Beyond Outrage By Robert B. Reich

Carney, Timothy P. (2009). Obamanomics : How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses .Washington, DC, USA: Regnery Publishing, 2009. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ashford/Doc?id=10364572&ppg=13

In William F. Buckley Jr.’s “Why Don’t We Complain?” he discusses the apathy that saturates modern society and the weakening effect it has on the collective determination to fairness. Drawing from personal experience, Buckley observes how Americans would rather tolerate the negligent inconveniences of the service industry, than express even the most tactful grievance. He claims this is largely due to the growing apathy toward political and social issues. With the presence of a steadily overbearing government, people feel restrained and according to Buckley, this has fostered a culture of indifference. Via detailed anecdotes, Buckley discloses his own feelings of regret, when having to silently endure inconveniences that may have been remedied had he simply spoken up. Buckley condemns how Americans in general have been lulled to a state of passive compliance. He explains Americans for too long have had to suffer being ignored for the silly reason of avoiding confrontation with authority. Buckley’s observations in 1961 are accurate and parallel the modern era in that people often wait on others to complain for them, lack the nerve for confrontation and place little confidence in their right to disapprove.

Being two of the most respected and qualified academicians on public policy, Charles Murray, and Robert B. Reich have never been short of making controversial and contradicting statements which arguably serves only their interest of getting an audience. Public policy as it is has been subjected to lots of changes throughout the history leading to different reactions and opinions from different individuals. “What it means to be a Libertarian-A Personal Interpretation” written by Charles Murray, explicitly describes how the society should view the government by claiming it can help in achieving overall happiness and allowing members of the society to have a right to individual freedom when coping with the changes brought by public policy. On the other hand, Robert B. Reich’s “Aftershock the next Economy and America’s Future” talks about overcoming our problems by keeping a tier of classes. This paper discusses the contradicting views of these two writers.

If a person had the option to change the world for the better, would they? If they would, then why is it when a person gets minor inconvenienced by a small problem like not having enough chips for the bean dip, they just accept the problem and they do not do anything about it. William F. Buckley Jr. Wrote an essay called, "Why Don't We Complain". Buckley is giving the readers his experience on both the lack of care within the political system and also the apathy people give when it comes to life's minor roadblocks. Society needs to learn that fixing minor problems when given the chance is better than letting a problem grow so much that it starts affecting other people. The audience that this essay is directed to will learn the message of why people should complain, and the purpose the author has to complain.

If anyone in the United States were asked, "What is the best part about living in this country?," most people would answer "equality". The United States is built on and known for the equality among its citizens and is often referred to as the 'melting pot'. After reading Jonathan Kozol's, The Shame of the Nation, equality is nonexistent within the schools he has gone to, and has been employed through. With his travels, expert testimony and personal stories gathered from the people within the community and schools, he shows the exact opposite of equality. Minority schools being his main focus, he discusses the inequalities these students endure and truly opens up your eyes to just how awful these minority schools have it. Jonathan Kozol is successful in his writing of The Shame of the Nation, and makes himself a voice for these minority schools that are denied of their voices.

In “inequality for all”, a documentary presented and narrated by Robert Reich, Reich discusses what is happening in terms of the distribution of income and wealth in the US, why it is happening, and is it a problem. “Inequality for all” is directed by Jacob Kornbluth, it premiered in 2013, and it runs for 90 minutes. Reich studied at the University of Oxford in during the late 1960’s, where he befriended future president Bill Clinton. Subsequently, they kept in touch, and in 1993, when Clinton was elected president, he reached out to Reich, to be secretary of labor. Reich was in office for the following four years, and today he is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. For about three decades now, Reich announced that out of all developed countries, the US has the most unequal distribution of wealth, and that inequality is getting even greater in the US. In the documentary, the most compelling topics covered by Reich, are the changes that started happening in the late 1970’s, the fact that 42 percent of Americans born into poverty stay poor, and that nowadays, money controls politics.

In Robert Reich documentary “Inequality for All” he makes a compelling discussion about the serious crises that the United States faces due the widening economic gap. He looks to raise awareness of the U.S. economic gap between the rich and poor. According to Reich the widening divide in America is real and growing. Income levels at the middle and labor class is stagnant and are at it’s lowest levels compared to upper class incomes since the beginning of WWII and is growing wider each year. Reich suggests that the economy runs more smoothly when the middle class has jobs with fair wages, when unions are strong, and when middle class workers have some extra money to spend if possible when the government uses the tax policy properly and when it raises the minimum wage regularly to control the income gap between labor and management. In other words Reich argues that economically healthy middle and labor class equality is the foundation of a thriving economy and is necessary to maintaining a sound national infrastructure and educational system within

Robert Reich is an American pundit, author, economist, and professor who served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997 (wikipedia). The film “Inequality for All” offers a depiction of Reich’s economic beliefs and what he believes contributes to the widening economic inequality gap. Furthermore, Reich explores what effects this increasing gap has not only on the US economy, but also on American democracy itself. The film was introduced to explain and make relevant the issue of income inequality and how it is dividing our country. In the US this gap between the rich and everyone else has been growing for the last 30 years.

The social, political, and economic development of the United States has not been one-dimensional. In fact, the development of the United States holistically has been one of a multi-faceted nature. Whether we look to the social cleavages present in the late 19th century over the issue of slavery, to the fight for full and universal suffrage for all citizens lasting well into the late 20th century, our young republic founded nearly two-hundred and forty-one years ago has had its share of both disappointment and successes. Largely speaking, some of the most devastating moments in American history have coincided with the attenuation of the American economy. Long before the Great Depression of the 1930s, there existed a financial crisis that threated

In “The Uses of Outrage”, New York Times columnist and outspoken Trump critic Paul Krugman fuels his outrage with the current political situation into an impassioned call for action against the Trump Presidency by other outraged liberals. Krugman argues for the necessity of outrage in these fraught times using an outraged tone to unite his audience in the preservation of American democracy and values.

We live in a society where Americans are struggling to survive in their economy. Everything is completely getting worse that “we” as U.S citizens perhaps are noticing the changes that are occurring around us. The one statistic that caught my attention was the year 1978. The top 1% is making $390,000 than a male worker that made $48,000. Throughout the years nothing has changed, but for a reason the top 1% has made over a million. It’s also alarming how the middle class is shrinking. Without middle class the economy doesn’t function at all. Many Americans are going unemployment, their pay checks are decreasing, and their going into poverty. Speaking of poverty, it’s horrendous how Reich mentioned that the majority of kids that are born into

In “The Devil and Tom Walker”, Irving reveals many aspects of the humanity especially how economic depression plays in the society. Some may disregard what really happens throughout the world because they ponder that the situation is “inapplicable” to their lives. Others are able to determine the problems of it but the Media/News Organizations seem to be more anxious about the people’s entertainments rather than talk about the economy. As declared by John Bellamy Foster, a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and also editor of Monthly Review, the world economy is “experiencing by far its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.” In some instances,

The unprecedented government intervention during the massive economic crisis of the late 2000’s was met with varied sentiment of economists (Lee, 2009). For example, economist Marci Rossell felt that government intervention was arbitrary and lacked clarity as to which firms would receive government aid (Lee, 2009). She furthered her argument by stating that if the government bailed out homeowners and banks that were borrowing and lending “over their heads,” they were creating a dangerous precedent to set (Lee, 2009, p.40). However, Rossell praised the Obama administration for having a clear grasp on the economic situation and trusted in this administration’s guidance to recover from the economic crisis. Conversely, economist Steven Schwarcz said that though the government bailout in 2008 would cost more than it would have if the government had reacted more swiftly to early signs of recession, these institutions would collapse and fail without government aid (“How Three Economists,” 2008). If these institutions failed, the ripple effect of this failure to the U.S. economy would be irreparable.

Indignation, by Philip Roth, is narrated by Marcus Messner, a young man from Newark, New Jersey, set in the early 1950’s. Marcus is dead, reflecting on the critical events of his life leading up to his downfall. He believes these events were causally related; if one event in his life ended differently, his death could have been avoided. Marcus laments his misfortune as an unlucky soul. His mother calls him defiant, as if it is a natural characteristic that all Messners, and followers of Bertrand Russell inherently possess. While Marcus sees himself as a victim, deprived of his true potential, the reality is in stark contrast. He is not a victim of a series of “mishaps”; Marcus died because of his failure to understand people and his

“The hero discovers that he has an undescended testicle. The image sticks in the mind. We can see that it is not an unmixed blessing”(Broyard) Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth has many ridiculous situations that the protagonist Alex Portnoy goes through during his rapid telling of his life to his psyche analysis Dr. Spielvogel that we can’t forget right away. As we go take trip through Alex;s Portnoy 's fictional tale describes how a oppressive community environment can leave ever lasting damage to one’s personal psyche.