Our greed culture is the root cause of this. You can trace the distancing of Americans back to when Ronald Reagan gave away the store to the rich and businesses went from valuing their workforces to seeing them as a disposable drain on their bottom lines. We were encouraged to applaud successful greed and condemn failure to be greedy enough.
A house divided cannot stand. When we aligned our values with “turn the bull loose” capitalism by destroying social supports and public education, we created an entire underclass of exploited citizens, the resentment rose between the have a little and have nothings, we decided to compete against one another instead of cooperating as a society would, and now a lot of us have a zero sum mindset of “If someone else is losing, that must mean there’s more for me!”
The happiest nations on Earth are heavily taxed because everyone in those societies understand that their society rises or falls together. That is a foreign concept in the United States, with the have everything’s having no allegiance to the society that facilitates their succes, they just want to take while giving nothing back, and with the power their wealth provides, they’re permitted to.
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/happiness/
Everything will continue to decline until we reign in our greed class and stop them from dividing us with the bully pulpit of all major media that they own toxifying everything we see with social wedges to keep us divided so we don’t look up.
This is not a society anymore, it’s a bunch of rugged individuals at each other’s throats with a tiny owner class using their power to maintain that hatred and division to maximize private profit because their greed is insatiable. All this suffering, because a handful of asshole families with unethical levels of wealth demand to trade humanity for ever more currency, disgusting.
You seem to have a grasp of the root of the problems. Please contribute more to share your view. I appreciate it. I’m surprised America is 16 on the index.
I appreciate that a lot, thank you.
I would, but as other users have pointed out to me, I can get pretty nihilistic and depressing in my commentaries and assessments, which may be counterproductive.
My exact thought. Communities were stronger when people could feel secure in their home and livelihood, when they had enough free time to actually be a community. Finance ghouls hollowed out the industrial base of the country, neoliberal politicians (republicans and democrats both) gutted the labor movement, and fossil fuel companies and their handmaidens in the auto industry brought us a world where most people have to drive everywhere they go.
Like all liberals, she misses the point - if it isn’t anti capitalist, it isn’t helping.
Especially when it comes to discussion of alienation which is a feature of capitalism, not a bug.Ever get tired of Capitalism being the cause of all our problems? I do. I was discussing Capitalist Realism yesterday and was overwhelmed by the magnitude of its pervasiveness.
It really is at the heart of pretty much every problem that we face today, and one of the things it does best, as you mention capitalist realism, is convince us that it is not only the only way, but that it is the predictable result of “human nature”. It really becomes more perverse, and more enraging, the more you look.
You might enjoy this Zoe Bee video. She dispels that myth very well.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/tGVe4Fju0P0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Thanks, I don’t have the brain power to watch the whole thing right now, but have saved for future reference!
Not exactly tired of it, but I know what you mean. It’s so blinking obvious how it poisons everything. What I’m tired of is trying to figure out how to win over the politically naive to this understanding.
I’ve determined that it is impossible until they are affected personally by it. The population is not educated to interpret its effects. This is the impetus to political polarization. Stay strong and informed. When the time comes to direct solutions, you will be needed.
We need a balance of capitalism, socialism, and democracy. We are unbalanced toward capitalism. We just need to tip the scale, not overthrow capitalism.
A for profit economy cannot coexist with the planned economy of socialism. In mixed economies, which the US has now, capitalism will always overtake the social policies. It is happening now in Denmark and Norway. They are privatizing their social safety nets. I respect the idea of moderation, but in this case it won’t work. Capitalism must be disassembled and replaced with a planned economy with an actual democratic workplace.
I’m sympathetic to this because capitalism is indeed eating society, but I’m not convinced a planned economy would work. Are there large scale examples of planned economies working?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/xuBrGaVhjcI
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
If it is a feature of capitalism why is it not found in all capitalist systems? Why did it take centuries to come about?
You not willing to see a thing because it doesn’t fit in with your narrow and wilfully ignorant world view, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
You know nothing about me so your presumptions are at best an indication of poor reasoning.
This isn’t happening in all capitalist nations and absolutely happens in non-capitalist cultures. The collapse of communities can happen for many reasons. For the USA, which has traditionally been very religious, I suspect much if it has to do with people not forming communities to replace the religious ones previous generations had.
I get that ML circles tend to lead to an extremely narrow focus and discourage independent thought but you can choose to not be “that guy”. As a Marxist you probably shouldn’t be calling anyone’s world view “ignorant” given the history of Marxism’s failures.
This video might explain things better.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/BwQCnltp9lo
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Youtube is never a good source for academic discussions. There is no reason to consider the source as having a valid or informed opinion on the issue. Finally, it doesn’t address the fact that this happens in other non-capitalist systems and does not happen in all systems.
The sources are given below the video. YouTube is a great source for academic discussions. Universities host forums on there. His opinion is informed(see sources.). Just because loneliness and depression happens in other systems doesn’t negate the fact that it is endemic to capitalism. What system doesn’t have mental health issues.? The point is that capitalism compounds the issue. Maybe instead of dismissing the proposition, do some investigating to find out if it’s true. Just a suggestion.
Youtube is a poor source because it is harder to check questionable claims in video than in print. That is why youtube isn’t a good source.
deleted by creator
“Aha, someone who disagrees with me and posed a simple question, challenging my claims! ATTACK!!! ATTACK!!! ATTACK!!!”
if only she could comprehend your magic solution to the problems
It isn’t a lack of comprehension, especially not in someone of her position, it is a reluctance to give up privileges she is well aware she has, even if she wouldn’t admit it out loud.
and you’re a mind reader, that’s impressive… but a lot of responsibility…
I mean, you don’t need to read minds, just open your eyes, but sure, whatever…
i honor your spirit, Storms of Desserts… whether you are apple crumbs, or blueberry tarts… i don’t care which flavor you choose…
Thanks, I think? 😂
:-P
She knows exactly what the problem is, she just chooses to think the system can be reformed. A common misconception. Marxists would call her a class traitor.
Interesting article. Too bad it’s written by a hypocrite. HRC’s campaign was rife with divisive tactics, from labeling a quarter of the country “deplorables,” to playing the gender card relentlessly, to colluding with the DNC to hedge out her primary opponent (Sanders).
Not American, so I can’t speak for any of that. But this article on its own seems pretty accurate and thought provoking
at least a quarter of Americans are very much deserving of the title “deplorable”
Extroverts thinking we need to be around one another again. blech
You know what is worse? Depressed bed blobs pretending that they are introverts and normalizing antisocial behaviour. Healthy introverts have and regularly meets friends. They just don’t do it as often and in the same way as extroverts. I know these things because I went to therapy instead of trying to normalize my insecurities on the internet.
Also, you do know who wrote that article, don’t you? As a liberal, I did vote for her, and felt very icky having to do so, but it was (barely) better than the alternative. Before you put her words on that pedestal, ask your therapist if they agree about this brief psychological profile of her:
A psychological analysis of Hillary Clinton — Democratic nominee in the 2016 presidential election — by Rylee Pool and Aubrey Immelman, Ph.D., at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics, revealed that Clinton’s predominant personality patterns are Ambitious/self-serving (a measure of narcissism) and Dominant/controlling, infused with secondary features of the Conscientious/dutiful and Retiring/reserved patterns. In summary, Clinton’s personality composite can be characterized as an adaptive elitist narcissist. http://personality-politics.org/hillary-clinton
Is that someone’s world view something you still think is good to promote? She IS the toxic extrovert.
Can you give 3 examples of politicians in the US that don’t fit similar (if not identical) behavioral patterns? Just curious.
This post is pretty dumb, gotta say.
Why? You Hillary lovers want to cost us another election by listening to her?
To wit, the pseudoscience.
Ok man, you continue to follow her cult of personality. Just don’t cost us the election by listening to her drivel.
You think Hillary has a cult of personality?
Delusional.
I think you are projecting. Congrats on the therapy. Do the world a favor and keep going.
I see you didn’t read the article before commenting
It’s Hillary, only worth a light skimming. You surprised a social vampire like that gets lonely? Her ego and neediness was so big, it cost us the 2016 election. She deserves to be lonely.
You think she’s lonely and not at public events like every other day, surrounded by fans and staff?
No, I don’t think she’s lonely. She takes care of it by feeding on the souls of others socially & politically. She would be terribly lonely if she didn’t have that going for her, hadn’t created this form of sustenance for herself.
Oh, cannibalism visuals. Does she eat babies whole?
This is called dehumanization and it’s an old fascist tactic. If your political opponent aren’t considered human, then, what?
It’s not dehumanizing, her neediness is all too human, and it ended up costing us an election and giving us Trump.
