A Look at America's Problems
Feb. 23rd, 2011 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThese 8 charts illustrate key problems with America's wealth distribution and how it affects the country. Link courtesy of my partner Doug.
America now functions more as a plutocracy than a democracy. A tiny number of super-powerful people control a majority of the wealth. They are over-represented in the government. Wealthy people thus make decisions to benefit themselves, while harming the vast majority of citizens. Many people do not have enough money to live on, which is to say, meet the demands placed on them by the wealthy. The result is a floundering economy because there is simply not enough money left to the bottom 80-90% of people to keep it going. Too much of the money is being hogged by too few people who are using it in ways that aren't producing a healthy economy, no matter what kind of smokescreen they try to blow over the disaster.
America now functions more as a plutocracy than a democracy. A tiny number of super-powerful people control a majority of the wealth. They are over-represented in the government. Wealthy people thus make decisions to benefit themselves, while harming the vast majority of citizens. Many people do not have enough money to live on, which is to say, meet the demands placed on them by the wealthy. The result is a floundering economy because there is simply not enough money left to the bottom 80-90% of people to keep it going. Too much of the money is being hogged by too few people who are using it in ways that aren't producing a healthy economy, no matter what kind of smokescreen they try to blow over the disaster.
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Re: Well...
Date: 2011-02-24 07:58 am (UTC)I support it. Nonviolent protests can be overwhelmingly powerful -- with expert guidance, in fact, they can be unstoppable no matter what the oppressors throw at them. The key is focus; most people can't hold it under high pressure. They'll snap and turn violent. It's very hard to hold a movement together, and the opposition knows that experts of that caliber are rare. Hence the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
My preference is to pursue rational, legal means first; then rational, illegal means; and finally violence as a last resort for self-preservation or other compelling needs. It is therefore always a bad idea to block anyone's access to the first two of these items, as it pushes people down the list. They WILL go down the list. You are lucky if they bother to start at the top.