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Post by kitkat on Jun 3, 2012 10:56:48 GMT -5
Crime (both property & violent) has definitely ticked up (exploded?) around my region of the urban wilderness. More breakins, home invasions, daylight robberies of old folks in mall & supermarket parking lots; lots of real desperado type shit going on. And shootings; gang, nutcase, murder/suicide, you name the flavor we got more of it this year. (In Seattle to the tune of a 100% increase over last year in murders)
I wonder if the fact that the safety net is contracting, peeps unemployment running out, the cancellation of the "homeless cash" program (about 300$ a month used to be for the totally destitute) etc is to blame for part of this trend, vis a vis increasing desperation/stress levels? At least food stamps are still happening... And getting Romney and a new repub governor in this state too, well..can't see that as anything other than more gas on the fire...
Getting kinda crazy out there.
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Post by will on Jun 3, 2012 12:21:44 GMT -5
It's a symptom, not a cause. Our society is more and more individualistic and selfish. It's short sighted and irresponsible. Those who do harm seem to get away with it more often than not at all levels of society. When the head rots, the rest of the body will rot soon after. This is what we are watching happen. It's not a government problem. It's not an economic problem. It's a problem with the values we have been slowly but surely turning into our own. The tea bagger stupidity and right wing yowling, the excesses of Wall Street, the shameless greed of CEO types, the murder rate - they are all symptoms of the same thing.
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Post by baldrick on Jun 4, 2012 9:17:47 GMT -5
"I blame... society..."
I think a lot is the influence of the aging Boomers (the older 2/3, not those of us who just happened to get stuck in the last couple of years of the range). Remember, they were the "Me" generation, and have had more influence on our society than anyone over the last 50 years, ever since they reached draft age in the early to mid 60's.
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Post by kitkat on Jun 4, 2012 9:26:21 GMT -5
Oh I get that it is symptomatic alright. Propagandizing universal fear is another aspect of the cause paradigm. I have read plenty re; tech interaction causing increasing social isolation as well tho i am not entirely sold on that concept, at least to the degree some are trying to sell it.
After the capitalistic excesses of the 19th century socialism got quite huge & threatening (to capitalists) not only overseas (Europe) but here in the US as well. The Great depression was just another example of that system's inherent proclivity to dump misery on everyone but a select few and if not for Roosevelt's actions capitalism would have been in for a very rough time. But he saved it basically, by craving off the worst of the rough edges (the ability of the masses to weather the inevitable recessions/depressions of capitalism) with unemployment insurance and social security. Our problems (cultural) really started in earnest with Reagan & the supply side BS I believe. Seems as though that's when things really began to head downhill. And he was aided by the huge political turnoff that the Nixon years were and that idiotic vietnam war--which combined turned more decent people off to politics & civic life than ever before. Ever since anti-gov't invective has been endemic and piss poor gov't has been real, mostly due to few giving a shit anymore thus allowing the bad apples to run rampant ever since. It's all so rotten now that i doubt it can be turned around...and i think most people sense that. In fact the only thing that has turned around since the 80's is the public opinion of the military. Which is really the same as it was in the 60's and 70's (insane and inefficient & incompetent) but now it's all "heros" this and that. Heros my ass. THAT is what really disturbs me, the rampant militarism. Which augers for a more violent decline than might otherwise be hoped for.
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