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The flying "Kitty Hawk" is basically an all-electric drone that can carry one passenger who controls the craft. Nobody knows exactly when it will go on sale. (Photo: Media Kit/Kitty Hawk Flyer)
While billionaire Google co-founder Larry Page has a team of amazing engineers out in the Nevada cruising around in real life flying cars, back in the real world of the United States it seems that having a healthcare system that actually covers everybody, impoverishes nobody, and treats everyone as equally valuable and worthy of quality care continues to be something that too many powerful people want to remain an unattainable fantasy.
So there's a disconnect.
Compare this very cool thing:
To this reality, in which--due to the amount of traffic created by people patiently lining up for access to a no-cost healthcare clinic in rural Virginia--a flying car would come in particularly handy:
Last week, outgoing Starbuck's chairman Howard Schultz was pulling his hair out wanting to know how in the world we're "going to pay for these things" like universal healthcare--which is strange because nearly every other industrialized country in the world does it with a relative smile on their face.
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has decided it is not something she wants her party to embrace, but is something she will be happy to "evaluate" if--if!--the Democrats win back Congress in the mid-term elections.
While the costs of wars that have resulted in further destabilizing and impoverishing the Middle East and South Asia continue after more than a decade and a half have cost the U.S. Treasury trillions upon trillions of dollars--with no end in sight--President Donald Trump continues to celebrate record-setting budgets for the Pentagon. Last week it was reported that the Trump administration's plan for public housing would result in a rent hike of 20 percent for the nation's struggling families.
But still, expanding Medicare to every person in the United States is considered somehow politically impossible--even though polls show that a majority of Americans, including Republicans, would support it.
So while billionaire Jeff Bezos wants to fly into space and Larry Page builds flying cars and Elon Musk peddles "not-a-flamethrowers," the poor are staying poor and the poverty-stricken and vulnerable who find themselves sick are left... back on the ground and back in reality: in a country that says it can't afford to make them count.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
While billionaire Google co-founder Larry Page has a team of amazing engineers out in the Nevada cruising around in real life flying cars, back in the real world of the United States it seems that having a healthcare system that actually covers everybody, impoverishes nobody, and treats everyone as equally valuable and worthy of quality care continues to be something that too many powerful people want to remain an unattainable fantasy.
So there's a disconnect.
Compare this very cool thing:
To this reality, in which--due to the amount of traffic created by people patiently lining up for access to a no-cost healthcare clinic in rural Virginia--a flying car would come in particularly handy:
Last week, outgoing Starbuck's chairman Howard Schultz was pulling his hair out wanting to know how in the world we're "going to pay for these things" like universal healthcare--which is strange because nearly every other industrialized country in the world does it with a relative smile on their face.
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has decided it is not something she wants her party to embrace, but is something she will be happy to "evaluate" if--if!--the Democrats win back Congress in the mid-term elections.
While the costs of wars that have resulted in further destabilizing and impoverishing the Middle East and South Asia continue after more than a decade and a half have cost the U.S. Treasury trillions upon trillions of dollars--with no end in sight--President Donald Trump continues to celebrate record-setting budgets for the Pentagon. Last week it was reported that the Trump administration's plan for public housing would result in a rent hike of 20 percent for the nation's struggling families.
But still, expanding Medicare to every person in the United States is considered somehow politically impossible--even though polls show that a majority of Americans, including Republicans, would support it.
So while billionaire Jeff Bezos wants to fly into space and Larry Page builds flying cars and Elon Musk peddles "not-a-flamethrowers," the poor are staying poor and the poverty-stricken and vulnerable who find themselves sick are left... back on the ground and back in reality: in a country that says it can't afford to make them count.
While billionaire Google co-founder Larry Page has a team of amazing engineers out in the Nevada cruising around in real life flying cars, back in the real world of the United States it seems that having a healthcare system that actually covers everybody, impoverishes nobody, and treats everyone as equally valuable and worthy of quality care continues to be something that too many powerful people want to remain an unattainable fantasy.
So there's a disconnect.
Compare this very cool thing:
To this reality, in which--due to the amount of traffic created by people patiently lining up for access to a no-cost healthcare clinic in rural Virginia--a flying car would come in particularly handy:
Last week, outgoing Starbuck's chairman Howard Schultz was pulling his hair out wanting to know how in the world we're "going to pay for these things" like universal healthcare--which is strange because nearly every other industrialized country in the world does it with a relative smile on their face.
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has decided it is not something she wants her party to embrace, but is something she will be happy to "evaluate" if--if!--the Democrats win back Congress in the mid-term elections.
While the costs of wars that have resulted in further destabilizing and impoverishing the Middle East and South Asia continue after more than a decade and a half have cost the U.S. Treasury trillions upon trillions of dollars--with no end in sight--President Donald Trump continues to celebrate record-setting budgets for the Pentagon. Last week it was reported that the Trump administration's plan for public housing would result in a rent hike of 20 percent for the nation's struggling families.
But still, expanding Medicare to every person in the United States is considered somehow politically impossible--even though polls show that a majority of Americans, including Republicans, would support it.
So while billionaire Jeff Bezos wants to fly into space and Larry Page builds flying cars and Elon Musk peddles "not-a-flamethrowers," the poor are staying poor and the poverty-stricken and vulnerable who find themselves sick are left... back on the ground and back in reality: in a country that says it can't afford to make them count.