General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Is There a Revolution Coming? Americans Finally Realize Global Capitalism Is a Murderous Sham [View all]NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Yes, same sex marriage is becoming legal and African Americans are legally better off than the days of Jim Crow, but the Voting Rights Act has been gutted, and spiraling inequality especially in minority neighborhoods has led to soaring crime rates and brutal police crackdowns.
Police don't need to put down protests violently anymore because the justice system has been so corrupted and turned against the average person that the threat of draconian legal action against demonstrators scares people away from even doing so. And for those that do still protest, there's a militarized police force that employs sound cannons, heat rays, APCs, and soon robotic contraptions to crush them. Anyone at Occupy Oakland will tell you that.
Things may have improved on the surface, but the subtle, covert corporate power grab that's been enabled by every president since Reagan has made those advances virtually meaningless by keeping those groups in poverty and fear of reprisal.