General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The imminent backlash of the Democratic Left. [View all]Feral Child
(2,086 posts)you're being dismissive and condescending. It's a tactic, and a trite one, at that.
So, you're a "half-full" kinda guy, yes? I'm not.
What, exactly, has changed for the better?
Homosexuals can now be legally married, in some states. The rest of the country still treats gay people as repressed pariahs.
Gay people can serve in the military. Well, actually, they always could, they just had to deny their identity. Now, they can serve openly (if they dare). Do you really believe they have the same opportunities for assignment and advancement?
The military that allows them to serve is used more frequently and more openly for conquest and repression, rather than for defense.
Two states have legalized cannabis. Two. 48 others still maintain the repressive and racist stance that feeds an ever-burgeoning prison system that systematically enslaves our people under the guise of "morality". There's no denying that the overwhelming majority of those unjustly incarcerated are non-whites. Thus, the 13th Amendment has been nullified by forcing the punishment-for-crime provision to become the norm rather than the exception.
The 4th Amendment has virtually ceased to exist, and the unconstitutional Patriot Act and illegal surveillance by our intelligence apparatus has been approved by the current "Democratic" administration. Our law enforcement establishment is so increasingly militarized and trigger happy that we feel more threatened than protected. Firearm proliferation has become so grossly engorged that I feel the need to carry a firearm myself, not to protect myself from drug-fiends and brigands, but to defend myself from the very real possibility that a zimmerman seeking a reputation might gun me down under the perjured excuse of standing his ground.
Abortion rights have been systematically rolled back and are under continuous attack. The private agencies that should be providing the required education and medical assistance need to devote more resources to litigating the atrocities than they can for assistance.
My father, a master-machinist and dedicated union-man had an actual retirement plan that allowed him to retire at 65 and buy a nice little 55 acre farm in the late 1970s. How many working-class people can look forward to that today? I'm 64 now and draw Social Security benefits, but can I count on that, or will the money I paid into the system be raided to finance some new military adventure?
In my 20s, I had the reasonable expectation that by now my glass would be full, not half-emptied by robber barons who denigrate me for not having pulled myself up by my "bootstraps"?
We now have ACA (if we're allowed to keep it) but in most other civilized countries my health would not be a prize in a private-insurance pyramid scheme.
You're a self-professed progressive, but you've been flim-flammed into accepting a marketed "advancement" by a cynical and bought confidence game of conservative-lite.
Yes, the Empire is failing, not in the silly apocalyptic vision of a fevered fanatic, but in the very real sense that we do not live in a democracy at all, but rather are the property of a corporate oligarchy that will use up our resources and, once we've been stripped, will move on to the next profitable population ready for harvest.
People are always responsible for the government they endure, all governments rule with the consent of the people.
I am a progressive, and I demand actual and real progress.