Tim Wise Gets It

[Minute]

Racism & discrimination of any form only exists because they want it to. It is the oldest war tactic in the book. Divide & Conquer. The only power that people of any nation have is it's unity. Take that away as they have & we are too weak to oppose anything. We don't have citizens of this country. We have blacks, whites, browns, gays, straights, ... Read Moremen, women, democrats, republicans, Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheist, ect, ect, ect. We are too busy hating each other to come together and do anything about it. The truth is that there is and always has only been 1 division. Rich & Poor. We out number them by far... but they out smarted us.

[Ddrak]

The scary thing about America is the width of the rich/poor division (however you want to measure it) is significantly larger than most (all?) other developed countries and growing larger.

Dd

[Minute]

More than significant. Literally to exponential levels in comparison. Now the wave has gotten to the point that it's going to collapse in on itself. The middle class is on it's last leg and dying quickly. You remove that from the social structure and poor people are only going to get so poor before they decide that instead of letting their kids starve to death or die from lack of medical insurance that they are going to unite & take from those slim few who have so much. That rolls into revolt. Revolt rolls into anarchy. From anarchy comes a militant leader. And the cycle continues.

[Partha]

Sorry to interrupt The Lord of the Flies 2.0, but that kind of thing probably won't happen again, thanks to the social safety net that we've implemented since the Great Depression.

Yes, the rich/poor disparity is at it's greatest level since 1929, but that's hardly a reason to Chicken Little about civilization. Rather, we are almost on the time when people once again realize that the rich have to pay a hugely inordinate burden to society, since they have a hugely inordinate amount of the wealth. Republicans and Glibertarians will scream about soshialism, but when confronted with the sick and starving, most people tune them out.

[Minute]

I doubt it's going to matter as the oligopoly of corps are going global now. Especially with places like China taking off on the energy efficient technologies like it has while we are sitting on our duffs still not actually producing anything. In a few more decades the wealthy won't need America or it's social implementations to continue on because we won't be the biggest consumers anymore.

[Partha]

Dude, quit reading the propaganda. Serious.

Our industrial production is TWICE China's.

[Ddrak]

Dude, quit reading the propaganda. Serious.

Our industrial production is TWICE China's.

Closer to three times actually, but China's predicted to overtake the US by 2018 and double it by 2030-ish.

Dd

[Garrdor]

Hey Ddrak, have you ever been here?