In order to defeat the enemy you must understand the enemy’s purpose. Why do Americans reject their own human rights to health, shelter, food, cleanliness?

It’s fear. In the Americans’ case, it’s a fear of not being able to survive if (and presumably, when) aid is discontinued.

Americans look down upon aid, look down upon charity, look down upon guaranteed support. Why? I believe it is because on a core level, Americans believe that reliance upon others or reliance on a community will betray them and they will die because of that dependence.

and since this shyness is part of the same system that it opposes, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Americans don’t support aid because aid is not reliable and since they haven’t supported it, it *is* largely spotty and inconsistent. It’s a cycle.

the sense of control over one’s own survival is vital to Americans, culturally. And it is a good feeling, psychologically! If you feel threatened but you believe that you can defeat the threat, you feel safe and calm.

The problem is that this doesn’t extend to all circumstances

(Black Americans, this applies to us as well. That whole “if that had been ME, it wouldn’t go down that way” mentality is derivative of the same core anxiety)