Saturday, September 22, 2018

Rania Khalek - American decline: Open pools of raw sewage in the richest country in the world

Milton Friedman said greed was good, but that wasn't we were taught as children by our families, schools, and Sunday schools, where we had it drilled into us that being greedy was very bad indeed. And we all agreed, because children are born with an innate sense of right and wrong.  Then the Conservatives came along, which is the party of law and order and family value, and said that greed was good after all. Now we see how greed is destroying the US economy.

As the wealthy continue sucking the country dry, the question now isn’t if the US will cease to provide a decent standard of living for its people. Rather it is how many people will be sacrificed on the way down.
In America, the richest nation in the world when measured by raw GDP, children are getting sick from living by open pools of raw sewage. This was one of many shocking findings by the United Nations late last year, following a two-week investigation into extreme poverty in the US.
The UN report was issued last December by a team of investigators who visited California, Alabama, Georgia, Puerto Rico, West Virginia and Washington DC.
“The United States is one of the world’s richest, most powerful and technologically innovative countries; but neither its wealth, nor its power, nor its technology is being harnessed to address the situation in which 40 million people continue to live in poverty,”wrote Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
He continued, “I met with many people barely surviving on Skid Row in Los Angeles, I witnessed a San Francisco police officer telling a group of homeless people to move on but having no answer when asked where they could move to, I heard how thousands of poor people get minor infraction notices which seem to be intentionally designed to quickly explode into unpayable debt, incarceration, and the replenishment of municipal coffers. I saw sewage-filled yards in states where governments don’t consider sanitation facilities to be their responsibility, I saw people who had lost all of their teeth because adult dental care is not covered by the vast majority of programs available to the very poor, I heard about soaring death rates and family and community destruction wrought by opioids, and I met with people in Puerto Rico living next to a mountain of completely unprotected coal ash which rains down upon them, bringing illness, disability and death.”
The sewage-filled yards were found in poor areas like Lowndes County, Alabama, where many people cannot afford to install septic tanks, causing sewage to pool by their homes. This untreated waste creates the potential for all kinds of diseases. In Lowndes, it has led to the proliferation of hookworm, a parasitic disease of the intestines commonly found in the world’s poorest developing countries.
The discovery of third world levels of poverty and disease in the richest and most powerful country in the world, shocking as it may be, is only part of the story. The UN findings are in keeping with the downward spiral of America.

RT 

20 comments:

Andrew Anderson said...

What's the good in complaining about greed while supporting government privileges for private credit creation whereby the so-called credit-worthy (typically the richer) may obtain what is then, in essence, the public's credit but for private gain?

Or is this a variation on "Guns don't kill people; people do"? Then I note that government privileges for the banks caused the Great Depression which in turn was a (if not the) major cause of WWII which killed 50-65 million people.

Konrad said...

.
“Greed is destroying the US economy.”

Yes, because human greed is all about getting more, while making sure that others gets less. Among people who seek to enhance their feelings of wealth, it is usually easier to starve others than to create something useful for all.

Put another way, it is not enough for oligarchs that they get rich. Oligarchs are not happy unless everyone else becomes poor.

“All empires fall after all. And Donald Trump is accelerating the process” ~ Rania Khalek

Whoa. I agreed with Rania up until that last point, where she lapsed into Trump Derangement Syndrome. To pretend that Trump alone is accelerating the USA’s decline is to pretend that neoliberal Democrats are innocent. Had Hillary been crowned, we might already have had a nuclear war.

I’m no fan of Trump, but everything he has done has been a continuation of what his predecessors did.

Rania, get a grip.

This is RT, not CNN.

Andrew Anderson said...

"a shithole country" Noah Way

Because the rich think they got theirs honestly when the truth is that they, or their ancestors, most likely used what is, in essence, the public's credit but for private gain.

And who has ever told them otherwise? Their churches? Progressives? MMT theorists/advocates?

The US is a idealistic country - for good if the ideas are good and for bad if the ideas are bad.

Let's promote good ideas then and those include that the system has been rigged in favor of the rich - since the Founding - and that the victims deserve justice, not guaranteed wage slavery.

Noah Way said...

The US was founded by rich white guys who didn’t want to pay taxes.

Mission accomplished.

Andrew Anderson said...

The US was founded by rich white guys who didn’t want to pay taxes. Noah Way

Who does? And, truth be told, a just society would require little taxation or government for that matter, e.g. when ancient Israel was ruled by judges for about 400 years.

Kaivey said...

Pay taxes? I do. For the national insurance scheme, in case things go horribly wrong, and to live in a fair and humane society. A quality society.

Andrew Anderson said...

And the more unfair the society, the higher the taxes need to be in order to compensate to have a humane society - and with an inevitable loss in efficiency as more people intermediate leading to more unfairness and thus a vicious loop.

And when the unfairness and inefficiency become costly enough then cries will arise to sacrifice the humanity and blame the victims.

Seriously, justice is not some abstract concept that pales in the light of pragmatism; it's the most efficient way to get things done just as patience is the quickest way to get things done.

Andrew Anderson said...

And I didn't say "no taxation"; I said "little taxation."

And it's a stupid system that allows unjust wealth accumulation in the first place - expecting that high nominal taxes can somehow reverse that injustice.

Matt Franko said...

AA your whole worldview is based on how much munnie different people have.... pretty sad...

Andrew Anderson said...

However do you reach that bizarre conclusion, Franko?

You should really read Proverbs or even James for some practical advice wrt righteousness - especially wrt controlling your tongue/finger tips.

Andrew Anderson said...

Actually, James is very, very good and I meant no slight wrt Proverbs only that Franko despises the Old Testament and thus I pointed him to a NT book too.

Matt Franko said...

“James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad, greetings.” (NASB) James 1:1

I’m not in the tribes sorry....

Andrew Anderson said...

You should know, Franko, that one can't lawyer his/her way into Heaven.

I have some sympathy for your approach but having read the entire Bible (actually just the entire New Testament is sufficient), it shouldn't and won't work.

Matt Franko said...

None of this material stuff is even difficult for science trained people.... it’s the unqualified Art degree people trained under the dialectic method who worm their way in and F it all up...

We had sanitary systems over 2,000 years ago and now these dialectic Art degree douchebags in these blue stares still can’t figure it out...

None of any of this simple stuff (for those qualified) has anything to do with anyone’s justification in the sight of God or anyone’s salvation...

It’s all simple stuff except for art degree dialectic morons in control...

Noah Way said...

FRANKO
Featuring daily performances of the Dunning–Kruger Effect.

Matt Franko said...

What is that some art degree dialectic thesis about why science people are always correct and do better materially????

Andrew Anderson said...

None of any of this simple stuff (for those qualified) has anything to do with anyone’s justification in the sight of God or anyone’s salvation... Franko

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts. Revelation 9:20-21 New American Standard Bible (NASB) [bold added]

And if you're so qualified, Franko, where are your proposals for a fiat and credit creation system that cheats no one?

Matt Franko said...

You’re setting up a dialectic condition in your own mind where your OT is “thesis” and the NT is “antithesis” and trying to synthesize them into one .... doesn’t work....

“A house divided against itself does not stand” ... you’re thinking is fucked up.... sorry....

A fiat system can include regulated fiscal agents who lend currency against other real assets ... it would work just fine if we had qualified non morons regulating it....

Andrew Anderson said...

A fiat system can include regulated fiscal agents who lend currency against other real assets ... Franko

Are you saying we currently have "loanable funds" or do you agree with me that "loanable funds" (with equal fiat distributions to all citizens to provide the funds) should be a policy goal?

it would work just fine if we had qualified non morons regulating it.... ibid

Slavery in the South worked fine until it didn't and left the South ruined for decades ...

Andrew Anderson said...

You’re setting up a dialectic condition in your own mind where your OT is “thesis” and the NT is “antithesis” and trying to synthesize them into one .... doesn’t work.... Franko

I find the OT consistent with the NT; there's no synthesis needed.