I am intensely aware of the costs in human lives and suffering caused by regressive social and economic policies.
As a teen exchange student I worked with comparably aged kids in the West End of London in 1952 where the blitz had wreaked havoc and saw the difference that supportive social and economic policies had made for people who had been devastated by Hitler's terror bombings -- affordable housing was being constructed, medical care was available for all without charge, food was still rationed, but particularly made available for young children and pregnant mothers. Life was returning to normal for a nation that had been virtually bankrupted by a brutal war and their kids were (many partial or full war orphans) living lives comparable to those with whom I had worked as a counselor in summer camps in the U.S. A few years later -- 1956-57 -- I worked with a similarly situated group of kids in West Harlem and saw a nightmarishly different world -- one devastated by unredeemed poverty and prejudice. These kids were simply hungry all the time -- we baked cakes rather than played basketball. They suffered from terrible untreated medical conditions. Their housing was uninhabitable in ways that I would have to take paragraphs to describe. And despite their urgent desire to live normal lives, all but 3 of a gang of a dozen or more had died violently before they exited their 40s. The last - the funny little guy who always kept the others laughing -- had spent years in Attica prison where he had saved his own life during the revolt http://www.talkinghistory.org/attica/ by hiding under the bodies of the slain -- suicided out of a housing project window a decade or so back. I sense, then, in the neocon victory of Bush -- based on the grossest appeals to a variety of types of prejudice: against women (abortion to be outlawed), minorities (racism and the end of affirmative action), the poor (continued cutbacks in life-saving programs and fundamental human rights such as those British kids had then and Brits have now), Muslims here and abroad (smeared as 'terrorists' and killed almost for sport in places such as Iraq), gays (now re-stigmatized after a brief respite from several millennia of murders and lesser abuses) -- a disaster in the making. The nearest historical parallel that comes to mind is the comparable across the board victory of the Republicans in 1928. I trust those who draw a comparison between the effects of greed then and what we may expect to be coming in the not too far future as our economy is devastated by the grab of wealth by those who do not particularly need or want more and the global loss of confidence in the American dollar as well as the American spirit. I would venture that we are likely -- despite nice words now by our defeated about unity and pulling together -- to see the divisions between the poor of different ethnic backgrounds exacerbated in the competition for the dwindling store of jobs available to those who do not have the benefit of higher educations, let along high school diplomas -- a renewed 'Reconstruction' era! I well remember when blue collar jobs provided a good life for those who had them. No longer is that the case and the competition for what remains may become ever more bitter and confrontational. Jim Haughton of Fight Back suggests that the openings for African American men in such jobs are dwindling and we know that in NYC more than 50% of such men who want jobs cannot find them. The women of all ethnic identities who hold service jobs are all too often trapped with minimum income jobs that carry no benefits and with medical emergencies find either their salaries garnisheed or their homes taken by law suits from our hospitals that give them or a loved one emergency medical treatment. And then there are in prospects of the mass killings in Iraq and elsewhere planned for the next week or so (?) which can only bring the wrath of those who loved those maimed and killed down on our heads somewhere down the line with those 'weapons of mass destruction' that the Bush administration has left behind in the former Soviet Republics or wherever. The prophets of old always left their condemnations of Israel to the very last in the series. Had we truly religious folks running things or electing such an horrendous crew, they would be aware of the hazards of supporting murderous and hypocritical. We will presumably (also) learn the folly of our ways too late? -- "A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy) -- Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. 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