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Devoured by America

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In my city, one of the richest cities in the wealthiest country in human history, 39,000 homeless people sleep in shelters every single night. They represent only a sliver of the number of people who live here without work, without homes, without an education, without healthcare of any kind.

 

As the American military budget approaches $500 BILLION dollars a year, the USA can boast of declining literacy, declining health, declining social services, one of the worst infant mortality rates in the entire Western Hemisphere, more imprisoned citizens than any other country on earth, and a national debt that numbers in the trillions of dollars.

 

Those who actually have work see their wages taxed to prop up some of the most violently repressive military regimes on earth - Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Israel. Our past best friends included Saddam's Iraq, the Shah's Iran, Apartheid South Africa, the Philippines under Marcos, Somoza in Nicaragua, etc etc etc. Virtually every gencodaire and dictator of the last 50 years has been in our payroll. For example, until 1998, every single high level Taliban official was in the payroll of the US. Across the earth our national wealth is being doled out around the world to armed fanatics of every stripe, even as we steal the natural wealth of the earth to feed our own greedy apetites for Chia Pets and Eyeliner. The amount of money Americans spend of pornography and dog food each year could feed every starving person on the planet - not that we care. Meanwhile, our economic, cultural and military force is turned towards stamping out democracy wherever it emerges, crushing human rights wherever they are demanded.

 

While 50,000 people a day die of hunger, lack of clean water, and the largest epidemic in history, the wealthiest country in the world offers the poorest countries in the world little more than prisons, bibles, military bases, threats, weapons, and "structural assistance" that benefits only the wealthiest .001%. In the end, the price of our assistance is always the same: political obedience, economic enslavement, and debt repayment schedules which consume the gross national product of entire continents....

 

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The guy in this photo is a local character who has lived in my neighborhood for decades. People call him "Screaming Jesus", a vaguely affectionate kind of mockery which conveniently disregards his entire life. I was delighted to see him carrying the flag on the 4th of July. He had some words for me about the state of this country.

 

Our lack of interest is a mirror he is holding up to those who run this country like a private slush fund. He is an early warning system which we ignore at our own terrible peril.

 

 

 

 

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Uploaded on August 7, 2005
Taken on July 4, 2005