Context to a Businesskid On A Cloud:
FREE YOURSELF FROM MENTAL SLAVERY. Or follow this blog to do so.
I'm a bald head Samsonite Rastafari with a liking for politics, media, sociology, psychology, economics, ganja and other topics.
What you'll read here are usually posts analyzing the world around me through a Gestalt lens. The picture is clearer when you look at the whole thing, rather than just the flower in the foreground. Join(t) me and read about a world of interconnected problems and possible solutions! And of course, random rantings and weed.
It seems the most logical excuse against the Voting Rights Act’s Section 5 is that the formula used to determine which states need federal clearance for voting law changes no longer reflects the political climate in some areas of the south.
Now, with this past election, we still know a systemic voting rights problem exists. The GOP conducted a nationwide campaign to enable restrictive voting ID laws, disguised under the concept of eliminating statistically non-existent voter fraud. It’s clear that
Just by this map, we can tell there’s a strong concentration of Voter ID Laws in existence in the southern belt. By no means is this a statistical correlation, but it does beg further examination of the realities of disenfranchisement in America today. Clearly, as the system of racism has over the past decades so too has the system of voting discrimination.
So I’ll entertain the idea that the formula for Section 5 is outdated. My concern is, what will you replace it with? And as is common whenever legislation gets updated, what run-around possibilities will be included?
Death in America
The Real Welfare Queens
Conservatives want to attack welfare inefficiency? Start at one of the most socially helpful locations: slumlords!
The ghettos of the U.S. are littered with landlords running buildings that act as nothing more than a tax on the government.
These landlords run buildings mostly serving people that use government assistance to help pay a majority of their rent. Knowing this, many of these landlords charge market or just below rates to keep demand maintained.
The issue arises when these landlords do not invest enough of this government backed rent to at least maintaining a livable property with the most minimal overhead necessary. We can only guess a good portion of this government cash inflow goes toward owner dividends or salaries. Because, from the lack of heat, lack of common area utilities, and lack of repair of broken pipes or walls, it’s clear the money certainly isn’t going into maintaining living conditions.
Allowing someone to build a fortune through government taxation by taking advantage of social inequalities in access to judicial recourse is the definition of a welfare queen. Addressing this problem nationally and effectively can begin a necessary process of healing for all involved.
In the late 90s and early 2000s, Black people in the United States held $.10 of wealth for every $1.00 Whites held [1]. Today, the gap has grown. In 2009, the median wealth of White households was 20 times that of Blacks [2]. In other words, Blacks now hold just $.05 to the dollar. The median…
A very interesting, detailed, and accurate piece on how U.S. local and federal policies as late as the 1960s, and complementary realtor racism noted as late as the 2000s, has contributed to a historic suppression of wealth in Black and other minority communities. Especially of interest to those that think institutional racism is long dead and its effects presently null.
Have individuals in Colorado moved so quickly to monetize marijuana, to warrant fear among pro-pot advocates?
Small step towards detangling the web of 9/11 paranoia.
And the world just got a whole lot harder for Cops without morals.
For women, people of color, and the elderly, those disproportionately affected by the growing mass incarceration policy environment, there may be hope for change. Long needed change.
