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“I don’t know what the answer is, but holy cow, do we have a problem.”

– FBI Director James Comey on the statistically reported rise of homicides across the U.S. over the last two years.

From:  ‘We have a problem.’ Homicides are up again this year in more than two dozen major U.S. cities.

Commentary by The Secular Jurist:  Let’s start with what we do know, Mr. Comey.

From Business Insider via MSN – The middle class is vanishing in America’s cities:

Pew’s research shone light on the issue that has contributed to the rise of anxiety throughout the American public…

[…]

Pew observed that the decline in the middle class is associated with an overall increase in inequality in the United States, which could lead to somewhat dire consequences for American society.

From The New York Times via MSN – In Empty Homes of Las Vegas, Squatters See a New Frontier:

On a drive through this desert city, the blight from the housing collapse of eight years ago can be seen on almost every block: Overgrown yards and boarded-up windows identify the foreclosed and abandoned homes that still pockmark southern Nevada.

But not all the dwellings are empty.

From the Massachusetts Department of Health and Human Services – A Comprehensive Strategy to End Opioid Abuse in Massachusetts:

Like so many states across the country, Massachusetts is facing a growing epidemic of opioid addiction and overdose deaths. In March 2014, a Public Health Emergency was declared in the Commonwealth, triggering the formation of a Task Force which brought together affected individuals and families with stakeholders from public health, law enforcement, medical providers, and community agencies, among others.

From Northwestern University – Economic hardship causes suicide-rate increase, experts speculate:

The rate of suicide in the U.S., steadily going up almost every year since 2000, has reached its highest rate in 15 years, an increase that experts say may be a reflection of the nation’s economic hardship.

∞

 

13 thoughts on “Quote of the Day: There’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear”

  1. Bull’s eye reminder of Buffalo Springfield’s “There’s Something Happening Here”

    There’s something happening here
    What it is ain’t exactly clear
    There’s a man with a gun over there
    Telling me I got to beware

    I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
    Everybody look what’s going down

    There’s battle lines being drawn
    Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
    Young people speaking their minds
    Getting so much resistance from behind

    I think it’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
    Everybody look what’s going down

    What a field-day for the heat
    A thousand people in the street
    Singing songs and carrying signs
    Mostly say, hooray for our side

    It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
    Everybody look what’s going down

    Paranoia strikes deep
    Into your life it will creep
    It starts when you’re always afraid
    You step out of line, the man come and take you away

    We better stop, hey, what’s that sound
    Everybody look what’s going down
    Stop, hey, what’s that sound
    Everybody look what’s going down
    Stop, now, what’s that sound
    Everybody look what’s going down
    Stop, children, what’s that sound
    Everybody look what’s going down

    Read more: Buffalo Springfield – Somethings Happening Here Lyrics | MetroLyrics

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Yes and yes.

    What’s happening is the inevitable and predictable consequence of late stage rapacious capitalism: the rapid, but at first invisible (to the powerful and privileged at least) destruction of humanity.

    The growing economic and social inequality inherent in capitalism is associated with a whole host of mental, physical and social health problems, not to mention environmental destruction and political unrest, including internal conflicts and wars.

    We are forced to reap what the psychopaths in power have sown for us.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Let me just add, to stress the point, that it is the inequality, which is inherent in capitalism, that’s the culprit here and not just “absolute” poverty or economic hardship as such. That inequality is associated, by design, with inhumane competition, which destroys relationships even between family members, and a lack of the social safety and support networks, among other pernicious phenomena.

    In societies where everyone is poor but more or less equal — for example former communist countries of Eastern Europe where I was born and raised — you do not (did not) see these problems. (I did not see homeless people until I moved to the US as a young adult, for instance.) People raised in such societies — poor but equal — are far more tolerant, warm and caring, and tend to form and rely on deeper emotional and social bonds, which ameliorate life stresses and protect from many individual and social disorders.

    It is the staggering and ever-growing disparity between the haves and have-nots that’s so demoralizing and destructive, in every possible way.

    Here is a link to search results on the well-documented relationship between inequality and social ills: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=inequality%20and%20social%20ills

    This is a tragic reality that American “masters of the world” blissfully ignore — and they can afford it, given that they and their offspring are exempted from it.

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