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| John Paul Stevens, U.S. Supreme Court justice. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
http://verdict.justia.com/2014/01/16/great-inequality-debate-reemergence-distribution-respectable-subject-discussion
The gap between the very rich and most everyone else in the US has been widening throughout the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade(s) of the new millennium. Not since the 1900s, or perhaps the 1920 and 30s, has America witnessed such a gross disparity or such blatant callousness toward the needs of the poor.
As the Tealiban has hijacked the GOP, calling moderate Republicans "RINOs" and driving them out, the Democrats have drifted toward the center. Anything less led to allegations of "communist" or worse. Even Obama, a centrist by all earlier measures of political orientation, has been branded a Socialist. Pre the 2012 election, I think, this forced him to embrace the center.
Now, we have some indications that he is paying attention to the poor, as well as to the threat posed by the power of the very wealthy.
Issues to be considered:
1. The jobless recovery - Does this reflect a new paradigm? Is technology destroying far more jobs than it creates? You can't live on a minimum wage job. But if you unionize and demand higher wages, beware of automations replacing you. Nice choice!
2. The Supreme Court's shift to the right and its pro-corporation bias - As Justice Stevens wondered in his "Citizens United" dissent, are corporations really to be treated the same as individuals? For example, should foreign corporations be free to spend as much as they wish to influence US elections, as the case now allows? Add in Gerrymandering and see where it takes democracy.
My view: individual civil rights and liberties should be for flesh-and-blood individuals, not creatures of the states' (or foreign nations') corporation statutes.
3. The impending demise of much of traditional higher education; the trillion dollar student-loan debt bubble; the undermining of public K-12 education, and the onslaught of the for-profit players at all levels of education. Or, put another way, why are we destroying what was once the greatest education system in the world?
4. Health care: Hey, the law got passed… remarkably, the Supreme Court blessed… let's make it work. The determination of Obamacare's opponents to make sure the US remains the only western post-industrial democracy that does not provide adequate health care to all its citizens baffles me.
Okay, enough all ready… You get the idea. So read the article.
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