4.8
September 21, 2011

18 Reasons that the Nation I love looks like a Joke, these days.

President Clinton warns: Denying Climate Change Makes U.S. ‘Look Like a Joke.’

The other day, President Bill Clinton straight-up warned that our United States of America looks like a “joke” when one of our two political parties disqualifies candidates who believe in science. But his comment wasn’t partisan, purely: he went on to say that we actually need a real Right-Left debate on how best to fight Climate Change.

In honor of that obvious observation (if you’re into facts—98 percent of climatologist scientists agree that human-caused pollution significantly contributes to global climate change—which has already cost us billions in increased flooding, storms, hurricanes, pine beetle expansion), here’s a list I’ve culled, lightly edited and expanded on from comments from Reddit

18 reasons that the US might look like a joke to an outsider, these days.

1. Denying Climate Change (“We know for a fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. We know for a fact that we’ve introduced massive amounts of CO2 into the air. We know for a fact that the earth is getting warmer.”)

2. Sarah Palin.

3. Biggest income disparity among first world nations.

4. Largest prison inmate population and highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world.

5. Playing chicken with the World’s Markets. Bankers. Unregulated, irresponsible greed. The housing market. Wall St.

6. Having a legitimate presidential candidate who prayed for rain.

7. Electing Dubya…twice.

8. Bankrupting ourselves (while benefiting private corps) fighting two wars in two countries that didn’t attack us instead of investing in our own, no-longer-first-tier infrastructure.

9. Our education system.

10. A pricey health care system that’s not even close to ranking among the best in the world.

11. Lack of effective regulation, excellence and responsibility in many large US corporations (I mean, “people”)…many of which jump through every tax loophole there is, take tax subsidies from We the People then outsource jobs, and rent PO Boxes on little Caribbean islands.

12. The recent Debt Ceiling debacle, where a Republican freely admitted they were willing to let the US default (harming our economy further—but that’s okay, it’s under President Obama’s watch) in order to get what they wanted. What happened to “when it comes down to it, we’re all in this together”?

13. Underfunded, unhealthy school lunches and an obesity epidemic.

14. Ready availability of guns not suitable for hunting or protection but rather…war, gang violence.

15. Televised presidential debates talking up vaccination myths and celebrating capital punishment.

16. Belief in death panels.

17. A population that isn’t embarrassed by this shit…

18. Consensual blow jobs in the Oval Office that “pose an existential threat to humanity and thousands of other species.”

 

~

Waylon Lewis

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