Blog Action Day 2008

Last week I was reading over a few articles and happened to come across something that talked about a Blog Action Day. I thought, "well, hey, I have a blog-what's this all about?" Blogs all over the world joining for one purpose-to focus on an issue that affects the majority and hopefully create discussion and subesquently, solutions. This years it's about poverty.

I'm not really sure what to say. I could cite all the statistics. 20,000 children die every day due to poverty related causes. Over half the people in this world live in some sort of defined poverty. Often people think of poverty as just being "without" or "having less than" but in most cases, poverty extends to far greater circumstances. Men, women and children are dying because of unclean water, no food, no shelter, weather conditions, disease.

I grew up poor. I mean, foodstamp, moving around all the time because of evictions, electricity being cut off, AFDC payments, dirty clothes, clothes that didn't fit, etc. The kids in my school used to sing this song around me, "K-Mart, K-Mart, that's your store, you shop there because you're poor-Now you're daddy got a raise, you can shop the Wal-Mart ways." It was horrible. I hated school. I was pathaologically shy and constantly felt humiliated, ashamed and degraded. But......I was never without a roof over my head and the times that I went hungry were few. As an adult, I am now grateful for those things regardless of anything else.

So...having lived that way, compassion is a huge huge deal to me. Society puts a feeling of shame on people who can't afford the latest "it" when the shameful feeling should truly belong with those who have so many "its" while the world around them goes hungry. This is something that really, really must be changed. Our entire standard and quality of living. And it has to start with our elected officials.

Now, I only know about the American government because, well, I am an ignorant American. The way we can eliminate some of the poverty here is to decrease government salaries and put that tax payer money to better use. Our congress got continual 5,000 dollar annual pay raises (while the minimum wage remained stagnant), while enjoying platinum level health care coverage for themselves and their families. Their retirement funds can be, and often are, raised higher than the pay they had while in office! Their annual pay is 155,000...a sum most of America does not enjoy. And these people are in session for less than 200 days, generally. The rest of the time is spent campaiging or vacationing. Futher, with each addition of a committee, security, branch, organization is that much more money American people are paying elected officials rather than helping poverty stricken American's who could use those jobs. How many elected officials are you average, ordinary American citizens? Most people in government are already wealthy and complain about taking a pay cut when accepting an elected position. So, why are we electing people who don't know what life is like for the average American?

We need to get back to the people ruling the people so that we can all live in at least a modicum of dignity and quality.

Until we can get to that place, we have to make 100% sure that we, as individuals, do what we can to help our community. That old phrase, "we are only as strong as our weakest player" is true. Just look around at the economy.

And to quote a smart lady and what has been my motto since I first heard it uttered, "If you have a lot, give a lot. If you have a little, give a little".

Video (photos courtesy of flickr and google images)-I would say I'm sorry for the shameless Obama plug, but....I'd be lying.






This is a BIG issue you guys, please help spread the word on your own blogs, if you can.