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Showing posts from March, 2016

American Political Puberty

What does it mean to be facing a Bernie Sanders revolution among Democrats and a Trump revolution among Republicans? American culture has always stood on what amounts to an illusion. It's a child's view of who we are as a country and a people. But like a child's self understanding, what we believed to be American doesn't exactly comport to reality. We're the land of the free and home of the brave who committed systematic genocide to get that land and built an economy on the backs of slaves so we could claim that freedom. We're the country of laws without nobility or king that has structured financial influence into politics that creates defacto kingmakers and an acknowledged nobility of wealth and power who are all but required allies to get elected. We are a land of market opportunity for the aspiring individual with self determination and ambition, but that opportunity is not only upwards: It's downwards too. Unlike other first world countries, the downw