Dear Generation,
In light of Bill Bennett’s Swift-esque comment about aborting black babies, it is important to realize that black mothers are not the only ones that are forced to make the decision between having an abortion or bringing a child into a world of humiliating poverty and desperation. Our policies that perpetuate poverty by treating the primary symptom (lack of money) fail to get single mothers off welfare. These programs ignore the underlying causes of predatory lending, unequal housing, urban sprawl, and poor education. Bill Bennett’s comments only serve to highlight the fact that addressing the issue of abortion is frivolous without addressing the underlying poverty.
It is true that 18 years after Roe v. Wade legalized abortions nationwide, there was a marked reduction in the juvenile crime rate. However, this can not be construed as only affecting black youths. Poverty is not racist, just racially biased based on income.
The point is, prohibiting abortions just forces them underground where the mother is also at risk. If women truly feel they have no choice they will figure out how to abort their child.
The Christian Right is adamant in their stance opposing abortion, but they do not address the reasons why a mother would choose to have an abortion. By merely prohibiting abortions to protect the life of the child, nothing is done to keep that child out of poverty, off drugs, and in school. If we provided social programs that created jobs and child care, while providing health care and a living wage, much fewer mothers would feel so desperate as to kill their unborn child. These programs could easily be funded by the millions spent on anti-abortion lobbying.
Eric Levinson
UB class of 2005
The Grand Illusion of Choice
I broke open this week's Katrina-dedicated issue of National Geographic. The issue as a whole was decidedly empty, mostly about weather and city planning. Lesson learned: don't build houses on a vulnerable flood plane. You'd think that humans would have figured this one out by now. What exactly are they teaching us in college anyway?
I flipped through the magazine, through images of storm-ravaged lives, until I stumbled across an entirely different picture. Three upper-middle class Americans were captured on film drinking wine over candlelight, their well-furnished home was dark but quiet- very much a picture of upper-class Caucasian contentment. They weren't crowded into the Astrodome. Their home wasn't being blown to bits, or even significantly damaged from what little I could see. I ask you this: How did they end up in that flood-safe environment? How could the wage-earner of their household have brought home 50 grand a year (probably more) without benefiting from the near-minimum-wage labor of those who, consequently, couldn't afford a safer home? It was the most horrifying, tragic picture I have seen since the disaster.
...and there I was sitting at Barnes and Nobel, drinking my $3.00 café latte... It made me think. Katrina was a natural disaster. The fact that millions of people in THIS COUNTRY (not some famine-plagued dessert on the other side of the planet) work 8 hours a day (or more, plus commute time, plus gas money) and can't afford the basic pleasures of life (such as insurance) is the REAL tragedy. And again, this isn't just the poorest of the poor- many of you reading this article are probably in the same sinking boat.
I saw an article in Newsweek which, admirably, brought forward the issue of poverty and the now-obvious division between the economic classes. One expert commented that these impoverished people tend not to have bank accounts; they tend to put their money into household treasures (such as televisions) and keep the rest in cash. He stressed the importance of getting these people to open bank accounts. Come to think of it, I am fortunate enough to have a bank account. If I don't keep a minimum of $1,500 in my accounts at all times, they charge me $10 a month. Other banks are better about this; I once frequented a bank with a $200 minimum. That same bank charged me a $30 service fee if I didn't use my debit card at least once a month. You see my point. This is just one example of experts trying to put a Band-Aid on a gushing chest wound.
What I want to point out, especially in relation to Katrina, is how ridiculous this two-party distinction has become. I meant to direct this article at Rick Johnson’s contribution in last week's Student Voice. A summary for those who didn't read it: "The liberal media is oppressing me. They have no answers to our questions, so they ignore us." I'm sure Generation has gotten responses from such freedom-hating liberals, something along the lines of "Maybe we'd listen to his arguments if they weren't so stupid! The liberal media is a myth! And don't forget that Bush sucks!"
The exact wording of this argument hardly matters: haven't we all heard it before (and participated in it)? Conservatives support the rights of the state; they protect our basic freedoms and protect us from all the taxes which would otherwise be spent on inefficient federal government programs. But is this really what conservatives do? All I see are billions of dollars being funneled into the military and the Department of Homeland Security which, and I apologize to all the servicemen and women who work so hard to protect us, are two of the most inefficient government programs I've ever seen. And they do seem to want to protect our freedom... as long as it isn't the freedom to have abortions, or be gay. Stop laughing, liberals! We're no better! Liberals support the underprivileged, stand up for minority rights, and support our individual rights... as long as it isn't the right to bear arms, pray in school, or be gay (no one is willing to support gay marriage, it seems). What has anyone done for minorities lately? What has anyone done for the poor? This stereotyped debate (if you can call scripted recitation of empty insults a debate) instantly draws our attention away from the real problem. Acknowledging that people are poor, making a beautiful statement about how horrible and tragic it is, and then blaming anyone and everyone but your party for the problem at hand, does not equal political action. The party system has become nothing more than an illusion of choice between two equally false and ineffective groups of rich folk.
I know we all see how horrible poverty is; I know that no human in their right mind wants to see other humans living in those conditions, and I sure as hell know that none of us want to end up living that way! Throwing money at the Red Cross might alleviate immediate suffering (and alleviate your own guilt for buying that café latte), but it won’t change the economic system which necessitates poverty in the first place. Want to do something to help? Let go of the knee-jerk political reactions, consider some different views, and never forget to hold yourself accountable. Society is what we make of it.
-KP
Dear Generation,
I hear a helicopter coming in -- I smell the burning of human flesh. It's Thomas, America, the young Black kid from Atlanta, my patient, burned by an exploding gas tank... And Pham. He was only eight, America, and you sprayed him with napalm and his skin fell off in my hands and he screamed as I tried to comfort him... America, we have sent another generation of children to see life through an M-16 and death through the darkness of a body bag.
-Peggy Akers
Peggy Akers, author of the poem above, was one of many from our parents' generation that saw the truth about war firsthand, face to face. Another American, Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey spoke of his experience with the "US industrial-military complex," a phrase he used with restraint. The pain in his voice was evident with every word; a combat hardened man mentally exhausted with experience. He spoke of his three years as a Marine recruiter, lying and cheating to get his "three bodies per month." His training was in gathering intelligence about drop-outs and other "at-risk" students, like those applying for "No Child Left Behind." He spoke profoundly of the betrayal and disillusionment of his experience serving a tour of duty during the mission to liberate Iraq.
After three years at his recruitment post, the Marines sent Massey to Iraq where he was faced with the decision to either "buy in or get out." He was faced with the reality of a war with no real enemy, but an abundance of real dangers. Intelligence reports were elegantly designed to arouse fear in the troops. Orders blurred the line between enemy combatant and innocent by-stander. He watched as field medics were ordered to dump barely living Iraqi civilians his platoon had mistakenly fired on only minutes earlier. Massey explained how he could not even help a father find insulin for his diabetic child. This was not what he envisioned war to be and he protested the inhumanity of his orders regularly. He was labeled a "conscientious objector" and sent "state-side," and finally given an honorable discharge for not "buying in" to the war machine group-think.
I believe every American, including myself, supports our troops. I don't think that anyone who valued human life would have sent our troops to Iraq under engineered pretenses, knowing the death and destruction that would immediately ensue and persist indefinitely thereafter. Disagreeing with a war does not make you unpatriotic, or a Communist. We have been sold, America, on our own patriotic impulses; our love for our country was exploited to blind us to the truth driving us into war. The numbers speak for themselves: 1,945 American soldiers dead, tens of billions of dollars in profits for companies with Iraqi contracts like Halliburton.
I don't blame Massey, or any of the other fine Americans that put their lives on the line for the rest of us back home. I don't blame Osama or the Islamic fundamentalists that we were told focus their hate against our country and our way of life.
I do blame our leadership for failing humankind. Not just Americans and Iraqis, or the city of New Orleans, or the British and Spanish commuters blown up on the way to work; pre-emptive war and shunning the environment cannot help humans progress. It does not matter how we got to this point, what does matter is how we use this heightened awareness of our own weaknesses to promote the greatest good for the entire planet. If nothing else, these past few weeks have shown us that we are just as vulnerable as anyone else in the world; no matter how comfortable our lives have become, nature still dictates our lives. It is not our right to continue polluting to maintain our extravagant and decadent lifestyles of excess and waste. It is not our right to impose our will upon others, here or abroad. The world is watching, so what will we choose to show them from now on?
We have to admit we don't know what is best for the people living in the territory that Saddam Hussein was only able to hold together with a tyrant's fist. To Iraqis, the war has merely replaced one tyrannical military presence with our own. We have to admit that we need the entire world to help us stop the violence. We have to admit that our lifestyles are killing the planet, and that we do need to make serious changes in terms of energy and sustainability, and how we treat our fellow human beings around the globe. For two hundred years, our leaders have spouted rhetoric claiming it is our "manifest destiny" to pursue global domination whenever and wherever US interests dictate. We conquered Hawaii for Dole and del Monte plantations, Mexican territory was taken to expand slavery, Panama for a canal.
After each American invasion, we left behind a militarized dictatorship to control the populace and protect US business interests with a brutal regime. When leaders fail to comply with our demands, we impose economic sanctions that devastate the civilian populations while the leaders maintain power. For decades, the US has imposed its will in the Middle East and bin Laden praised the attacks of 9/11 as retaliation for our own state-sponsored terrorist campaigns through Muslim holy lands. This war did not start on September 11, 2001.
Now, instead of promoting prosperity beyond our borders, we are depleting it here at home. As the economy is slowly churning up the debris of both the war and Katrina, the spoils system kicks in and billions of tax dollars are handed out as poverty surges over the break walls with the might of affluent apathy. Now we are seeing the first threats to Posse Commitatus of 1878, as National Guard troops are used to impose martial law on the citizens of New Orleans. We must act now to reverse the trends of perpetual war that started with the removal of Native Americans from "US soil." We must act now to limit corporate manipulation of our government, and return it to the people, "for the people, by the people." The federal policies that dictate our economy do the most good for the most people, but serve only to concentrate wealth and disenfranchise the multitudes. If our current elected officials do not have the guts to stand up and protect us, then we must take matters into our own hands, and march on Washington as Cindy Sheehan did!
Eric Levinson
Class of 2005
