Welcome to the third world country known as California, where we can't even get reliable electric service.
Used to be the shining star of progress in the world, now this.
Used to be the shining star of progress in the world, now this.
Decay is slow and gradual to people who live here all of the time. If you're like Chris Hedges and live abroad for some years and come back, the decline is noticeable over a longer timescale. (Slowly boiled frog.) And then there are folks like Chalmers Johnson who predicted empire and democracy are mutually exclusive, and you can see the current US military budget, undeclared wars and hundreds of bases around the world. Some examples of decline include:
- massive corruption of the political establishment
- crackdowns on publishers and journalists who don't tow the establishment line
- apathy of the middle (low voter turn-out)
- electing demagogues
- crumbling infrastructure: roads, bridges
- rust belt / lack of manufacturing
- declining birth rates
- rising xenophobia, provincialism and nationalism
- increase in volatility and political polarization of average people
- grotesque inequality with millions of homeless
- questioning capitalism bifurcating into leaning either towards fascism or socialism
- magical, tribal belief cults like flat-earth, anti-vaxx and conspiracy theorists
- highest incarceration rate on Earth (per capita) except Seychelles
- clueless leadership/elite class who cling ever more to utopian nonsense like libertarianism, meritocracy, consumerism, and technological progress/fashion
- national debt leading to insolvency
That’s why 65 million people vote for Clinton and we end up with Trump despite 3 million less votes.
It’s why pluralities of Americans support things like assault weapons bans but Mitch McConnell won’t even bring bills to the floor.
It’s why we get extreme gerrymandering in states like N. Carolina, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
The country is being hollowed out from within, the middle class is in steady decline, and our once great institutions are being privatized and sold off to the highest bidder.
It’s Milton Friedman and his Chicago boys wet dream and it’s only possible when the people aren’t represented and it’s going to have terrible repercussions in the United States just like it did in every other place that forced it upon its citizens.
We need to get rid of undemocratic institutions like the electoral college and Senate, expand the number of reps in the House of Representatives, drastically reduce the amount of money in politics, root out corruption, and make voting easier to access.
Unfortunately the Republican party wants none of those to pass in a system they can only continue to game further to win.
It’s a pretty depressing reality.
Looking for a place to stay/live, too.. if anyone here can help. Will be on Embarcadero, but I like the east bay, and beyond.
I'm in So Cal, myself, but I'm really trying to escape. Have been starting to seriously investigate options outside of CA. It's just becoming so oppressively broken here.
Here in north oakland I have a 45 minute commute with a seat every day on the bus.
I'll be starting from Oakland, found a spot to land that will give me a little time to work through market availabilities to find the right place.
But what you suggest is more or less what I'm aiming for, with Lafayette/WC as a possible extension if I can keep the home-to-BART commute easy.
I do like to get up at 430am and BART early, which opens things up a bit.
That's actually why this fire season is so bad.
The problem isn't that too many people moved to California, the problem is that California has been aggressively blocking anything that might be construed as development, meaning that conditions just keep worsening everywhere.