More and worse.

Editor,

At least four long-standing, toxic issues that are deeply woven into the fabric of American society need to be unraveled and confronted with painful honesty and a serious commitment to correct them:

** the Thin Blue Line behind which police, abetted even by so-called good cops, have been hiding their crimes for decades;

** racism, as old as the USA and hiding in plain view in every American institution;

** ever greater concentration of political power in ever fewer corporations', banks', and wealthy families' hands;

** violence, exemplified by an enormous military always at war somewhere either overtly or covertly and now spilling onto the streets of the USA in the form of grotesquely militarized police.

The United States is a violent, racist nation ruled by an obscenely wealthy elite for the benefit of that wealthy elite. I do not say this to provoke or be insulting. Consider my statement an intervention by a family member who loves the USA -- I am an American who left for the reasons listed above.

Right now conflict in the USA is addressed with "force" -- who has the most firepower and is most willing to use it wins. This must change. The USA must be willing to acknowledge the truth about itself and find the courage to embrace peace, respect, honesty, and appreciation. Otherwise, recent unrest is only the beginning of much more and worse.

Re: "Taking to the Baltimore Streets, but for Peace and Progress" (4/30/2015)