10 Comments
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Wesley Verhoeve's avatar

Another amazing issue, and this all is so worrisome. "The severe underfunding of social services is toxic. Not even for the underfunding itself necessarily, but for its political consequences." this is exactly it.

Jondoe's avatar

Nice! As an immigrant first in US and now in Netherlands, I love the Netherlands and things that make it peaceful living here. I hope the Dutch do not fall for the same rhetoric like Trump in US.

Kate Imbach's avatar

Me too ๐Ÿคž๐Ÿป๐Ÿคž๐Ÿป๐Ÿคž๐Ÿป

PaxScribbler's avatar

Terrific article. Thanks.

Joe S's avatar

As an American, I understand exactly where you are coming from describing us. I grew up in a connected community as a child. As a young adult I lived in other connected communities. Now I live in a rather hateful trumpian community that is as disconnected as we all seem. Thank you for this article, I certainly appreciated it.

Kate Imbach's avatar

Thanks for saying so! Every time I go back to the states I'm shocked at the societal tension in the air... simmering under extreme American friendliness.

Joe S's avatar

In particular in the South.

annoesjka's avatar

Shared it on Mastodon! Excellent observations indeed.

Margaret Morgan's avatar

Excellent observations, Kate.

Renske's avatar

This is so depressing. I acutally used to answer the 999 ambulance lines in the UK, left just before I came here. Back then everything was so good here, now it feels closer to what the UK was like when I left it, which has gone so sharply down hill since then it's dizzying. I feel like, if you've lived in a safe and caring country all your life, you feel like there's an imaginary level of decency below which we will not fall and that stops us from really worrying about it, but when I talk to my old ambulance friends back in the uk, I clearly see that we had no idea how far we had to fall and still have, how little a government can care about it's citizens and how difficult it is to convince people it's happening.