stellauk
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This has been coming for years and is largely as a result of the unforeseen consequences of so much technological advances.
There's a simple truth, and that is that we can solve all our economic problems and a good deal of our social problems by working together and being creative. When one person is creative, it usually inspires someone else to be creative on their own terms, and this in turn creates further opportunity for someone else to be inspired and to be creative on their own terms.
Okay so some people have benefitted from all these changes that technology has brought us, but that is some, and that success and those benefits have all come with a terrible human cost. People have died, others have lost their livelihoods, some have lost their homes, their families, their savings.
You see on the other side all these technological advances have brought opportunities for crime to escalate, for poverty to increase and spread, and I think it's fair enough to say that many people today are struggling who shouldn't be struggling.
I'm not in complete agreement with the OP, but say 80%. There are lessons to be learned for all politicians and religious leaders. It's like the left has to learn from the mistakes of the right and vice versa.
You see also there's a bottom line which applies to Americans just as much as it applies to Brits. Both form an integral part of English language culture which dominates the world. Kids all over the world grow up with contact with Disney, Coca Cola, they know who the Beatles are, the Rolling Stones, they know what Hollywood is.
We are talking here about a culture that the whole world wants to share and be a part of.
America isn't Number One any more, and hasn't been for some time. It's like Western Europe, part of the newly developing Second World, post-industrialist, and like Western Europe or Europe in the shadow of a disintegrating European Union America has to find its way forward in the knowledge that globalization isn't working.
We are fortunate that we have that culture to fall back on, but it doesn't excuse homeless people on the streets, it doesn't excuse people living off welfare, it doesn't excuse people having to turn to crime because they feel they have no other option. All of these people, in fact everyone at the lower levels of society are there because either they cannot make use of opportunities to better themselves, or such opportunities simply don't exist.
Those opportunities have to come from somewhere, and they can only come from people who can create such opportunities - the rest of society and politicians.
Society cannot move forward if half of it is disaffected and struggling. Society cannot move forward if one half of society wants it all and wants nothing to do with the other half of society. Society cannot move forward if everyone is going to be pointing fingers at others, blaming others and arguing over who is responsible.
Taking a stand against gay marriage is futile. It won't stop people forming same sex relationships. It also doesn't create jobs or address any of the more urgent needs of people in society. All it really is is a bunch of men - both on the right wing and LGBT activists - arguing over nothing more than where a man should or should not stick his penis.
People don't want to know about where some people like or don't like their penises, they want to know that they can have somewhere decent to live, they want to know that they can support themselves with meaningful and fulfilling work, they want to know that they can afford to get through the month.
There is a need on both left and right to reach out to people and to create more inclusive policies, ones which really address the core issues of poverty, crime and social exclusion.
This is more so on the right wing, and I really do believe the direction the Republican Party needs to go is social justice combined with conservatism. This means embracing diversity and accepting that some people are gay and need same sex partners in order to feel loved and happy. It means reaching out to people at the very bottom of society, the unemployed, the homeless, the destitute, and equipping them with as much opportunity as necessary so that they can come back into society and become both financially independent and productive.
Here in the UK we have had a political party on the right which has just annihilated itself with bigotry and hatred - the British National Party.
It would be sad to see the Republican Party go down the same route.
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