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Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45
I don't disagree with you but I don't know if people will just "wake up" if the situation gets bad enough. It would be the hopeful possibility but xenophobia et al. is the other option, which would just make a horrible situation worse. Many genocides (Rwanda and Nazi's for example) are the result of populations getting pushed to the edge and taking it out on people who had no control over the situation in the first place.
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Excellent point. I would also like to point out that American culture and society has undergone a major sea change since the depression era in the 30's. At the time of the great depression a much higher percentage of Americans lived in rural areas. The small family farm where the plowing was done with a mule could still to be found all over the country. If you live in a rural area you have fewer neighbors and you come to know the ones you do have well. They may have shared the boundary of your back 40 for generations. People helped one another out as a matter of course. You might help Joe out with the haying, but he could just as well be over at your place someday, helping to rebuild your barn that was lost in a fire. It was far easier for the Americans of that era to understand the importance of helping their fellow countrymen in a time of dire need.
Today's America is a highly urbanized place. Everybody tends to reside in the big city where you can live next door to someone for years and never even know their name. If you happen to have a flat tire on a busy city street, people are more likely to honk their horns in irritation than they are to stop and help you change your tire. Everyone is anonymous. The sense of community and shared hardship does not exist. If someone loses their job or their home they probably deserved it because (pick one) they were the wrong color or spoke with the wrong accent or they lacked the good old American work ethic or they were faking the condition that rendered them disabled. Etc. ect., ect.
Today's America values wealth and priviledge above all else. "He who dies with the most toys wins." Taxation is considered a form of slavery by the tea party because they'd prefer to spend that money on a new Mercedes rather than contribute to the shared fund which maintains our highways and the rest of our national infrastructure.
Today's America always seems to be involved in some undeclared war in some country that most Americans know little about and absolutely nothing about what is really going on. The all volunteer military allows Americans to shrug their shoulders with the comment that those who serve in our armed forces signed on for it. This national state of denial is abetted by the rule that no pictures be taken of the caskets of the dead that are returned daily to our shores. These men and women gave their lives for a country that wants to pretend they never existed. How ironic is that?
Government spending on ever newer and ever better weapons of death is a sacred cow that no one will touch. Just as no one will touch our veterans either. The VA continues to be the target of budget slashers. Our veterans have served their purpose and those who have deep wounds of the body or spirit are useless. We relegate them to city parks and over crowded homeless shelters, and should we pass one on the street, we refuse to meet his eyes.
Today's America is looking into the abyss and the abyss is looking back.