Read this is a news story today:
The United States has the highest incarceration rate on the planet - five times the world's average. A total of 2,380,000 people are now in prison. The U.S. has five percent of the world's population, but 25 percent of the world's prison population.
Minorities make up a disproportionately large share of inmates. Black males have a 32 percent chance of serving time in prison at some point in their lives
When we combine this number with the % of young people unemployed (anywhere from 30-50% currently with the recession) and the % of young people in the military, you end up with the vast majority of youth in this country.
Unemployed, serving in the military or in prison....
Is this really the best we can do? This is the apex of progress?
And don't tell me military service isn't so bad. We've been at war for damn near a decade with no end in sight. Soldiers are killing themselves at ever increasing rates. Hell we haven't demobilized the military since world war 2.
Most of our youth enter adulthood unemployed, as soldiers or as prisoners.
What does that do to a society?
The wealth distribution gap continues to grow. Prisons, the military and the entitlement systems are our most consistent growth industries.
In such a land, it matters not who is elected president.
Our root systems are corrupting.
We will find a way of living differently because to continue as we are is suicide.
We will find a way of living differently.
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Yes, we must find a way to live differently. We need more people like you to speak up and more of us need to take action. It starts with one person at a time - each person taking responsibility to help just one other person with no expectation of repayment. Imagine how things could change.
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