NEWS. "Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?" Parents, therapists and schools are struggling to figure out whether helping anxious teenagers means protecting them or pushing them to face their fears. Probably because they are confused. The older generations are busy arguing on Facebook, and then these youths read/hear news or listen to teachers, then they go google stuff or go to chat rooms, and there you go. No brainer. Also, we should advise or guide troubled youths with ample time and "real life" attention than continually feed them (internet) links to this and that, fancy meme and that one. Those only confuse them.
NEWS. "What Reality TV Teaches Us About Russia's Influence Campaign." Like a twisted version of the producers of an unscripted TV show, Kremlin-linked trolls used fake personas to provoke very real drama. This is very true but unfortunately those people who haven't stopped sharing links and meme's (supposedly "meant to augment" their partisan politics) refuse to accept. To accept that they've always been fooled. And still, being fooled. One example of a Social Media tactic that actually "worked" (in terms of widening divisions between conservatives and non-conservatives) was the "prayers don't solve crime" thingy that cropped up amidst recent mass shootings. I mean, does this subject even worth 1-minute of talk? People pray, some don't. Period. But people feasted on it like a "novena" is actually an entry in law enforcement eradication. Does "grace before meal" prayer automatically heat up a cold stew? What idiocy. Yet people bit it. (Yes, Putin is laughing.)
I THINK if they take out the word obama in obamacare and trump in trumpcare, for example, and just say healthcare 1 and healthcare 2, arguments and divisiveness will be lessened a bit. You reckon? Then those who know about these issues, really know them, should speak and educate us all about healthcare 1 and healthcare 2. And how things could be worked out in a bipartisan level. Uh huh. "Obama uh huh" or "Trump uh-huh"?
NOT THE WORST. Trump and Obama people, or Sanders and Clinton people still whining over their loss, should calm down. Barack Obama and Donald Trump aren't really the worst presidents the US ever had. Trump hasn't served a year of his 4 yet so let's see how he performs in totality. Like you, I can't stand how he talks (dating back to his TV days) but I am not and never paid attention to blahblahs. I check data and facts.
According to analysts and observers of US politics in years, the three worst American presidents are: James Buchanan, Warren Harding, and Andrew Johnson. Their term/s were in 1800s and 1900s. Johnson (1865-1869) survived impeachment after opposing Reconstruction initiatives including the 14th amendment; Harding (1921-1923) was an ineffectual leader who played poker while his friends plundered the US treasury; and Buchanan (1857-1861) refused to challenge the spread of slavery or the growing bloc of states that became the Confederacy.
So maybe people are just imagining stuff. Cost of gasoline is still one of the lowest among nations. Even lower than that in my home country, the Philippines. Out there, it's something beyond $3 a gallon. Tennessee has been enjoying an influx of jobs etcetera. Fact: As of second quarter of the year, 12.4 million Americans worked in manufacturing, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s up by about 25,000 jobs from a year prior, and almost a million from early 2010. But it’s still down by about one third, or more than six million jobs. But investments from China, Taiwan, Japan, Russia, and Germany keep on coming, so let's be positive. Saudi Arabia has also been diversifying (from oil) and spreading out investments globally.
But if we want an America that is still the sole Master of the Universe, then true, we should be depressed and stressed. Because that isn't going to happen. Uncle Sam and Aunt Samantha simply have to share some pleasures with the global community somehow.
I JUST read a heated exchange in my Homepage that basically revolves around the wild assertion that a president is at fault for all the mass shootings these days. That'd be Donald Trump. Although I don't personally like President Trump, I am just so sick and tired of all the bashing that border in sheer hatred than hard facts. I believe that there are many reasons why people go bonkers and shoot others randomly--and it is not mostly economic (study all mass carnage and serial killings). And it is not Trump's fault either. In fact, there have been more mass shootings under President Obama then the four previous presidents combined?
Check this out (mostly Mother Jones data from FBI records). Mass Shootings under the Last Five Presidents. [1] Ronald Reagan: 1981-1989 (8 years) 11 mass shootings; George H. W. Bush: 1989-1993 (4 years) 12 mass murders; Bill Clinton: 1993-2001 (8 years) 23 mass murders; George W. Bush: 2001-2009 (8 years) 20 mass murders; Barrack H. Obama: 2009-2015 (in 7th year) 162 mass murders (incidents with 8 or more deaths, 18). Trump assumed office last January. Should we count deaths and then celebrate that he beat Obama on that regard? That'd be insane.
Instead of pointing fingers at governments, let us figure things out ourselves. The people or citizenry also has a huge responsibility, I believe, in keeping our community safe. But we are not going there, instead we tend to traverse the contrary, if we continue hitting and blaming the Right (or Left), this president and that president, or their political party and not ours. I can understand the political slurs, coming from frustration, few weeks after the Nov outcome. But this hasn't stopped. It has become so disgusting and boring. And dumb.
I corrected myself in re data. The US has more guns per capita (than any other country), 112.6. But Venezuela, El Salvador, Swaziland, Guatemala, Jamaica, Brazil, and Colombia ranks a lot higher in terms of gun-related deaths (10). But the scarier part is the US is number 2 in terms of mass shootings behind Yemen which has experienced more than 40 mass shootings per 100 million people, compared to the US which has had less than 30 per the same study size. But then how do we compare the US with Yemen? The one major issue that is bothersome is the fact that the US tends to police the world in every aspect of societal governance, including peace and order and crime-eradication, yet it couldn't really police its own people.
IS IT REALLY THAT BAD? Here are the facts (if you care to read, that is). If we set aside partisan dislike of the dominant politics and sheer abhorrence of President Trump, and just turn to facts? No, it's not really that bad. Markets are up and unemployment is down. Although Trump is known to bloat data and exaggerate matters in his press blurbs and tweets, he isn’t wrong about the stock market’s record heights. The Dow Jones industrial average passed the 22,000 mark for the first time in his term, and other market indexes are at or near highs.
Meantime, gross domestic product, the primary indicator of a country’s economic health, had expanded at an annual rate of 2.6 percent in the second quarter. Truth is, America has somehow gotten over the Recession of 2007-09 ushered by a housing market crash and the failure of several investment banks due to overextended credit and risky mortgages. But credit goes to Obama for fixing a failing economy in his exit; though such a problem jumped up in his term as well. Trump so far keeps it on check.
True, US economy hasn't been in heaven as it did in the 1950s and 1980s but it isn't so bad either. There was an explosion of economic growth in the 1980s: GDP grew an average of 3.85 percent annually, the largest peace-time growth in US. history. American millionaires soared from 4,400 in 1980 to more than 63,000 in 1990, a 14-fold increase. But contrary to the claim that the “rich got richer and the poor got poorer” in the 80s, the group which benefited the most from the economic policies of the 1980s were African Americans, who enjoyed the highest percentage wage gain of any group, and who for the first time had a plurality of its members in the middle class. Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush did a fine job with the economy, totally negating Jimmy Carter's relative failure as an economic-minded president.
Meanwhile, most of the simmering down of America's economy was due to the advent of China, and the resurgence of Russia and South/Southeast Asia, distributed economic wealth around but that doesn't make Americans one of the poorest in the world. Perhaps two of the more recent hard life in the US happened during the recessions of 1973 and 1981 recession. Lasting 2 years, the quadrupling oil prices by Arab exporters resulted in stagflation (high inflation amid stagnant economic growth) and a stock market crash. This had an impact in the 1981 recession where rising inflation from the 1970s resulted in tightened monetary policy from the Federal Reserve, while regime change in Iran led to rising oil prices. Amid these crosscurrents, the US found itself with falling inflation but rising unemployment by the early 1980s. Yet it didn't take long for the Reagan administration to fix the problem.
The US has been through worse economic life in the past: The panics of 1797, 1957, 1873, 1893, and 1907--brought forth by European deflation and a yellow fever epidemic that closed ports, banking failures, stock market crash from a railroad boom and cost of copper etc. And of course the 12 years Great Depression, the worst of times when economic production fell by 50 percent, and unemployment surged to 25 percent.
Yet despite all these, current-life Americans are still very stressed and problematic. According to the American Psychological Association’s annual Stress in America survey, some 59 percent of Americans believe the country is in the lowest period they can ever remember, including respondents who lived through Pearl Harbor and World War II.
Sixty-three percent of respondents consider the future of the US a source of stress, while 62 percent feel stressed about money and 61 percent about work. And as you might expect, 73 percent of Democrats are worried about the country’s future. But more conservative folks aren’t exactly at ease about America’s path either; 59 percent of Independents and 56 percent of Republicans said they’re stressed too.
“We’re seeing significant stress transcending party lines,” said Arthur C. Evans Jr., the Survey's chief executive officer. “The uncertainty and unpredictability tied to the future of our nation is affecting the health and well-being of many Americans in a way that feels unique to this period in recent history.”
These elevated stress levels could be having a negative effect on people’s health. Lying awake at night during the previous month is up 5 percent from 2016 to 45 percent, and a third of Americans said stress is causing them to feel nervous, anxious, irritable, angry, or fatigued. Most likely, Americas are on Facebook reading links and memes and anger and fighting. Hence the paranoia of the future. Yet it isn't really that bad. Dig? So chill.
PEACE CAN BE WORKED OUT. Or just being conscious of the unconscious (social media) peddling of hatred. Facebook, Twitter et al are very helpful tools to unite people via steady and fast communication and sharing of valuable/useful info toward better life and living. But it seems these awesome devices are not veering toward that beautiful end. Still though they serve many positive work. However, I can't help talk/write about social media's impact on current violence or mass shootings out there. Most of these misguided souls are moved or coaxed or blinded by anger or hatred more than they are acting under supervision or control of organized terrorism (such as ISIS, Islamic State, or other terror groups). Most are lone wolves (like this latest one in Manhattan) who seemingly acted alone but motivated or inspired by the bigger hate (eg terrorism) or simply hatred for other people/culture. Hence some attribute their crime/s to or with the larger power when it is very likely that their anger is rooted from very personal woes or frustration/s.
According to official sources, the breakdown on the number of deaths caused by individuals of different ideologies, follow: 95 by jihadis (or Islamic militant), 68 by far-right, and eight by black separatist/national/supremacist. A jihadi or "fighter against the enemies of Islam" doesn't necessarily come from where the The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS or simply the Islamic State) is mostly based. As per latest data, some 15,000 jihadis joined ISIS in 2013 and 2014 yet the documents analyzed represent approximately (only) 30 percent of those. There are more. The average age of the recruits is 26 or 27 years of age but the ages range from 12 to almost 70 years. Some 400 were aged under 18. The foremost group of nationals was Saudi (579), then Tunisian (559), Moroccan (240), Turkish (212), Egyptian (151) and Russian (141), and quite a number from Europe.
Belgium, for example, now has more citizens fighting in Iraq and Syria per capita than any other European country (40 for every million people). In fact, the total number of fighters Belgium has sent overseas (440) is not far behind the numbers of much larger countries like the U.K. and Germany. The next two European countries with the most foreign fighters are equally surprising: Denmark (with 27 fighters for every million people) and Sweden (with 19). I mean, Denmark and Sweden!
How do we figure out if one is a jihadi (or terrorist) or not. We can't or it's hard. More so, large-scale violence in the US isn't majority radical Islamist, anyway. Since 9/11, white right-wing terrorists have killed almost twice as many Americans in homegrown attacks than radical Islamists have, according to research by the New America Foundation. Some 48 people were killed by white terrorists, while 26 were killed by radical Islamists, since Sept. 11. The Las Vegas carnage was perpetrated by a seemingly ordinary white gambler with money but with no known hardline political affiliation, for example.
The Manhattan perpetrator (or suspect), a native Russian by way of Uzbekistan, is apparently a lone wolf who brandished ISIS adherence. Although it appears that Sayfullo Saipov, 29, had online link/s with people who were subjects of terror investigations via his social media activities, he was not part of a terror cell. His green card came via a government program called the Diversity Visa Lottery, which hands out about 55,000 visas per year. He lived in Ohio before moving to Tampa, Florida. He then moved to Paterson, New Jersey, where he has lived with his wife and three children for several years. The guy also held business licenses for two Ohio-based trucking companies, and worked as an Uber driver, and passed a background check and recorded over 1,400 trips in six months. I mean, Saipov was pretty much an ordinary guy. But we didn't know who are these people he's communicating with and possibly sharing some "news links" and memes? As we don't know exactly where our favorite "political humor" video or poster came from.
So how do we know. We don't. That deadly person could be the smiley-faced neighbor with a friendly dog or the dude who delivers your mail or the woman who's behind a retail store counter. Who knows. Anger is not necessarily exploding here and there like a Wolverine rage. These days people implode more than they explode.
Yet we could help by being more peaceful than argumentative online. And please before we send out memes like Holocaust is here again or Hitler is back, think again. Hatred is cultivated from a dirt farm of anger. Anger that is not addressed or communicated to/with a pacified community. Anger versus anger doesn't work. But we can start in this universe of a one-click box where we loiter, wander or navigate. Or better be, let us try to know who the person we call "cool" or "humane" or "sweet" are. Meet them in person. And slow down with the one-click sharing. Or can we try not to argue sometimes?
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