Something's Happening Here

[Too Tall]

America is undergoing a sea change. For the sake of this discussion I'd propose that most if not all of the worlds democratic economies are experiencing a cultural reaction to George Floyd's death. Where this goes or what it becomes is the question.


Something is happening here.

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[Corso]

Yes- I agree!

[72gmc]

I'm hoping that the zero-sum, winners vs. losers mentality is re-evaluated on a global scale. We all lose when some of us are systematically deprived of opportunity. Exclusive power structures deprive us all of our potential for imagination and creativity.

[caleb]

The uprising is starting to become itself: Beverly Hills, Buckhead, SoHo: The New Sites of Urban Unrest - The New York Times

This expanding urban inequality is now implicated in new waves of unrest, another source of rage, inseparable from race, bound up with all the older ones. If protesters in the 1960s cried out from black neighborhoods that had seen severe disinvestment, now they are calling attention to cities that have experienced enormous investment — investment that excludes them.

“People are trying very hard to avoid the word ‘serf,’ but that’s kind of where we are right now,” Mr. Chidi said of the modern urban economy. “Honestly, we’ve created a class to exploit.”

Booming Atlanta relies on hotel clerks, nannies, gardeners, house cleaners, car washers, Uber drivers, janitors who clean fancy gyms and couriers who deliver from trendy restaurants. Jobs like these are what tend to be available now to workers without a college degree who 50 years ago could have found middle-class work in factories and offices.

As that work has declined, the economist David Autor says, the economic promise of cities for the poor has dwindled, too. He uses the term “wealth work” for a new subset of service jobs like the baristas who make $7 lattes or the trainers who work in gyms — meaning not that they offer the workers who do them wealth, but that they exist because of the wealth of others.

“There’s a lot of people who are there to serve the comfort and convenience and care of affluent individuals,” Mr. Autor said.

[mjbabcock]

I live at the gateway to the local trails. Probably 500-1000 riders come past our place on their way to the trails. I had to do something, so we helped the kids make some signs to memorialize those killed unjustly by police.

Maybe I’ll feel going back into the woods with signs. Wouldn’t be hard to fill up a few dozen trees with signs.

[Clean39T]

I live at the gateway to the local trails. Probably 500-1000 riders come past our place on their way to the trails. I had to do something, so we helped the kids make some signs to memorialize those killed unjustly by police.

Maybe I’ll feel going back into the woods with signs. Wouldn’t be hard to fill up a few dozen trees with signs.

That's great work Jason - especially in an area as white as B-ham...and speaking to the "bro culture" of the snowboarder/MTB'r set up that way..

May I suggest something similar to this:

OLg9mHF.jpg

It seems that a lot of folks really don't get the point of "Black Lives Matter" - and by laying it out, it is harder for them to hide behind the false-equivalence of "All Lives Matter".....

[Too Tall]

That's great work Jason - especially in an area as white as B-ham...and speaking to the "bro culture" of the snowboarder/MTB'r set up that way..

May I suggest something similar to this:

OLg9mHF.jpg

It seems that a lot of folks really don't get the point of "Black Lives Matter" - and by laying it out, it is harder for them to hide behind the false-equivalence of "All Lives Matter".....

Ding.

[TTX1]

America is undergoing a sea change...


Something is happening here.

The pendulum swings, continually, between anomie and reason.

Even now, I cannot say if 46minus1 will win or steal a second term, but I know this: In the medium-long term, demographics favor the left.

The US is no longer the only major nation or "economic zone" with social diversity. The great experiment has been exported. The EU struggles with many similar issues - immigration (largely from North Africa to the South, and various points to the East), racism, nationalism, populist politics... etc.

Taken together, North America plus Western Europe (including the UK), feature aging populations, increasingly mixed in every way.

The next generation is not happy about their inheritance: Environmental catastrophe (avoidable!), healthcare (a slow, expensive mess!), weak or absent social policy, expensive education...

Yup, it's going to get spicy.

About damn time.

[Too Tall]

It is about damn time. Specifically, consequences of global populism are getting a hard look. What falls out might resemble something we have not seen before. Honestly I do not know what that is.

[ides1056]

Peace on Earth, goodwill toward all. Something along those lines would do fine.