02-10-2019, 07:00 PM
(02-09-2019, 09:54 AM)David Horn Wrote:(02-08-2019, 05:49 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Poverty and the neo-liberalism that perpetuates it are mutually confirming. In the red states, especially in the South, most people are more poor. They do more poorly in all the ways the TED speaker above mentioned. This reduces their intelligence and their time to learn and inform themselves, so they are swept up in neo-liberal blame-the-poor ideology and the religious right, and they vote Republican. This in turn puts neo-liberalism even more firmly in control, whose politicians further reduce support to the poor, and poverty grows further. Vicious cycle.
What you're describing is a positive feedback loop: the more something happens, the more it's encouraged to happen. Loops like this have only two end results: total embrace of the toxic force or the emergence of a countervailing force that slows and, hopefully, reverses the feedback. We're seeing the first inklings of that now, but it's only at the enlightenment stage. Fierce advocates like AOC are just the Paul Reveres of this issue. The real struggle lies ahead.
That's true, and I think the struggle will and must be done in the next 10 years. Not that there won't be further change needed in the years beyond.