Ummmm….The Pope is Here

From your vantage point, RVG, do you see it coming?

In such a divided country, where neighbors do not even know each other, the poor and the middle class are getting poorer, retirees cannot keep up, taxes and fees take an unjustifiable bite and everybody is angry; sure, it is very possible.....maybe even predictable, as most of the violence is completely senseless, as in the case of the Uber driver who killed random victims between customers. Was he angry, or just bored? He was certainly armed, and had more at home.

WHEW!!! 
All these posts makes me glad I'm an optimistic progressive.  More people to divide the pie with but I think the pie is getting bigger.  The greedy wealth accumulators can be brought down and back to normalcy through government intervention.  Bernie will have an effect even if he isn't elected.  His message will not go away, even for the Republican candidates if they win the election.
The GOP is surviving on false propaganda with their lower income followers that can't last for long/forever.  Even P T Barnum's side shows went by the wayside in time.
The GOP accuses Obama of being a divider but it is the oligarchs of the GOP that keep the country divided over race, immigration, religion, you name it, to keep the shrinking white majority fearful of their existence.....like you are going to be white and poor as opposed to black and rich, speaking Spanish instead of English, or some other idiotic silliness type of mud that sticks to the ceiling.

RVGRINGO wrote:In such a divided country, where neighbors do not even know each other, the poor and the middle class are getting poorer, retirees cannot keep up, taxes and fees take an unjustifiable bite and everybody is angry; sure, it is very possible.....maybe even predictable, as most of the violence is completely senseless, as in the case of the Uber driver who killed random victims between customers. Was he angry, or just bored? He was certainly armed, and had more at home.

Thanks for weighing in, RVG.

I hadn't heard about the Uber driver.

"The greedy wealth accumulators can be brought down and back to normalcy through government intervention. "
The operative word here is "can".  Why would there be legislation to effect this when there hasn't been any whatsoever so far; in fact, just the opposite?  The Supreme Court let the political contributors loose so that buying legislators is even easier.

Bernie's message is a good one and young people are hearing it, but who is going to act on it? We're back to "can".

Trump's amazing success is proving a disturbing point, one which is so obvious that we don't even need to talk about it.  Hillary is the product of a powerful machine and will probably be the next president. I doubt she will be able or willing to do much about hitting the income of her supporters.

None of this is what I'd personally like to see.  That doesn't matter, though. I'm a product of the group who grew up in the "golden age" of the U.S, when children of the poor could be anything they chose to be if they were willing to work hard enough to achieve it.  I don't see that situation happening today.
Reading the disturbing story of the young woman who was fired by Yelp after complaining that she couldn't afford groceries was the kind of "opportunity" out there today. How do you get further up the ladder if you can't afford the rung you're on?

I don't like to sound so pessimistic, but it is what is is, and the future doesn't look bright in the U.S.A.  Maybe we should start a thread on who is likely to survive the coming hard times, and why.  That takes me back to the days when I knew a bunch of well educated, savvy people who chose to live and raise their families "off the grid" and make a living in unconventional ways.  Not the "communes" of old, which never worked; but people well out of the mainstream. I often wonder how it worked out for them on the long run.

gringal wrote:"The greedy wealth accumulators can be brought down and back to normalcy through government intervention. "
The operative word here is "can".  Why would there be legislation to effect this when there hasn't been any whatsoever so far; in fact, just the opposite?  The Supreme Court let the political contributors loose so that buying legislators is even easier.

Bernie's message is a good one and young people are hearing it, but who is going to act on it? We're back to "can".

There was a much more progressive tax system for the wealthy in 1950's and it can be done again.
Of course "can" is the operative word and a better one than "can't".  If that was the eventual outcome written in granite, why would Bernie Sanders or anyone that supports him, keep on trying.
You can lie down, roll over dead, and say nothing will happen, when thousands/millions of young people are out there giving it their all.  Thank God that the future is with the young and not with the permanently blind or those who believe change can never be implemented.

slainte39 wrote:

gringal wrote:"The greedy wealth accumulators can be brought down and back to normalcy through government intervention. "
The operative word here is "can".  Why would there be legislation to effect this when there hasn't been any whatsoever so far; in fact, just the opposite?  The Supreme Court let the political contributors loose so that buying legislators is even easier.

Bernie's message is a good one and young people are hearing it, but who is going to act on it? We're back to "can".

There was a much more progressive tax system for the wealthy in 1950's and it can be done again.
Of course "can" is the operative word and a better one than "can't".  If that was the eventual outcome written in granite, why would Bernie Sanders or anyone that supports him, keep on trying.
You can lie down, roll over dead, and say nothing will happen, when thousands/millions of young people are out there giving it their all.  Thank God that the future is with the young and not with the permanently blind or those who believe change can never be implemented.

I didn't say it can't, but the 50's were a very different time than the situation today. I'd day it will be much more difficult to raise taxes on the top layer. Back then, the head of the company didn't earn 400 times as much as the workers.

The gap between the haves and have nots is much greater now and things have changed drastically in the world of Washington. We shall see. I'm all for the young people trying to change the way things are. When we were young, we did the same thing. I'd say "fat lot of good it did us", but I'll try to think more positively.

When I was born, the world population was about 2 billion.
This year, 2016, the world population is approaching 7.2 billion.
We are running out of fresh water.
Climate change is threatening crops.
Glaciers are melting & the sea is rising to flood major cities in 50 years.
Why all the interest in getting to Mars? Would you want to go?
What we have is unsustainable.....we are unsustainable, to accurate.