I have my suspicions about how this article will be met here. I'm not sure how many ideas for redemption this article actually offers but in my opinion it is worth a read. The idea here would be to try to read this objectively as possible and without immediately waving flags of patriotism. Just read it and think about it. https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...id-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/
Dude, Baby, seriously? You posted this already and we tore it apart for it's intellectual dishonesty and disregard for historical facts. Disregarding that drivel has nothing to do with waving the flags of patriotism.
Dude Baby? LOL that's funny I posted this already? I faintly recall Bww calling an article that I posted as shit. This must be it huh? Maybe I'm reading it wrong but I think it's a coherent article.
I found it. You're absolutely right blang. My memory is slipping .... I don't think I agree that it's intellectually dishonest or that it disregards historical facts. I think it's coming down a little heavy on the USA but I can't say I really disagree with a lot of what was said.
Not sure what BWW said, but I pointed out why that article is a pile of crap on this very thread on August 10. As soon as you ignore historical facts to suit your politics, you've lost me. This article is awful.
I'm running out of time in my office but if you have some time could you illustrate your point for me? I know it's a long article but if you have time I would be interested in your perspective blang.
I'll start by saying this, outside of Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone has become yet another once great publication to be recently swallowed up and transformed by the social justice cult that is sweeping the nation. Also, my earlier points still stand about the history this writer ignores. With slogans like “24/7” celebrating complete dedication to the workplace, men and women exhausted themselves in jobs that only reinforced their isolation from their families. The average American father spends less than 20 minutes a day in direct communication with his child. By the time a youth reaches 18, he or she will have spent fully two years watching television or staring at a laptop screen, contributing to an obesity epidemic that the Joint Chiefs have called a national security crisis. A pile of BS. The average American father worked much harder in the 19th and early 20th century than they ever have post WW2. See here: https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/ And women working hard now should be a good thing, since they were denied career opportunities in the pre-WW2 America. Working harder towards greater upward mobility and freedom (something that millions have tried to do every day since before 1776) has nothing to do with being a bad parent, which is not uniquely American either. Kids all over the world are spending years of their lives in front of screens. Black Americans, who significantly outnumber whites in federal prisons despite being but 13 percent of the population, are suffering shockingly high rates of morbidity and mortality, dying at nearly three times the rate of white Americans. The cardinal rule of American social policy — don’t let any ethnic group get below the blacks, or allow anyone to suffer more indignities — rang true even in a pandemic, as if the virus was taking its cues from American history. Blacks have unfortunately suffered more in terms of mass incarceration, still way too many of them in jail for non-violet drug offenses. And that's a problem we have to fix. There's no cardinal rule of American social policy. Most legal immigrants, including Africans (who on average earn more than 10K per year compared to African Americans: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/201...rtrait-of-the-u-s-black-immigrant-population/), enjoy a middle class American life. Because they work hard, don't make dumb life choices, and play by the rules. As a number of countries moved expeditiously to contain the virus, the United States stumbled along in denial, as if willfully blind. With less than four percent of the global population, the U.S. soon accounted for more than a fifth of COVID deaths. The percentage of American victims of the disease who died was six times the global average. Achieving the world’s highest rate of morbidity and mortality provoked not shame, but only further lies, scapegoating, and boasts of miracle cures as dubious as the claims of a carnival barker, a grifter on the make. As pointed out numerous times, we've done far more testing than any other country on earth. We've also counted people killed in car accidents as Covid deaths, if they tested positive for Covid post-mortem. Not making excuses for us dropping the ball on this, we have. But I'd trust our testing/death numbers more than what China, Russia, India would be reporting. Those who flock to beaches, bars, and political rallies, putting their fellow citizens at risk, are not exercising freedom; they are displaying, as one commentator has noted, the weakness of a people who lack both the stoicism to endure the pandemic and the fortitude to defeat it. People are flocking outdoors (and to indoor parties) all over the world, not just here. My friends in Europe, Middle East, and Australia confirm that. But the ridiculous hypocrisy in this, he refuses to call out the thousands upon thousands BLM protesters during the pandemic. If your politics are correct, you can protest and rally all you want. If your politics are incorrect, you're a murderer for going to the beach. Count me among the murders for the cross country, national park road trip I just took. The American cult of the individual denies not just community but the very idea of society. No one owes anything to anyone. All must be prepared to fight for everything: education, shelter, food, medical care. What every prosperous and successful democracy deems to be fundamental rights — universal health care, equal access to quality public education, a social safety net for the weak, elderly, and infirmed — America dismisses as socialist indulgences, as if so many signs of weakness. It may surprise you Baby (and anyone who is only plugged into left wing media), that Americans actually are the most generous people on average worldwide in terms of donating money and time to charitable causes: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/t...g-them-from-giving-more-to-charity-2019-10-18. Canadians rank #6. Where we differ with this bleeding heart moron is how to be generous. Some folks believe it's governments who should be responsible to take care of people, others believe it should be individuals. Our government may not give a shit about other people, but our citizens sure do. So this writer can suck my dick. In Canada, the experience is quite different. One interacts if not as peers, certainly as members of a wider community. The reason for this is very simple. The checkout person may not share your level of affluence, but they know that you know that they are getting a living wage because of the unions. And they know that you know that their kids and yours most probably go to the same neighborhood public school. Third, and most essential, they know that you know that if their children get sick, they will get exactly the same level of medical care not only of your children but of those of the prime minister. These three strands woven together become the fabric of Canadian social democracy. Seriously do Canadians actually think this much about the checkout person at the store? Canadians are weird. Here's further proof: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...sex-canadas-top-doctor-suggests-idUSKBN25T2Y9. American politicians dismiss the Scandinavian model as creeping socialism, communism lite, something that would never work in the United States. In truth, social democracies are successful precisely because they foment dynamic capitalist economies that just happen to benefit every tier of society. That social democracy will never take hold in the United States may well be true, but, if so, it is a stunning indictment, and just what Oscar Wilde had in mind when he quipped that the United States was the only country to go from barbarism to decadence without passing through civilization. This is indicative of why this article is so hard to get through. Yeah, I do think it sucks that we aren't progressing to a Scandanavian-type solution for medical care and other benefits. But then he just can't help himself, noting that we went straight from barbarism to decadence without ever being civilized. So strong is his hatred for America. We may be descending towards barbarism but we've been a civilized country for all my life. I've been to uncivilized places, America is not one of them. Also, decadence is not uniquely American, in fact I think it's worse among European elites, not to mention all third world countries run by barbaric and decadent dictatorships. Ever take a stroll down any major European city and not see a shit ton of homeless people at any given moment, contrasted with the beauty and decadence of the city? Not me. Even in Germany and Denmark, two of the countries that leftists like to point out for their "social democracy". And we have the same problem here. What I disagree with overall is the general tone, obvious bias, and the writer's ignoring of many of the real causes this country is spiraling down. The biggest problem with the USA is hyper partisanship (demonstrated by people refusing to see facts when they don't suit a narrative) driven by media and politicians (discussed at length on this thread). We've talked about social media's role on this as well. Distrust of our system and its democracy is festering. Unity and common purpose are a thing of the past. When we don't share a common set of values or understanding of our history, our nation is doomed to fail. This point didn't get enough attention in the article. There's a growing movement of people who support equal outcome for all rather than equal opportunity for all, contrary to what this country was founded on. There's a growing movement of people who want to deny science and reason as the basis for knowledge and application for solutions, instead relying on emotions or subjective experiences to implement policy, contrary to what this country did to build its greatness. This is happening both on the right and left. And it's tearing us apart. A house divided cannot stand. As for foreign policy, our failures in the last half century have less to do with the downward trend, though they haven't helped either. All great empires, including some of the ones he mentions, have horrible crimes on their hands, even long before they began their "fall". Heck, China is committing heinous crimes right now and they are trending up.
Baby ?? I took your advice and looked at this objectively. Really, I did. Uhhhhhh. No !! Bww called it shit ? I have to agree. There's nothing there. I see that he's Canadian, but sounds like he's just another self loathing American spouting off.
@EvertonBears you're raking it in here ... what happened? Did you just get out of bed and all of a sudden and randomly you got really funny? LOL
LOL Bww ... shhhh I'm trying to respond to blang's post without making an utter fool of myself. Jesus, it's hard to concentrate around here. And by here I mean whenever you're online LOL
First of all @blang84 thank you for taking the time to write this. I don't know if this is the appropriate time/place to mention this but I have great respect for your writing. You always present your ideas cohesively and I almost always learn something from reading your thoughts. I also want to include a caveat here, that I do not agree with all of what Davis wrote but I do agree with some of it. I've read the article about 5 times now and each reading shows more more insubstantial and thready arguments than the previous. It's going to be challenging to reply to this coherently with all of the inner quotes but I'll try my best. I agree with you about the Rolling Stones, although I don't necessarily read it for the political articles. It really makes a person think about the bastion of journalistic objectivity and where a person can go to read information unfettered by the author's perspective. That's an interesting chart to read. I have a question. Would that chart look differently if different income brackets were assessed? It seems to me that a lot of people all over the world are working excessive hours just to make ends meet. This is where (to me) the author's focus on the U.S. trivializes his arguments. This is happening all over the world and not just in the U.S.. Also blang the author doesn't make a judgement on bad parenting (at least from what I read), although you can easily make that reference from what he wrote. His comment about obesity is true because ultimately the U.S. seems to hold that honour. If you throw in the statistics about divorce in the U.S. which also contributes to poorer parenting I can see where the inference could be made. I think that a focus that could change those statistics is education. Poverty, abuse, substance abuse, poor role modelling and environmental factors are all large contributors to why the percentage of incarcerated blacks is so high.
This reads somewhat apologetic to me. No one is contesting how much testing the States has done. Davis' comment is on how so many Americans dismissed the severity of Covid-19, including the President. No one can argue that if decisive action had been taken at the earliest time, that the number of victims and deaths would be different. I'm not going to argue this because you are right to a certain extent. I think, in light of the tremendously high numbers of victims and mortalities in the States the number of parties, beach scenes and rallies which are broadcasted by the news every day show a certain arrogance being displayed by these people. Have you heard of Covid parties? One person gets deliberately infected and then infects a larger number of people so that they can develop their own antibodies for the flu, even though it has not yet been tested or to win the purse of money from ticket sales to the party. This happened north of me last month. Teenagers of course. The author didn't make a comment about Americans not being generous. I think his comment was focused on the idea of governments putting laws and legislation into place to protect every citizen. Everyone in the world knows how the U.S. has bailed other countries out economically time and time again. That's not the point here. The point is having universal health care, equal access to quality public education and a safety net for the vulnerable. I don't argue with the idea that individual Americans are generous, I've seen this first-hand. What about all the people who don't get help? The children going to school hungry if the school doesn't have a breakfast program in place? What about the people who can't get out of the ghettos or low-income housing to attend further education? There are way too many to list right now but with an umbrella of help that is offered for very little in Canada wouldn't that change some of the hardship that people experience in the States? OHIP or Ontario Health Insurance Premium: This ensures that every Canadian has proper coverage whether they are paying into OHIP or not. Doesn't that seem like a good idea? It's a pittance of what we earn and no one even notices it when they bank their paycheques.
No. Not at all. This comment of Davis' is laughable. I've travelled extensively in the States with relatively few interactions with the service sector that were not positive. I think a lot of Davis' motivation was to make himself feel better through the writing of this article. Your last comments are spot on. I watched a video of Mr. Davis being interviewed by the BBC and the first thing he said was that he doesn't hate the States, that in fact he is married to an American, has 2 children with duo citizenship,has been published and earned money in the States. Methinks the man doth protest too much .... Apologist much?
