12 posts tagged “society”
There's this seesaw we've been trapped in since Nixon--one where the GOP runs up massive deficits and trashes trust in law and government as a force for good, then us Democrats have to come in and clean up but can't make real progress because of all the damage done, then the GOP comes back in and does the same thing again, then we have to come in and clean up again, etc...
I don't see an end to it, and i find it impossible to reconcile with any sort of real progress occuring, or even a halting of the reversals. It seems that we've been going backwards since the 70s, and watching the rest of the world go forward.
Each succeeding generation--as a result of this trashing, then cleaning, etc--has less faith in government as a force for good, and cynicism grows and grows so that even small improvements seem out of reach, let alone big things like universal health, or better lifelong public education, clean energy, etc.
Can it be stopped? We're stuck in it for 08 for sure.
A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 - half the federal poverty line - was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year.
great post by Silber at his Power of Narrative on the emotional reality of being marginalized, being excluded, and very often being ridiculed, and even demonized in our society for all sorts of reasons.
... It is one thing to be openly hated and despised, as gays and lesbians are by many on the right. We're used to that, and we got used to it a long time ago. As was required, we manufactured intellectual and emotional armor to protect ourselves. In the current climate, we have to put it on every single damned day. It weighs a great deal, and it exacts an awful price. But without it, we would suffer injuries too grievous to be borne.
But how much worse it is to be cajoled into taking off that armor -- to hear you tell us that you understand we're "just like you" in all the ways that matter, and that we're really "just the same" -- and then to read or hear about "how easy" you think it is to "make fun" of us, especially when our status as Freaks is too obvious. How much worse it is when we believe you, when you tell us you think we're all equal -- except that you can get married, while almost every leading Democrat will say, well, no, we can't get married. But we can have "civil unions." Because, you see, Freaks don't get married. ...
Krugman: I urge Mr. Obama — and everyone else who thinks that good will alone is enough to change the tone of our politics — to read the speeches of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the quintessential example of a president who tackled big problems that demanded solutions.
For the fact is that F.D.R. faced fierce opposition as he created the institutions — Social Security, unemployment insurance, more progressive taxation and beyond — that helped alleviate inequality. And he didn’t shy away from confrontation.
“We had to struggle,” he declared in 1936, “with the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. ... Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”
I’d like to see a law simply requiring that every program or funding initiative provided by the Bush administration to the Iraqi people must also be provided to the citizens of the United States (preferably on a pro-rata basis, but, hell, even just a straight $1 billion would be a better employment program than the zero we’ve got).
--it's a nonprofit started by Mitchell Gold (of the fabulous furniture)
Faith in America, Inc. is working with churches and other organizations across the country to publicly expose religion-based bigotry against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and to inform the public how women, people of color and people of minority religions have been mistreated similarly by religion in the past.
perfect!
10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong
02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
--excellent article from Slate
... We have become such "good Americans" that we no longer have the moral imagination to picture what it might be like to be in a bureaucratic category that voids our human rights, be it "enemy combatant" or "illegal immigrant." ...
brilliant thing on how different monster types are popular in different decades
...you could make up a story about why that should be so -- in the 80's and 90's, there was more of a sense of scary power in the hands of people who were richer and stronger and smarter than you, starting with Wall Street takeover artists like Gordon Gekko, and moving through dot-com billionaires. And vampires make a wonderful stand-in for them; glamorous, and powerful, and clever. And in this decade, there's more of a sense that shambling idiots control our lives: from Office Space, and The Office, all the way through the Bush Administration. We're smarter and better than they are, but they're going to eat our brains anyway. ...
