Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The U.S.A is Home to Third World Conditions
















The American economic system is a dichotomy. As others live in $75 million dollar McMansions , some of the original inhabitants of this country live in squalor that most equate with the other side of the world.
Let’s talk statistics for a moment, shall we?:
Name: Pine Ridge Indian Rez  (~1.7 million acres)
Where: South Dakota
Inhabitants: Oglala Sioux (~30,000)
Average Annual Family Income: $3,700.00
Average Unemployment Rate: 80%


$3,700 annuallyThat is well below the Federal poverty level, set at ~$15,000. And yes, this is in the United States of America, the Leader of the Free World. How can we, as a nation, justify the spending of millions of dollars on a presidential campaign when its people are living in abject poverty? How dare a president choose to spend billions on a war abroad when his citizens are fighting a losing war on poverty? How dare a president ask his constituents to “keep the faith” on the War on Terror when they are terrorized by hunger and unemployment? How dare a president ask a nation to “stay the course” when harsh winters force the elderly to choose between warmth or medication?

No comments:

We must never permit the voice of humanity
within us to be silenced. It is Man's sympathy with all creatures that first makes him a Man.

--Albert Schweitzer

Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.


--Viktor E. Frankl