Raoul,
There are some things about America which are very puzzling at first, second and even third glance. If one ponders enough, though, they make sense, or are at least understandable. For one who loves his country it is difficult to understand the anomalies, and I've spent a lot of time wondering about these.

The most important factor to understand if one is going to know America is that it's capitalist to the extent that money can buy the government. Therefore, very profitable industries can and have manipulated the laws to their advantage, not to the advantage of the country or the people.

(A profit-driven media assists this process, but that's another story.)

Drug companies, for instance, make more money by selling fewer medications at higher price than more at a lesser. Therefore, they leave out the people who are less able to afford them, deliberately and wilfully, in order to maximize profits.

The companies will talk about the cost of developing drugs, and the media will support that myth. The reality is that 85% of the drugs are developed at tax supported universities and then licensed by the drug companies.

That's just an expample. You have to realize the money buys the government, and the media can "sell" any myth.

(In the former USSR, really a third-world economy, a job, health care and a place to live, such as they had, were regarded as civil rights. Not here. And, their political "rights" weren't good, don't misunderstand me. It wasn't paradise, but while the US was hammering them on the idea of civil rights, in some ways they were ahead of us.)

The profit motive and what money buys explains the best and the worst of the US, which is a great, wonderful place overall.

Arf