The US is returning to 19th century in politics, human rights, and work.

The Gates Foundation's newest gift to American students: collecting lots of their personal data to help market nonfree software to them.

They also envisage recommending e-books, some of them surely covered by DRM and/or unjust contracts.

The InBloom software is described as "open source". I suppose this refers to some software used to access the site, and I also suppose this software is free but not copylefted so as to encourage using it in nonfree programs to foist onto schools and students.

A free, noncopylefted program is not an injustice in itself, but it is a weak point, making society prone to injustices.

Teachers don't need fancy software to "customize lessons in real time". They just need to listen to their students. But such adaptation is only possible if the class is small enough, and that would cost money. You'd have to start taxing the rich again.

What can justify tasering an 8-year-old?

Or prosecuting a 10-year-old for sexual abuse?

Or punishing a 15-year-old for life, for streaking?

The UK Labour Party pledges to be almost as harsh towards the unemployed as the Tory Party is.

Punishing all those non-workers is a convenient way to distract people from the reason so many people in the UK don't work: not enough jobs. Boost the economy, tax the offshorers, and spend the money on useful activities; soon there will be plenty of jobs. Most of the unemployed eagerly go back to work, because they'd really like to get more income than benefits provide, and only the disabled will remain unemployed.

A right-wing strategy to crush people's spirit: say government can't do anything good, paralyze government so it really can't, then convince people to give up on trying.

The US government has done great things: for example, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, the Endangered Species Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Voting Rights Act, and many more.

What's broken is not the government itself, but rather our political system, and the fault is that people give credence to what the right wing says. That's because they've found ways to buy officials and the media with plutocrats' money.