On 4/22/12 Anne and I watched an Oprah Winfrey show in which she is sitting with a family of five in a roughly 10 foot x 10 foot tiny dwelling, packed within a bunch of such tiny dwellings. The whole family sleeps on the floor and when the day starts, they put away their few things in tiny lockers. The father brings home a paycheck to support his wife and three young daughters, but he began to cry for this is all he can afford to provide his family.
The shower area consisted of a small communal room where people carry in a bucket of questionable water, the same water they drink, but use it to wash themselves. The toilet area is also communal and consists of a porcelain device people squat over, and when they finish they pore a bucket of water into it to wash away the waste. The waste likely washes into a gutter or a nearby waterway used by all.
But unlike poorer people or homeless people, their tiny dwelling had electricity, which meant they could light it at night, read and watch television. The parents are determined for their children to have better lives and out of their meager income, they pay for schooling.
The little girls were all sharp as can be and it was a joy to listen to them, particularly the eldest daughter, who I believe will make something special of herself.
But it troubled me to watch this knowing how little they had materially, and how that is true for much of the third world. Even in the Los Angeles area near where I live, there are thousands of homeless people, including children. Yet in my nation, we spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year on weapons of mass destruction, fighter jets, ships, tanks, drones and we fund military bases all over the world.
With 2/3s of the world living on less than $2 a day, that money could lift many millions of people from poverty, educate them, inoculate them from diseases and offer them a hopeful and productive future. Instead, we choose weapons and war and will kill them if ever we term them "terrorists" or kill them simply by accident.
What kind of priorities does our nation have when we can't see our humanity in every person and invest in them as members of our extended family.
Dick
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