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posted by martyb on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the new-normal dept.

Paul Buchheit reports via AlterNet

While Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning and John Kiriakou are vilified for revealing vital information about spying and bombing and torture, a man who conspired with Goldman Sachs to make billions of dollars on the planned failure of subprime mortgages was honored by New York University for his "Outstanding Contributions to Society".

This is one example of the distorted thinking leading to the demise of a once-vibrant American society. There are other signs of decay:

  • A House Bill Would View Corporate Crimes as "Honest Mistakes"
  • Almost 2/3 of American Families Couldn't Afford a Single Pill of a Life-Saving Drug
  • Violent Crime Down; Prison Population Doubles
  • One in Four Americans Suffer Mental Illness; Mental Health Facilities Cut by 90 Percent
  • The Unpaid Taxes of 500 Companies Could Pay for a Job for Every Unemployed American ...for two years ...at the nation's median salary of $36,000 ...for all 8 million unemployed.

Citizens for Tax Justice reports that Fortune 500 companies are holding over $2 trillion in profits offshore to avoid taxes that would amount to over $600 billion. Our society desperately needs infrastructure repair, but 8 million potential jobs are being held hostage beyond our borders.

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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Cornwallis on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:39PM

    by Cornwallis (359) on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:39PM (#273356)

    "Picky, picky, picky..."

    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday December 08 2015, @05:18PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday December 08 2015, @05:18PM (#273499)

    Other people would just point out that the US was never "the country it used to be".

    Built on slavery and by extermination of the locals, fought a bloody civil war, which still left a large portion on the population unconvinced and another chunk riding at the back, robber barons, interning the Japs, nuking the Japs, invading or causing coups all over the place, cutting down major forests into deserts, agent-oranging some other yellow people, profiting from toxic stuff right around or inside major cities, nuking American or natives to measure the effects, setting rivers on fire, lying about the extent of industrial damage (both at home and abroad) to avoid paying for it, using any dirty trick to rig elections...

    Most Americans I deal with daily are good people trying to navigate the system. But collectively, that is one fucked-up system with a great "internal PR" department.

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 08 2015, @07:00PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday December 08 2015, @07:00PM (#273571) Journal

      Why do you think the glasses are rose colored? Helps hide the bloodstains...

    • (Score: 1) by meustrus on Tuesday December 08 2015, @08:34PM

      by meustrus (4961) on Tuesday December 08 2015, @08:34PM (#273606)

      Most of what you say was bad for all the not-Americans. Which is not good. But this article's problem is life for the Americans. And sure, that life was always problematic for non-WASPS. But things aren't getting any better anymore for our ethnic minorities, even as those minorities are starting to not be "minorities" anymore. All the while the power of the average White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Male has declined measurably (that's what most of the middle class used to be). What I'm saying is that it was better for more people when privilege went to an ethnic class of Americans rather than a (much smaller) financial class of multi-nationals based in [not America] wherever taxes are cheapest.

      --
      If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @09:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @09:41PM (#273644)

      It feels as though "a billion seconds of Unix" [zork.net] was a watershed.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:45PM (#273709)

      the US was never "the country it used to be"

      At least in the 1950's people looked pleasant and wholesome while they screwed you over.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday December 09 2015, @12:50AM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday December 09 2015, @12:50AM (#273732) Homepage

      So which nations or peoples do have a squeeky-clean past free of revolutions, oppression, or genocide?

      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 09 2015, @02:59AM

        by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday December 09 2015, @02:59AM (#273771)

        I'm gonna go for "none" and hope someone can prove me wrong.

        My point was about the marketing department, though. The "chosen people" was reserved a while back, but that doesn't seem to deter belief in American Exceptionalism.
        While most people find ways of thinking about themselves as special, it takes the Almighty French or Brits, to compete with USA obnoxiousness and disdain levels on that topic.