Month: November 2018

Let's face it, we can't simply ignore the problems and hope they go away. That seems to have worked for a long time but in reality, it has just allowed the problems to fester and get worse.  America is collapsing and if we don't do something about it soon, it just may be too late. Just because we have gone-to-the-edge before and survived doesn't mean it will happen again. Here is the myth for today that we need to unlearn:

Myth:    America isn’t collapsing!!!

Life expectancy is falling, the vast majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, they can’t raise $1000 for an emergency, mass shootings are a regular event of daily life, people have to crowdfund basic medicine, suicides are skyrocketing. I could go on. If your bar for collapse is Mad Max meets the Strain, then, sure, America hasn’t collapsed yet…to that point.

But it has collapsed in three key ways, which are the real, genuine and true kinds — not the stuff of science fiction end times.

◉  As a rich society — most Americans don’t live in one anymore.

◉  As a democracy — it doesn’t really represent people accurately anymore.

◉  As a society — Americans have no social contract, really, that unites them, as we’ve discussed — because virtue has not culminated in the public good .

In those three ways, collapse is as real and lethal as climate change. You can disagree with me, sure — but reality doesn’t care about what I think, or you think. It laughs at we “think”, and goes on being what it is.

Source: https://eand.co/eight-myths-americans-need-to-unlearn-about-america-560fa10ddba6

I wonder if Rome ever recognized that they were in decline? How about the Great British Empire, do superpowers ever know it when it happens? What was originally known as the Middle Class has evaporated from our country.  Yes, there are 10% of us who are doing pretty well. We went to college or trade school and obtained skills needed in the 21st century. We are doing OK.

But there is the almost 60% of us who now stuck in low paying, soon to be automated,  jobs that pay low wages.  Many continue to dream that somehow they will find their golden egg and get rich but in reality that is also a myth.

They have gerrymandered and restricted the vote so much in recent years to pretty much guarantee they cling to power even if they can't manage to get the majority vote. 

Maybe the worst thing is our social fabric is disintegrating. We are locked into our clans and will simply not listen to anything else.  If that is not a fundamental threat to our democracy I can't imagine what is.

I pray that it isn't too late yet , but somehow something needs to happen... and soon.

2018-11-12_13-01-20.pngWe in America have a pretty inflated belief that we are the best in the world at everything we do. Why else would we stick our noses into so many other countries' affairs? We have military bases in over 50 countries in the world. How many other countries' bases are in the US? We think and maybe at one time we actually did have the best technology, the best engineering and the best software talent in the world.  Part of the reason for that is that we recruited talent from the rest of the world. But, as we close our borders that talent will be siphoned off elsewhere. 2018-11-01_15-07-30.png Source: Eight Myths Americans Need to Unlearn About America You must admit that at least for the last couple of years we haven't done much right as a country. Too many of us proudly proclaim that anything our current leader doesn't like is fake news. Global warming can't be true because he doesn't have a gut feeling about it. How far behind are we getting by that ignorance? He said while he was campaigning that he would be the "infrastructure" president but he seems to have lost interest in that topic also. One of the most egotistical things about us Americans is that so many believe that we can't learn anything from the rest of the world.  I have long known that as "Not Invented Here". If we didn't invent it then it is not worth having. Simply speaking we need to get over this idea, especially now. As an example, EU countries have much better public healthcare than we do and they do it for less than half our cost per citizen. Too many of us are still battling against any form of a single-payer system when others in the world long ago found it to be the best and most affordable solution. We need to get off our high-horse with the idea that we excel at everything...

Umair Haque over at Medium.com certainly gives me much to think about lately. His recent blog post about the myths Americans need to unlearn will be the centerpiece in coming posts here are RJsCorner. I want to start out this series with the end of his post.

2018-10-26_10-33-23.png Source:  Eight Myths Americans Need to Unlearn About America I certainly get my share of those screamers who call me names and tell me if I don't love this country then I should GET OUT!!! Some think I am a bleeding heart liberal and others, believe it or not, think I am a Trumpster? They evidently feel so threatened by what I have to say to get them to attack me for one reason or another. I, like Umair, want to pronounce here that I am no threat to them. I am just an old guy who is primarily an observer of life with no power whatsoever to change what I am observing other than my single vote at the ballot box. Yeah, I have some loyal readers who might be swayed to a very small degree but that is about it.  You don't need to feel that I am threatening to you. Now on to the topic at hand. 2018-10-28_11-02-50.png"We don't need to listen to people who are critical of America! They'll never help us!!" Some people consider progress and particularly the change almost always associated with it to be a bad thing. I do believe that the last couple of years are the most tumultuous of my life as far as social things are concerned.  We seem to have lost our ability to tolerate anyone with different views than ours.  The second most agonizing period that I have lived through was the 1960s but I was much younger then so I could tolerate it better than I do now. More than 50,000 of my generation lost their lives in a seemingly meaningless war.  There were riots in many major cities, soldiers killing kids on a college campus, African-Americans being attacked by police dogs and high power fire hoses. Some were dragged through the streets by white supremacists all because they were demanding their civil rights.  If ever there were a period where people were critical of America, it was during those years. But look what came out of that same period and see many great accomplishments.  More on that in a near future post.