Living Together: Mending A Fractured America - Softcover

Kennedy, Sheila Suess

9781086983319: Living Together: Mending A Fractured America

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1086983319 ISBN 13: 9781086983319

Publisher: Independently published, 2019

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In the United States, the 2016 election and its aftermath exposed the persistence of significant fault-lines in American society and forced recognition of the extent to which a longtime, steady erosion of the country’s democratic norms has hollowed out and corrupted this country’s governing institutions. The book explores the ways in which that erosion is implicated in a number of other elements of the current political environment: a splintered and constantly changing media landscape, and the spin, “fake news” and outright propaganda that characterize it; increased public recognition of—and cynicism about– the disproportionate power wielded by corporate America through lobbying, political contributions and influence-peddling; the widening gap between the rich and the rest, and recognition of the outsized influence of money in America’s political system. Citizens in 21st Century America are facing a globalized, technocratic, increasingly complex world that poses unprecedented challenges to the goal of e pluribus unum (not to mention human understanding and survival). The existential question we face is: Can different government policies create a genuine “us” out of so many different/diverse “I’s” and “we’s”? Can policymakers use law and legislative processes to create a supportive, nourishing culture that remains true to the Enlightenment’s essential insights, while modifying or discarding those that are no longer so essential? If so, how? How does this nation overcome the escalating assaults on science, reality and the rule of law? How do we craft a functioning, trustworthy, inclusive democratic system? This book proposes proposes dramatic changes to America's political structures and social welfare policies-- a new social contract that addresses the realities of the 21st Century.

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