Thursday, January 26, 2012

War leaves Poverty in its Wake

Afghans are met by both poverty and the freezing cold of winter after over a decade since the start of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

In the center of a city into which wealth has poured in the last decade, these people have been left behind. And while America's spending over $100 billion a year on this war, these Afghans say life has never been so bad.

2 comments:

Carrie Ries said...

With Afghans saying life has never been so bad and America spending billions of dollars we could desperately use here...what is the reason we are still fighting this war? Is this even a war?
www.creative-ideas4you.blogspot.com

W.S. McConnell said...

I teach English in a public high school. Most of my students are low-income, and by low, I mean that 85% of my campus qualifies for a free lunch subsidy from the federal government. In 2011-2012, San Bernardino County officials designated 437 students of my school’s population of 2842 as homeless, meaning they slept in cars, boxes, park benches, or a friend’s house. Despite being poor or homeless, these kids come to school everyday. These are kids who attend school and believe us when we tell them to perform their best academically so they can go to a good college, get a good job, and enjoy the American dream.

Unfortunately, we send these kids an incomplete message, because we don’t tell them the entire truth. We don’t teach them how to manage money. We don’t stress the advantage of attending community college. We don’t explain why it’s important to vote for the tax initiatives that keep schools and other public institutions open. And we certainly don’t explain to them what life will be like, starting out after a college graduation with $100K in student loan and/or credit card debt. It’s these members of the 99% who get a raw deal.

Poverty is awful. Thank you for running such a wonderful blog.