Economic inequality and the lack of a (real) progressive party in the United States

[telemann]

Last Friday, Chris Rock was interviewed on Bill Maher's show Real Time, and the subject of health care reform came up.
When Maher asked if he saw health care reform the prism of race and as a civil rights issue, Rock said no. He sees health reform as a “people rights issue.” Rock also recounted his family’s experience with the health care system

Comments

Why the "average person" (and even many poor people) aren't outraged:

[box_in_the_box]

America makes much more sense once you realize that, in all of our national self-mythologizing, both the left and the right have fostered the notion that we are essentially all destined to win the lottery

[box_in_the_box]

Except that there's some irony in that the early misadventures of the USA really *should* have resulted in utter defeat.

Which actually makes it even WORSE, because we arguably got REWARDED for doing THE WRONG THINGS.

It'd be like, say, your mom telling you to wear your helmet when you go bike riding, and then, when you don't, the resultant bump on your head results in doctors detecting a brain tumor that would have killed you otherwise.

If you, as a kid, understood what had just happened, it would pretty much guarantee that you did the opposite of what your mom told you for the rest of your life.

The only reason the UK lost the war was that it had a string of incompetent generals and prove unable to protect its allies.

Well, THAT, plus the fact that India was just SITTING there, waiting to be plundered.

[underlankers]

I would hardly call the devastation the Revolutionary War brought to the South a reward, neither would I call the expansion of the Slave Power from that war and the War of 1812, which also saw the end of Indigenous people having a strong foreign ally to keep us away from them a good thing.

Well, that's not exactly the way the conquest of India happened.

What about the Pacific?

[geezer_also]

While it's fairly obvious to even a minor student of History that you are correct about the USSR being the reason the Allies won in Europe, that wasn't the only theater of the war, and even tho they managed to declare war on Japan at the last minute, they weren't a whole lot of help to us there.

Re: What about the Pacific?

[underlankers]

Oh, absolutely. They did, however, deal a brutal defeat to Japan at Khalkin Ghol that prevented a German victory at Barbarossa, but Khalkin Ghol had nothing to do with *our* war against Japan.

Re: What about the Pacific?

[rev_proffessor]

The Chinese, Aussies, every other country being steamrolled by Imperial Japan... Nope, no body but US in the pacific...

Re: What about the Pacific?

[geezer_also]

"The Chinese, Aussies, every other country being steamrolled by Imperial Japan"

That's kind of the point, not that no one else was fighting. Heck, even the British got steamrolled. Your sarcasm is misplaced.

Re: Why the "average person" (and even many poor people) aren't outraged:

[johnny9fingers]

Come on old thing, most Brits over forty know that both Russia and the US were essential to winning WWII. However we have never forgotten that though we started in Sept '39, you guys joined in in Dec '41, six months after Germany invaded Russia in operation Barbarossa, and trampling over the Nazi-Soviet pact.

In fact you chaps didn't even declare War on Hitler's Germany then. Germany decalred war on you.

Just giving historical context. :)

Re: Why the "average person" (and even many poor people) aren't outraged:

[telemann]

Yeah, I wonder what FDR would have done if Germany hadn't declared war.

Re: Why the "average person" (and even many poor people) aren't outraged:

[verytwistedmind]

I think your mistake is that you believe Americans expect to win the lottery. I believe most Americans expect to become rich through a more capitalistic means. Such as starting their own business.

Re: Why the "average person" (and even many poor people) aren't outraged:

[gunslnger]

I think the poor expect to win the lottery. The middle class expect to make it rich on their own.

Re: Why the "average person" (and even many poor people) aren't outraged:

[rev_proffessor]

It may one be a movie quote but, "Most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor." In other words, rank has it's privilege and, as you have said, someday I will have the rank and I will get the privileges.

Those who would work hard for nothing have at least their pride and the joy of sneering at the "entitlement class". We all want to have someone to deride, someone to feel superior to, so we make up stories about who is entitled and who is just lazy and who is better than whom. No one wants to acknowledge that those on the dole would rather be working or that they may need to be on the dole themselves some time. Again, American culture provides for American Exceptionalism so, it's never OUR fault when we loose a job, need food stamps, or Medicare. We blame other people who need those things as being lazy and entitled but when it's us with the hand out, that's acceptable.

In the end, Democracy ensures the people get the society they deserve.