So I had a dental appointment cancellation yesterday

[PatrickforB]

19. Exactly, America is a barbarous nation. All of the so-called industrialized nations are.

Why? Because they are ruled by the greed of the few at the expense of the many.

What is the old saying? Nature is red in tooth and claw.

We sit smugly in our easy chairs and say that, but where is our moral compass? Because our culture that supports billionaires and deifies them is ALSO quite red in tooth and claw.

And if a certain madman attacks Greenland, our subsequent economic suffering and deprivation will know few bounds. Just a reminder:

- The top 1%, including the billionaires and Wall Street greed-lizards OWN or CONTROL 43% of the world's wealth.
- 3.5 billion people on this planet live in poverty.
- Of these, 900 million people live in grinding, unrelenting, extreme poverty.
- And 17 people PER MINUTE die from hunger or related causes.

And we allow this. We allow ketamine fueled dirtbags like Elon Musk and ideologues like Russell Vought, Steve Bannon and Steven Miller to call the shots?

When will we stand up and break free from the old Wall Street SQUEEZE? Because that is what this is. Trump is only a symptom of a much deeper malady - the absence of a moral compass in the face of profound materialism.

And what is this moral compass? This North Star we should be following?

Nope, not some religious dogma. Just this:

If you do not want someone to put their iron boot on your neck and grind you into the dirt, then do not do it to someone else.

That's it. The old so-called Golden Rule. Just that. We need to relearn empathy and compassion.