alexkack

To give you a greater level of perspective on this, someone earning Arizona’s minimum wage makes an average of $24,960 annually, almost $1000 more per year then the people we entrust with our safety and the leadership of our city. This issue isn’t unique to Tucson or to Arizona, across the country leaders at the state, county and city levels are paid low annual wages. Efforts like Tucson’s failed ballot initiative continue to spring up around the nation in an attempt to address this foundational issue and often they continue to fail. In many areas only the voters can choose to give their officials a raise and even in those that allow elected officials to make those decisions themselves, few politicians would risk being seen as the person who voted to give themselves a raise.

There are a litany of systemic reasons that people and American’s in particular are so susceptible to misinformation. The fact that we’re hanging out less and with fewer people isn’t the entire reason that we’re awash in viral particles and bat shit ideas, but living a fuller life is one of the easiest levels of civic engagement we can all do. And living a fuller life means having more people in it, caring for more people, inviting them into your world and being a part of theirs.

Experts have long warned political and military leaders that this was around the corner, that the greatest threat to global stability was not a network of terror cells or a rogue nation state but disease. Almost more galling than this is the way that world governments have watched as one nation fails to act quickly enough and then repeats these same mistakes. As images poured in from other nations of overcrowded hospitals, stacks of coffins and crying doctors, in America young people continued to pack crowded beaches, social media stars licked toilets and middle-aged folks ranted about how this couldn't possibly be worse than the seasonal flu. To some other extent, it was based on a perverted notion of American exceptionalism that nothing as small and mundane as a virus could possibly bring this level of catastrophe to this nation.

Beginning in the late 2000’s as a largely anti-tax, anti-war libertarian movement tied to Ron Paul’s candidacy for President, morphed into massive protest movement that far too often utilized racism in the wake of the election of America’s first black president. even asmany bemoaned the protests lack of focus on electoral politics and penchant for featuring many bemoaned the protests lack of focus on electoral politics and penchant for featuring white dudes playing hand drums. Addressing a myriad of different issues reflecting political views across the spectrum, the group helped to uncover some of the crass underbelly of American political and corporate life while turning the Guy Fawkes mask into an instantly recognizable symbol of protest and political resistance. The movement was met with counter hashtags and statements such as ‘Blue Lives Matter’ and ‘All Lives Matter’ that sought ot minimize the racial component related to police brutality and the murder of black men by police in American.