American Paranoia Part 2: American “Innocence” Vs. A World of Enemies

That big snore you hear in exceptional-land signals the end of the road for Russia-gate. When asked, only 1% of the America public believe the Russian caper was a major problem. The enemies most Americans care about are skyrocketing health costs, stagnant wages, life-time student loans, rising interest rates, crumbling infrastructure and the climate change-caused rain and fire destroying huge swaths of the “homeland.” Russia-gate has fallen out of the top ten. Even predictions of a coming Armageddon aren’t cutting much ice. This sorry state of affairs prompted leaders of America’s intelligence agencies to hold a group sing-a-long touting “new evidence” that “Russia continues to engage in malign operations” (as per usual no evidence to support that claim). if you read last week’s article American Paranoia: They’re Out to Get us, you know that even scaredy-cat Americans aren’t buying the hype. To find out how D.C. elites and their media buddies hope to reverse the Russia-gate death spiral, don’t miss American Paranoia Part 2: American “Innocence” Vs. A World of Enemies.

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Exceptional America to U.S. Workers: Drop Dead

“Sis, Boom, Bah” —Whoops of joy from all sectors of the American noise machine, media pundits, neoliberal economists and media talking heads celebrating the rebirth of the American economy. An economic miracle, we are told, that will float all boats. The streets may not be paved with gold —yet but count on it, in the words of one of our former delusional presidents (there’s 45 to choose from), there’ll be a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. In a more recent example, ex-president Obama was still patting himself on the back for all those jobs his administration created “We saw the longest streak of job creation in American history by far… A streak that still continues by the way…”

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Americans on the Dole: Working More and Getting Less

Remember the hullabaloo when the predators behind payday loans were finally outed? Not that we hadn’t always known that something was rotten in payday land. What we didn’t know was that our political leaders were co-conspirators. Overwhelming us with phony reassurances that “[this is] … our new American moment… There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream.” (President Trump’s first State of the Union speech)

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U.S. Public Schools in Free Fall: A Tragi-Comedy in Three Acts

Act 1 —January 18, 2017 —Confirmation hearing for Department of Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions: A sampling of the future Secretary of Education’s deep thinking on and incisive grasp of the thorny issues involved in educating America’s children:

Senator Chris Murphy: “Do you think guns have any place in or around schools?”

DeVos: “I think probably there [referring to a school in Wyoming], I would imagine that there is probably a gun in the school to protect from potential grizzlies.”

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America Misses the Boat Again and Again… Universal Healthcare Out of Sight Out of Mind

Remember the halcyon days of 2009 as the echoes of “change we can believe in” and “yes we can” hadn’t yet succumbed to dashed hopes and dying dreams. America had cut the cord of centuries of racial bias and elected a black man president. Dreams of My Father, Obama’s opus, reinvigorated our belief in the myth of a chosen people.

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Blame It On the Sixties

“It is curious to see America, the United States, looking on herself, first,
as a sort of natural peacemaker, then as a moral protagonist in this terrible time.
No nation is less fitted for this role. For two or more centuries America has
marched proudly in the van of human hatred…to your tents…
and world war with black and parti-colored mongrel beasts!”

—W.E.B. Du Bois, Darkwater: Voices From Within the Veil, 1920

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Eating Her Young: America Reinvents the Law of the Jungle in Her Own Image

“I am 30 years old. I went to college to get a better job. But now I regret going. I originally owed $70,000, have been paying for nine years and now owe $157,000. I can barely afford to go to the dentist or doctor. If there’s an emergency, I have to rely on credit cards or retired parents. I am living at poverty level and would have been better off not going to college. I’m never going to be able to buy a house or save money. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to enjoy life again.” (Kristina M.)

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America’s War on Women: Move Over Weinstein, Lauer, Halperin, Rose, Franken: The World’s Sole Superpower Has Its Own Sordid Tale

J’accuse -The Women Speak Up
I tried fighting him off, while yelling at him to stop, but instead of stopping, he began squeezing my neck, attempting to force my head onto his crotch…”

The Excuse – Dirty Old (and Young) Men Respond
“I don’t know [the accuser] from anyone. I never talked to her. This never happened, they know it never happened and, obviously, you don’t wait 40 years to bring up something like this.”

The Federal Government to Women -You’re Not Our Problem
“It is fundamentally unjust and discriminatory for the [U.S.] government to deny women on Medicaid the same reproductive health options as women with economic means” In 2017, the 1976 Hyde Amendment prohibits 13.5 million women of child-bearing age from using their Medicaid health insurance to cover the cost of an abortion. Since 1977, over one million women have been forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.”

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