About
Learn More about our progressive online community for the Granite State.

Create an account today (it's free and easy) and get started!
Menu

Make a New Account

Username:

Password:



Forget your username or password?


Search




Advanced Search


The Masthead
Managing Editor
Mike Hoefer

Editors
elwood
susanthe
 William Tucker
The Roll, Etc.
Prog Blogs, Orgs & Alumni
Bank Slate
Betsy Devine
birch paper
Democracy for NH
Granite State Progress
Mike Caulfield
Miscellany Blue
Pickup Patriots
Re-BlueNH
Still No Going Back
Susan the Bruce
New Hampshire Labor News
Chaz Proulx: Right Wing Watch

Politicos & Punditry
The Burt Cohen Show
John Gregg
Landrigan
Pindell
Primary Monitor
Scala
Schoenberg
Spiliotes

Campaigns, Et Alia.
NH-Gov
- Maggie Hassan
NH-01
- Andrew Hosmer
- Carol Shea-Porter
- Joanne Dowdell
NH-02
- Ann McLane Kuster

ActBlue Hampshire
NHDP
DCCC
DSCC
DNC

National
Balloon Juice
billmon
Congress Matters
DailyKos
Digby
Hold Fast
Eschaton
FiveThirtyEight
MyDD
Open Left
Senate Guru
Swing State Project
Talking Points Memo

50 State Blog Network
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Texas
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin

A Look in the Mirror: We're Failing

by: elwood

Wed Sep 14, 2011 at 07:12:21 AM EDT
The very idea of a national census is fundamental, radical, and inescapable. It's required by the Constitution, but it long predates America and democracy: we read of the census in the Bible. So a regular stock-taking of the nation seems to be a necessary tool for any form of government.

But it can be inconvenient for the ruler, too. The census can show that his tribe has shrunk, or the cities he vowed to build up are being deserted. The look in the mirror isn't without risk.

We're starting to get a look into the mirror of America. And the picture tells us what we do not want to know.

We are getting poorer. The American Dream is   - we hope - comatose, with family incomes falling for the first time since the Great Depression.

Mirrors and censuses "close the loop" of feedback for our political system. They bring us back to cold hard facts.

We're getting poorer. We've failed our children, who are moving back in with their parents - they would fall below the poverty line too, if they didn't.

Now that's a deficit.
elwood :: A Look in the Mirror: We're Failing
Tags: (All Tags)
Print Friendly View Send As Email
A Look in the Mirror: We're Failing | 6 comments
Worse. (4.00 / 2)
We know what to do to turn this around, we have the resources to turn this around, yet we refuse to choose to turn this around.  That is what is so maddening.  It would be one thing if we didn't know, and were really poor, but we are actually not getting poorer, we are getting more unequal.  
And most Americans don't even know what is going on.  
I wouldn't say "We refuse to choose to turn this around." (0.00 / 0)
Those who have aligned themselves with a movement controlled by uber rich have allowed this to happen.  The fact that ignorance and a "let him die" attitude is winning now is our biggest challenge to date.

Those who cheer for the death of an uninsured person are, in my opinion, cheering for their own demise.

You are absolutely right on the "we are getting more unequal."

"We start working to beat these guys right now." -Jed Bartlet

[ Parent ]
Agreed that some of us (0.00 / 0)
are fighting hard to turn it around.  But it sure is a hard slog to even get people to listen long enough to realize the problem and what to do about it.  Especially because we apparently are going to have to do our arguing in sound bites.  
[ Parent ]
Absolutely! (0.00 / 0)
Absolutely right.  We're going to have to move through waist-deep crap to even get through to many people.

"We start working to beat these guys right now." -Jed Bartlet
[ Parent ]
Well said (0.00 / 0)
I'm curious about the demographic information. Quincy, MA, a pretty good size city, is 25% Asian, I just learned. I had no idea.

But yeah, we are failing. This ship can still turn around, but it's going to a lot of will.

The achievement gap is something we should all be concerned about. (4.00 / 1)
As disenfranchised minorities become a bigger portion of the American population, our society's failure to integrate them, to educate them, to put them on an equal track of social mobility, becomes a bigger issue for the country as a whole.

And I'm not talking about any particular group here; this isn't just people of one demographic. We are no longer a country of and by white, Christian, heterosexual men over 50. Our neighbors' prosperity is our prosperity--even if we don't live in the same neighborhood.

--
Hope > Anarch-tea
Twitter: @DougLindner

A Look in the Mirror: We're Failing | 6 comments

Connect with BH
     
Blue Hampshire Blog on Facebook
Powered by: SoapBlox