As Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold’s posthumous infamy turns 10 on April 20, I wish I were surprised that Columbine-like shootings are still happening, or even that our national discussion about violence hasn’t yet matured past gun control and video games. I wish I were surprised, but sadly, I’d be surprised if it were any different because we still refuse to… return to article
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Reader Comments (1)Page 1 of 1 pagesOnce again, Mr. Sirota hits the nail on the head when he points out how much we’ve become a “winner take all” society. Sadly, even the progressive community in the US has somehow lost track of the socio-economic issues that have created the disaster we have today. Few have cared about not only the loss of certain fundamental legal rights for our poor, as a result of welfare “reform”, but about the very real suffering and hopelessness of our poor today. They don’t seem to grasp our welfare “reform”, by turning the poor into a bottom-wage temp help workforce without basic rights, has impacted wages and workers’ rights and protections for the working and middle classes. There is no outrage that all the money taken out of humanitarian aid for Americans was poured into the bank accounts of corporations/the rich (in the form of “tax relief” measures). They seem unaware of such concepts as “the common good” or social justice. There is no simple, human compassion as we’ve embraced a purely sink-or-swim mentality—and so many people are now sinking!
In short, people bought into the anti-poor rhetoric of the past 30+ years, at their own expense. We no longer grasp how we’re all interconnected. Failing to recognize these things, and thereby learning to accept the “winner take all” system, there has been virtually no protest (much less, outrage) about the very policies that have caused the dramatic deterioration of the quality of life, etc., that we see in the US today.
Posted by dhfabian on May 17, 2009 at 2:54 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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