{"id":108473,"date":"2020-11-09T16:36:09","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T23:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=108473"},"modified":"2020-11-09T16:36:09","modified_gmt":"2020-11-09T23:36:09","slug":"the-pohottuwa-government-of-sri-lanka-part-2-c2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/11\/09\/the-pohottuwa-government-of-sri-lanka-part-2-c2\/","title":{"rendered":"THE POHOTTUWA GOVERNMENT OF SRI LANKA Part 2 C2"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

There is violence in the USA. This is well known. There are about\n50,000 gun deaths per year. There were at least   18 school shootings by February 2018. School\nchildren are now equipped with bullet proof backpacks, bullet proof hoodies.\nClassrooms have bullet proof windows and curved walls, said TIME in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a shootout at Pulse night club, Orlando, in 2016   and people died. Families of those who died\nsued the owner of the night club, as well as Google, Face book, Twitter in\nseparate lawsuits. They sued the parents of one killer saying the parents knew\nthe son was dangerous but did not keep weapons away from him.  The Orlando police officer handling the\nmatter was first praised and then sued. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But no one\nsued the makers of the guns. Gun manufacturers are protected by the Protection\nof lawful Arms Act. Owning a gun is a constitutional right. The National Rifle\nAssociation has a powerful lobby in Washington. The NRA helps in campaign\nspending for the Presidential election. It has its own media, its own news company,\nand says a person gains confidence through shooting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are\nlegal misadventures. This is not confined to USA, but according to the\npublicity given, it seems to be most evident in USA. Three Baltimore men spent\n36 years in prison accused of murder of a teenage boy in 1983. They were\nexonerated in 2019. These three men were convicted, as children. The police and\nthe prosecution were guilty of misconduct, said the state attorney. The three\nwere formally exonerated by court and released from prison. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Boy\nScouts movement was very popular in USA. In 1972 the movement was at its peak,\nfamilies were eager to enroll their sons, but all was not well. Thousands of\nmen say they were sexually abused as boy scouts. It has been called a century\nlong cover up.  Sex abuse cases against\nthe Boy Scouts movement in USA were made in 2019.    <\/strong>12,254 had complained.  Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy in\nFebruary 2020.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

USA does not\nhave a free state health service like in Sri Lanka and the NHS in Britain. In\nUSA medicine is a profit making private enterprise. Medical treatment is\npurchased through health insurance provided by insurance companies. They are\nalso profit making concerns. Those who can afford it, buy health\ninsurance.  Also companies provide health\ninsurance to its employees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

USA said it\nwas not ready anywhere in the country for the current Corona virus onslaught.\nUS only has a fraction of the medical facilities   equipment, supplies and staff needed for\nthis kind of surge. It has insufficient ventilators, or personal protective\nequipment like gowns, masks gloves, eye protection, said TIME . USA also has the highest maternal\nmortality rate in the developed world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barrack Obama\nwhen President tried to improve the health services. He introduced the\nAffordable Care Act. This was done amidst much opposition. Persons profiting\nfrom the private insurance scheme  \nopposed it. Obamacare had \npositives and negatives. Premiums shot up, many insurers left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The middle income group  fell between two stools. They did not qualify\nfor  Obamacare and  could not afford to buy health\ninsurance.   But  20 million people gained health coverage and\nhealth standards rose. The poor were\ngiven subsidies to help them afford expensive insurance plans. The uninsured\nrate dropped among blacks and Hispanics, said TIME.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US industries\nare protected, regardless of the human cost. Courts allow Corporations to\nchallenge regulations related to consumer protection, such as product labeling.\nA law to protect workers from a deadly chemical would be challenged and delayed\nfor more than a decade, with lawyers contesting the meaning of every word.  A major alcohol study by the National\nInstitute of Health  was closed down,\nafter an investigation  found that\nofficials  solicited money from the\nalcohol industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A  WHO resolution of 2018, to encourage\nbreast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily in the WHO but\nUSA opposed it. The $70 billion baby food industry is dominated by American and\nEuropean companies. American officials\nsought to water down the resolution .When that failed, they turned to threats. Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the\nmeasure, was told bluntly, that If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution,\nWashington would  employ punishing trade\nmeasures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government gave in.\nSo did a dozen other countries, most of them poor nations in Africa and Latin\nAmerica, citing fears of retaliation. Russia introduced the resolution.\nUSA  did not threaten Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 US Companies have mandatory arbitration\nagreements. Employee contracts have clauses that prevent them from suing their\nemployers in court for any reason including sexual harassment. Some 60 million\nAmerican have signed these, said TIME in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Here is a   miscellany on work in the USA . Women get\npaid less than men for the same work.Labor\nlaws were routinely violated by employers, said TIME in 2018. Unions continued\nto dwindle. Supreme Court ruled that employers had the right to deny insurance\ncover for birth control. USA is the only industrialized nation without\nguaranteed paid parental leave, declared TIME. USAis also  probably the only\ncountry, where  customers are asked by the\nmanagement,  to  tip the employees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

US is the world\u2019s largest producer of oil, but  the US economy, on the whole, is not doing\nwell. General Motors closed down  5\nplants in USA and Canada In 2018. US\nPostal service is teetering on the brink of insolvency.  Public services are  declining. Public schools are  short of money. Classes in school are getting\nlarger and the teachers pay is now inadequate to live said TIME in 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

UN Special\nRapporteur on Poverty and Human Rights, Philip Alston reported in 2018 that\n18.5 million Americans live in extreme poverty with another 5.3 million living\nin absolute poverty. The\ntop 1% in USA is living well and those at the bottom are struggling, said TIME\nin 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The  economically vulnerable  population in USA  is finding it \ndifficult today, continued TIME. There are food\nstamps  and  some sort of monthly welfare payment but\nnot  much, said critics. There is no rent\ncontrol. Pensions are  inadequate. Begging is a punishable\noffence.   Going through garbage bins is also\nan offence.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The younger \ngeneration,  the Millennials , are not\nable to live as well as their parents did, said TIME in\n2010. They are more likely to have debts,  less likely to own a car or house, compared\nwith the generation  before them.  Millennials have greater \nstudent debt than their parents. Only a third of the  Millennials thought US was the greatest country in the\nworld, concluded TIME. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than\n560,000 Americans were homeless in  US\nin  2019.. They  could be found in New York City, Washington\nand Los Angeles too said TIME. There are so many\nhomeless people in Los Angeles that relief organizations have started to build\nsmall wooden huts to provide them with a roof over their heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The homeless\nare thrown out if they cannot pay the rent or their mortgage. The landlord can evict if the rent is late by five days. The\neviction is done by the police. YouTube showed them entering the home with guns\nraised. Homeless people  then\nended up living in their cars or in the streets. The\nnumber of homeless children has  risen\ndramatically, reaching 1.5 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These people do not seem to \nhave any safety net at all. No social assistance  or social security. They  use up their savings, said a DW  documentary about the  poor in the United States  . Deutsche Welle posted  this documentary on Youtube  in November 2019. The comments section was\nclosed because there were too many offensive comments. <\/em>( continued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS There is violence in the USA. This is well known. There are about 50,000 gun deaths per year. There were at least   18 school shootings by February 2018. School children are now equipped with bullet proof backpacks, bullet proof hoodies. Classrooms have bullet proof windows and curved walls, said TIME in 2019. There […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}