I guess this thread is all over the place and swinging wildly from discussions about healthcare to sports fans to the Clinton campaign to basically anything that pops into your heads.
Trumpism is a subject which covers a lot of sub-topics. It's like conservativism as a ideology, which has various causes, events and cultures related to its creation.
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Ah, revolution talk.
So one of the ideas that Orwell put out there in 1984 was that revolutions were the Middle using the Low against the High. Trumpism seems more like the labor struggles, where Owners would hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
Worst part about this is that I don't think there's a clear end goal that they're aiming for. They're headed towards making America into something like Brazil, but I don't think that's their actual goal because what they seem to be aiming for isn't a certain set of economic conditions, demographic or cultural changes, and material rewards, what they want is a feeling. And since they're probably not using the good drugs, they're never going to get whatever nebulous feels they want, so the MAGA concept contained in the Mollari quote could easily morph into that from 1984.
All right. Fine! You really want to know what I want? You really want to know the truth? I want my people to reclaim their rightful place in the galaxy. I want to see the Centauri stretch forth their hand again, and command the stars! I-I want a rebirth of glory, a renaissance of power. I want to stop running through my life like a man late for an appointment, afraid to- to look back, or to look forward. I want us to be what we used to BE! I want…I want it all back, the way that it was! Does that answer your question?
There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Yep... for all the "boomers ruined everything" attitude, I can't think of anything that was better in 1950 than it is now except
- macro climate
- wage gap
Student loans?
The housing crisis?
Drug epidemic amongst the midwesterners?
The death of rural america’s economy?
Health care?
You ain’t thinking too hard my dude.
Health care now is waaay better than it was in the 50s. The leaps in health care technology have been astounding. Next time you get sick, you're going to get a prescription for an antibiotic other than penicillin. If you need surgery, you're likely to get it orthoscopically, you'll get anesthesia other than laughing gas, you're going to get a mix of plasma and whole blood - and more of it too - that's been better typed and screened.
Yes, a lot of people still die of medical causes, in particular heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, but that's not because cancer didn't exist back in the 50s; it's because people died before cancer got them.
Yes, and we get to go bankrupt if we get sick. In Canada, things are different.
Before, you were just dead.
Yeah things could be lots better financially but come on. I figure most of us will take bankrupt over dead.
We don't, though. People delay medical care until it's an emergency because they can't afford to pay for it, and in the end the care they do receive is both more expensive and less effective. We literally choose to shorten our lives to avoid medical bankruptcy.
My American friends regularly tell me how something is hurting but they would rather do nothing and pray it goes away on its own because they can't really afford a medical process of any kind right now. And every time I'm appalled and terrified. Like, sure, our healthcare system in Spain has issues. But just the other day I booked a visit to my family doctor just to get an earwax plug removed, and it cost me nothing, and it's not considered a waste. It's just... normal. It's better to go and take five minutes of a nurse's time now than come in with a massive ear infection in two weeks and cost the state a bunch of antibiotics and shit, and this is understood.
So the idea of living in a place where the smart play is just "ignore it and hope you don't die" sounds fucking terrifying to me.
The awfulness of the US healthcare system is not the topic. If people are unsure of the topic, please consult the OP, especially the TLDR bit, which provides a concise summary of what the thread should be about.
Yep... for all the "boomers ruined everything" attitude, I can't think of anything that was better in 1950 than it is now except
- macro climate
- wage gap
Student loans?
The housing crisis?
Drug epidemic amongst the midwesterners?
The death of rural america’s economy?
Health care?
You ain’t thinking too hard my dude.
Health care now is waaay better than it was in the 50s. The leaps in health care technology have been astounding. Next time you get sick, you're going to get a prescription for an antibiotic other than penicillin. If you need surgery, you're likely to get it orthoscopically, you'll get anesthesia other than laughing gas, you're going to get a mix of plasma and whole blood - and more of it too - that's been better typed and screened.
Yes, a lot of people still die of medical causes, in particular heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, but that's not because cancer didn't exist back in the 50s; it's because people died before cancer got them.
Yes, and we get to go bankrupt if we get sick. In Canada, things are different.
Before, you were just dead.
Yeah things could be lots better financially but come on. I figure most of us will take bankrupt over dead.
I know many people have already replied to this @spool32 but I really ant to emphasize that you really don’t understand how much finances plays into whether many Americans go to the doctor. I would encourage you to go to any self-funding site(kickstarter, indiegogo , etc) . And see how many people with kids are begging others for money to buy simple things like insulin or crutches. Even if you think 99% are scams, the fact that % is true is too many.
Edit: To bring it back in topic. I think healthcare costs of the associated with a lifetime of blue collar work and seeing their friends kill themselves over it is another unspoken driving force.
Posts
You'll be alive. And as harsh as it may seem, being alive and bankrupt is usually considered being dead, by most common measures. I'm not kidding about the magnitude of the difference; people die at less than half the rate they used to: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/life-expectancy-death/deaths-in-australia/contents/trends-in-deaths
Styrofoam Sammich's point about whether this question is meaningful is well taken, and certainly the fact that these gains have been made shouldn't preclude anyone from saying that things could, and should, be better, but when we're talking about Trumpism and the desire of some Americans to light everything on fire and return it all to an idealistic 1950s world state (or whatever), a good part of it is taking stuff like this for granted AND not recognizing/understanding that many of the gains we've made since the 1950s came hand-in-hand with the stuff they hate. One reason they reject progress because all they can see are the downsides of progress and none of the upsides, and this is an viewpoint that (political) progressives have often struggled to make. Where they maybe should be fighting inequity and inequality, the barring of their access to these gains, they instead reject the gains as even existing, and this is key to why their sought policies are destroying America rather than reforming it.
E.g. they may hate the coastal elites, the intellectuals, the experts, the academy and its political correctness, the immigrants coming to steal their jobs, but it's the lower-class, queer, Indian cancer researcher coming and "stealing" their spot at Harvard Medical who's going to discover how to use CRISPR to eliminate neuroblastoma and save their future grandchild.
Yeah Its a drag on literally every sector of the economy. That concentrates the product of everyone's labors into the pockets of a very few.
One of the important things it does is make it very hard for educated people to have kids when they are young, leading to a lower birth rate overall.
Yeah I easily pay the monthly cost of raising a child in student loan payments every month and will be doing so for some time.
I am literally one of these people the only reason i don't have a kid right now is because we spend 3000 a month on fuckin student loans.
I think there is a real overestimation of how much this is really all about economics, given how similarly ethno-nationalistic the politics seem to be regardless of the state and character of the country in question. I think we can look to the economic situation as helping to delegitimize the current system and encourage the ever popular "vote the bums out" politics but ultimately I think we are seeing the exertion of influence by anti-multicultural forces that have been brewing under the surface for a long time.
I think a focus on economics is what will actually fail to create meaningful reform because as the american situation that is the impetus of this thread demonstrates, economic prosperity doesn't solve anything, it merely papers over the issue for a time.
How many times do I have say "multi-causal systemic failure" before people realize I'm suggesting the problem is a Multi-Causal Systemic Failure with multiple systems at play that reinforce and effect one another before people stop going "Why do you think this is all about economics?!"
Crossposting from the healthcare thread:
This is only true if you believe that the numbers the US produces are, in any sense, accurate.
I know people who had bacteriological infections, broken bones, etcetera that went untreated for years, meanwhile, the last free country on Earth, Cuba, is next door.
Human nature, or the latest form of crackpot realism promoted on every commercial frequency by a vile nation that doesn't want any alternatives to be heard? Because I'm reasonably sure that there was a sort of organization of council egalitarian republics that stopped the Romanians from operating slaughterhouses where the primary product was human beings, that was actually decent to ethnic minorities, and didn't, say, prop the fascists back up, break the peace, and support C-list nazis for half a century only to be left completely ass-blasted when fascism began breaking out at home.
I get it, you look at something like this and you go, this is horrific, how could this ever be, and you think that this is so insane that it must never have been like this any other time anywhere else. But it was. Things were this insane.
Someone else mentioned earlier in the thread, briefly, that the world isn't better now because a whole city just found that there was lead in their water. Well, there was lead in everybody's water back then; we just didn't know about it. It wasn't until 1986 that the US banned the use of lead water pipes. (Though the turning point against lead water pipes occurred earlier, and the decline in their usage started in the 30s. Still, full-scale replacement took decades, when it did take, as it obviously did not in Flint. Toronto still has a program to subsidize homeowners interested in replacing their lead pipes!) Shit really was that awful not that long ago; people were just ignorant/tolerant of it all.
This doesn't at all reduce the moral failings of the Boomer generation though, in their failure to spread the gains in progress far and wide. Because we do know that there's lead in the water in Flint now, and we do know that it's awful, and there is no lead industry lobbying group holding things up, so wtf?
The majority of Flint's citizens are black, and then it's not wtf anymore.
And I'm saying it's a lot less about economics then you (at least seem to) think. Your reply here is unneeded snark based on something I didn't even say. And specifically I think this really hits home for your second paragraph because that's where reforms that overestimate the extent to which this is about economics will lead to failures. Like I said.
Broad economic prosperity will not solve the underlying issue. And the US through the middle of last century is the perfect example of that.
Middle/Upper class Trump voters think minorities, immigrants and the Left are going to steal their earned prosperity.
Lower class Trump voters think minorities, immigrants and the Left are the reason why they're not Middle/Upper class.
The propaganda works on both levels. For one its a perceived threat, for the other its an explanation.
Cultural racism exists of course, but the right wing media is important in spreading that racism to groups that traditionally aren't racist, but are vulnerable to that way of thinking.
Its a racism that is still dressed in dog whistles for the most part, which makes it palatable for someone who doesn't want to associate with the KKK/Neo-Nazis, but triggers fear of the other just the same.
The legal immigrant who is really anti-illegal immigration and voted for Trump or Brexit, or the minority gamer ironically railing against SJWs come to mind.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Before, you were just dead.
Yeah things could be lots better financially but come on. I figure most of us will take bankrupt over dead.
Well you also have the donor class types who don't believe a word of it but are looking for a tax holiday or a capital gains deduction and think having kids thrown into wood chippers to get it is a modest proposal.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
There is a reason why there is a suicide epidemic among male Americans. Especially among farmers who are financially on the edge.
It turns out that a lot of American men would rather commit suicide than have their pride tarnished by something like bankruptcy.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
A lot of people choose to die and paper over saying that by saying things like "Chemo is hell, I won't do it (again)" which in some cases may be true but in a lot of others it's really "Chemo sucks and this time ill probably still die and my wife won't be able to afford to bury me".
You say you're dying to save money and people in line at the grocery store will plead for you to do something. People lie.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
The donor class are SUPER racist. Like, individually racist, in addition to their lifetime of support for structural racism.
Well sure it's a Venn Diagram, but the circles don't always line up perfect.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Lawyers are terrifying to people who have never dealt with one and declaring bankruptcy requires one. Finding an appropriate lawyer, providing the required documentation, paying them, and going through the whole process can be really daunting. Rationally, undergoing a daunting process is obviously better than dying but for people who are suffering from any degree of depression or anxiety disorder, or who simply believe that their family would be better off if they were dead, that daunting process may be simply unapproachable.
(Edit: not to even mention the tendency of modern American society to so heavily stigmatize going bankrupt that suicide can be an attractive proposition just to avoid the loss of face)
Peter Daou is a former child soldier and notable member of Hillary's 2016 presidential campaign.
Yes, You're Racist is a Twitter personality managed by Logan James of Progress Now, North Carolina to chronicle the doings of white supremacists on Twitter.
Shane Burley is a journalist and author of Fascism Today
Ryan Adams is an editor at awardsdaily.com
It seems like institutional support for fascists in America is about as high as it can get without abandoning plausible deniability.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Bum's point was that the best choice would be in Canada's system because you're neither bankrupt or dead. Makes me wonder how the right would be today were that system in place, since it would take a lot of the pressure on the financial front as a burden - which would still be fought by these very same people because any kind of socialism or that getting government handouts are a bad thing. Except when it comes to their own social security checks or the government aiding big business, of course.
@Edith Upwards
Your first tweet I have a quarrel with, lumping the establishments reaction to progressives to the GOP or Republicans is bad faith. It's a complicated argument within the left spectrum outside of the scope of this thread. It also muddles the fact that any politician or organisation on the left is treated as the Devil and framed as the extremist left as they can get because being to the left of Genghis Khan is a sin to the right. To them there is literally no difference between Ocasio-Cortez and Obama.
Why do the right think this way? They GOP establishment and the upper class donors, like the Koch's, have spent decades and millions (possibly billions) of dollars setting up a right wing eco-system echo chamber to brainwash as many people as possible into being indoctrinated to their beliefs. Plus eroding education, so people are less inclined to have the appropriate critical thinking skills to fight back (this is why they hate tertiary education or schools in general). As well as making sure its backed up by macro and micro culture networks, like their communities, friends and families which shuns anyone who refuses to fall in line. A part of maintaining that hold is by both having an enemy to stand against and by character assassinating their biggest political rivals (the left/Democrats/Dem presidents).
Because they believe there's a secret more generous welfare system for minorities (no, seriously, this is true). Their meager benefits are theirs, dammit.
Rooting for sports teams primes us from a young age to choose a side and support it blindly.
I'd like to see a study done to see the overlap between sports fans and people that have trouble disentangling their identity (tribalism) from their chosen political party (team).
We don't, though. People delay medical care until it's an emergency because they can't afford to pay for it, and in the end the care they do receive is both more expensive and less effective. We literally choose to shorten our lives to avoid medical bankruptcy.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/how-a-nazi-made-the-ballot-in-illinois/552758/
In this atmosphere Nazis are emboldened and why wouldn't they be?
The GOP's relationship with the Nazis is complicated, yet it is one where they'll gladly lie to your face that they even are on the same spectrum - as in, the right - as the Nazis. Which is really an overreaction, and comes off as hollow when Trumpism is in the headlines. Both the left and the right have ties on the political spectrum to terrible people, governments and groups because strums cover a lot of group. This doesn't mean every right winger is a Nazi, however, by arguing they are on the left is a falsehood which needs to die in the fire. Like, sure, the right loved to compare whoever is popular with he left to Communists like Mao and Stalin, and it's bullshit but at least it's consistent since they are on the left axis. Dare throw up the Nazis or other bad groups or figures from the right and they'll act offended and/or disappear from the conversation. The right really needs to step up their distance with the Alt-Right/Nazis in this day and age, you'd think in this day and age it'd be common ground.
That's not quite the same. I believe the point being made is a hypothetical one: if you were presented with bankruptcy or death, you would choose bankruptcy, and therefore from that we conclude that death is a worse outcome than bankruptcy. Perhaps the word "would" would be more appropriate than "will" there.
That is generally not what people are doing when they defer treatment, at least not consciously and knowingly. Those do so because they hope their medical problem will go away or because they don't believe it to be serious or don't believe it will worsen or don't believe in medical science, etc.. The state of their finances no doubt plays a role in this calculation, as they weight the possible risk of death, diminished as it is by error, versus the expenditures that would otherwise be made with the treatment money, but I doubt there are many otherwise largely healthy Americans* explicitly choosing death when presented with a stark choice.
Similarly, texting is not more important than life, just because many Americans choose to text while driving due to a variety of errors in their decision-making process.
* Excluding, for example, those with terminal diseases choosing not to slightly prolong their lives, those who are suffering from incurable, debilitating medical disorders, those with mental health disorders, etc..
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Trumpism is a subject which covers a lot of sub-topics. It's like conservativism as a ideology, which has various causes, events and cultures related to its creation.
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So one of the ideas that Orwell put out there in 1984 was that revolutions were the Middle using the Low against the High. Trumpism seems more like the labor struggles, where Owners would hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
Worst part about this is that I don't think there's a clear end goal that they're aiming for. They're headed towards making America into something like Brazil, but I don't think that's their actual goal because what they seem to be aiming for isn't a certain set of economic conditions, demographic or cultural changes, and material rewards, what they want is a feeling. And since they're probably not using the good drugs, they're never going to get whatever nebulous feels they want, so the MAGA concept contained in the Mollari quote could easily morph into that from 1984.
My American friends regularly tell me how something is hurting but they would rather do nothing and pray it goes away on its own because they can't really afford a medical process of any kind right now. And every time I'm appalled and terrified. Like, sure, our healthcare system in Spain has issues. But just the other day I booked a visit to my family doctor just to get an earwax plug removed, and it cost me nothing, and it's not considered a waste. It's just... normal. It's better to go and take five minutes of a nurse's time now than come in with a massive ear infection in two weeks and cost the state a bunch of antibiotics and shit, and this is understood.
So the idea of living in a place where the smart play is just "ignore it and hope you don't die" sounds fucking terrifying to me.
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I know many people have already replied to this @spool32 but I really ant to emphasize that you really don’t understand how much finances plays into whether many Americans go to the doctor. I would encourage you to go to any self-funding site(kickstarter, indiegogo , etc) . And see how many people with kids are begging others for money to buy simple things like insulin or crutches. Even if you think 99% are scams, the fact that % is true is too many.
Edit: To bring it back in topic. I think healthcare costs of the associated with a lifetime of blue collar work and seeing their friends kill themselves over it is another unspoken driving force.