I would not put this on America being a failed state. Rather the more 'successful' European countries are far more homogenous in demographics than America ever will be. In Denmark, nearly everyone has the same cultural background and similar values, and are striving for a relatively unified vision/goal for the country. In America, there is such an overwhelming diversity in values and cultures, and added animosity between different groups of people that there is more infighting over government&private resources and less efficient use of them.
> Rather the more 'successful' European countries are far more homogenous in demographics than America ever will be. In Denmark, nearly everyone has the same cultural background and similar values, and are striving for a relatively unified vision/goal for the country.
Can you explain this reasoning without implying American political leaders (or perhaps broader society) are racist?
As a counterpoint France, Germany, Canada and Australia are far from homogeneous, but offer far stronger social safety nets than the US. IIRC, 1 in 4 Australians were born elsewhere.
Is it really on just the political leaders and not the society at large that supports them?
One need not go that far back in history to learn that codified in the legal system was the concept of separate but equal, red lining,, etc. Lynchings were often ignored and thus a public spectacle.
Today you still see the public discourse about women’s rights (e.g potentially jail for abortion in certain states…regardless of the reason), debates on mass migrations/immigration (e.g. little sympathy for legal citizens being deported or killed by ICE, etc).
Public agreement on these issues is a prerequisite to social safety nets.
American history is plagued with examples such as these that have contributed to the culture of rugged individualism.
Perhaps the closest period where some semblance of social safety net wins were achieved were in the FDR years (eg social security), and that was mainly through labor unions / working class pressure.
Do those counterpoint countries have similar histories? and were their social safety nets not from the side of labor vs capital?
Downvote all you want, but y'all still haven't explicitly named the linkage between demographic diversity and American tax policy vis-a-vis threadbare social safety. Instead of asking the reader to fill in the gaps, I challenge anyone who believes it to explain the mechanism linking the diversity prior/stimulus to the tax policy result, and why it only happens in America.
In a place as diverse as America, democracy starts to resemble a racial headcount. Elections start to hinge on explicit appeals to particular ethnicities or sub groups. Political parties are very loud about this and they don’t try to hide it at all. I thought it was clear why this only happens in America (the aforementioned diversity).
If some groups are disproportionately benefited by certain social spending while a different group is disproportionately impacted by the associated taxes to fund said spending, you get a divergence in the ability to burden share across groups (this is the case in the United States). As a result of this, spending is funded by debt.
That's not the only way at all; all I'm saying is it becomes harder to convince the whole of society to adopt social safety nets if they positively affect people that look/act different from someone. I'm just trying to be honest that many many many Americans are racists.
Its not worse than twitter. It's not close in compared to toxicity; though i've personally noticed a high-minded snobbishness toxicity that shuts down discussion on it.
I do love this song and I find it resonates to read the lyrics as though revolutions are censored by media (which is true). Though I found an interview with Gil Scott-Heron about the meaning of the lyrics and I find it more interesting; The revolution will not be televised because the revolution starts in your mind, at the dinner table, or reading books in the library. It won't be captured on TV because the revolution occurs when you question your own beliefs and understand something bigger.
Art in general is this way. It's no wonder the more we abstract away our lives and society (through screens, deliveries, etc) the more abstract art feels more relevant to our experience.
* The revolution won't be televised because we don't watch TV anymore (and are fragmented and increasingly don't even have those common touch points anymore).
There's a recording from the 80s where he makes the same point in the middle of reciting the poem. It's a really good version.
"A lot of times people see battles and skirmishes on TV and they say 'Ah-ha! The revolution is being televised!' Nah. The results of the revolution are being televised. The first revolution is when you change your mind, about how you look at things, and see that there might be another way to look at it that you have not been shown. What you see later on is the results of that, but the revolution, that change that takes place, will not be televised."
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