April 3, 2018

Word:Jimmy Carter on America today

Alternet

Jimmy Carter - We now have a development in America where the massive influx of money into campaigns has elevated rich people, powerful people above the average person.

So, we are moving toward an oligarchy of a powerful element of rich people compared to a true democracy. Report Advertisement

And I think the other thing, besides the massive amount of money we have put into elections, is the gerrymandering of districts, which guarantees a continued polarization of people.

We have a situation now where people who are in power impose a lot of punishment on unfortunate people. We have seven times as many people in prison now as we did when I left the White House, for instance. We have got a much greater disparity of income among Americans than we have ever had before.

In fact, eight people in the world — six of them are from America — own as much money as half of the total population of the world, 3.5 billion people.

In America, we have the same problem, maybe even in an exaggerated way. We have marginalized the average person, for the benefit of the wealthier people in America.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Mr Carter may have been --may still be-- a good peanut farmer, but whether he knows it or not, here he's just repeating what Huey said, and said better, nearly 90 years ago.