Will America’s Moral Bankruptcy Cause its First Real Revolution?

Ordinary Americans will pickup the tab by getting critical social programs standing between them and dire poverty drastically cut. The US social safety net is already one of the worst in the industrial world and what could be left of it will put the United States on par with developing countries and banana republics.

If America is quickly rising again as the main global financial liability, the rot at the core of this  is a lot more a moral issue than an economic one. What the United States ruling class is telling the huge majority of the population louder and clearer is a simple message: “If you are poor, sick or old-unless you are rich- you are on your own”. It is the old and simplistic American “philosophy” of “picking yourself up by your own bootstraps”. But how can you do this when you don’t have any shoes? How can you do this in a system where incarceration costs outspend public education budget by 6 to 1? How can you do this in a society which spend more than a third of its taxpayers money in funding the military and still do not have universal health care?

The continuing US financial crisis is just a mere reflection of a deep moral and ethic crisis decades in the making. When a society become so corrupt and amoral that it stops caring and protecting the weak, the sick, and the poor it should and will eventually collapse. Lasting social structures are based on very few key principles. The main one is that any progress  and benefits must be shared by the majority of the people as opposed to just a few. Otherwise, if a system is build primarily on inequality it will eventually implode. The United States of America is almost at this systemic breaking point where the exploited and oppressed are finally seeing the myth of the “American Dream” as the ultimate charade to keep them slaving away for the sole benefit of about 1 percent of the population.

Of course Washington’s political class belongs to and does the bidding for this 1 percent of Americans for whom the concept of the American Dream is real. But from time to time some politicians strike a populist tone, and pretend to be on the side of  the “little guy”.

These platitudes to the masses, masked as revolutionary calls for social and economic justice, are disingenuous. If they were honest, these servants of the oligarchs and plutocrats would say: “You get the sacrifice, we get the wealth”.

We might be at a boiling point when a real American revolution, the first real American Revolution, will just explode to change, by force if necessary, a system that is morally bankrupt and doesn’t have the intelligence or the ability to reform itself.

Editor’s Note: All photographs by Gilbert Mercier.

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Gilbert Mercier Medical Recovery Fund Raiser

On February 21, 2012, Gilbert Mercier, News Junkie Post Editor in Chief, suffered an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm.. a myocardial infarction… a massive heart attack.  Gilbert was given only a 10% chance of surviving the surgery that required he be put in a comatose state in order to both repair the damage and perform a bypass.  Fortunately, due to his physical strength, as well as the indefatigable spirit and tenacious character that he brings to every challenge he faces, Gilbert has survived both that initial surgery and a subsequent surgery in early March.

Gilbert’s recovery and rehabilitation will be a long process.  He is surrounded by loving family and friends but his intense medical needs and the astronomical costs for them will continue for quite some time.  The all-too-familiar story of how the American health care system can eviscerate a person’s personal financial security, regardless of insurance, is playing itself out with a cherished member of our family.

We will be regularly featuring some of Gilbert’s thought provoking and challenging pieces over the next few months.  A donation account for Gilbert has been set up at WePay.  Donations can be made HERE. It is our hope that all of you who have been affected, educated, and challenged by Gilbert’s work will assist him in his time of need and help provide the necessary support so that he can return to his former level of activity and resume his mission of informing, agitating and engaging.

Sincere gratitude from the News Junie Post family for your donation.

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