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We can do better.« Thread Started on Apr 28, 2007, 11:32am »

Daily newsbrief journal for April 2007, also see http://www.usdemocrats.com/brief for a global 100-page perpetual brief and follow twitter @usdemocrats


We can do better.« Thread Started on Apr 28, 2007, 11:32am »

Postby admin » Sat Jan 28, 2012 11:42 am

We can do better.« Thread Started on Apr 28, 2007, 11:32am » --------------------------------------------------------------------------------We can do better.We are blessed to live in a time and place where clean running water flows abundantly. And thanks to concerted national efforts, the clarity of our air has improved for nearly 30 years. 11/Even so, microbiological contaminants that threaten gastrointestinal illness or even death endanger too many communities. America’s community water systems must invest at least $12 billion now and $138 billion over the next 20 years simply to keep our water safe and clean. 12/ Needs are particularly acute among Native American and Alaskan Native communities. Fully 113 million Americans live in communities where air pollution persistently exceeds air quality standards. 13/ We can do better.On our good land, more and more Americans are making a home that is their castle. Two-thirds of Americans own their own homes, a greater share than any recorded since surveys began in 1956. 14/Even in this time of prosperity, however, nearly 7 million Americans experienced homelessness between 1989 and 1994. 15/ Even in America, homelessness — particularly among children — has increased dramatically over the past 10 to 15 years, and shelters do not have the resources to meet the demand. 16/The New York Times told the story of Ana Nunez, and of hundreds of thousands like her: “[U]p a narrow stairway between a pawnshop and a Dominican restaurant, Ana Nunez and her three children live in a single, illegal room that suffocates their dreams of a future.“It is a $350-a-month rectangle, with no sink and no toilet, that throbs at night with the restaurant’s merengue music. Ms. Nunez’s teenagers, Kenny and Wanda, split a bunk bed, while she squeezes onto a single bed with little Katarin, a pudgy 4-year-old with tight braids. Out the door and down the linoleum-lined hallway is the tiny bathroom they share with five strangers.“. . . Last winter, tuberculosis traveled from Kenny to his mother and younger sisters in a chain of infection as inevitable as their bickering. Inevitable, too, is their fear of fire: life in 120 square feet means the gas stove must stand perilously close to their beds.“. . . Kenny . . . at 18, is a restless young man in a female household. Ask him what bothers him most and he flatly states that he has only one way to get some privacy: ‘I close my eyes.’. . .“‘At night,’ [Ana] said, ‘when the mice crawl over us in bed, it feels even more crowded.’” 17/ We can do better.Almost daily, modern medicine advances on the scourges of disease and infirmity. Thousands come to our Nation every year so that American doctors and nurses and hospitals may attend to their needs.In 1990, fewer than 14 percent of Americans went without health insurance. Today, more than 16 percent are uninsured. Every year, about a million more Americans are dropped from coverage. Even assuming good economic times, close to 48 million Americans will have no health insurance coverage by the year 2005. How can other industrialized nations provide wider health coverage with less health care inflation?A Midwestern wife told of her husband, 40 at most, a railroad worker struggling with cancer: “‘Paul, I want you to come over and meet my husband again. He’s a real fighter. The doctor said he only had 3 months to live, but it’s a year later, and he’s still struggling.’ But then, so he could not hear, she whispered, ‘Every day is a living hell. Every day I’m battling with insurance companies over what they’re going to cover.’” In a good country, no citizen with a loved one who is struggling with an illness should have to worry about whether or not she will be able to afford health care. We can do better.The citizens of a good country are physically secure. As the baby boom generation ages beyond crime-prone years, the violent crime rate in America has declined steadily since 1994 and violent crimes occur less frequently now than at any time since the beginning of surveys in 1973. 18/ Murders occur less frequently now than at any time in 30 years. 19/ Total crime in America is at a ten-year low. 20/Americans hardly feel safe from violence, however, and any number of murders is too many. Our murder rate is:6 times that of England and Wales; 5 times that of Japan, South Korea, or Spain; 4 times that of Australia; 3 times that of Israel; 22 times that of Austria or Chile; half again more than that of Denmark or Germany; a quarter more than that of Canada or Peru; one-fifth more than that of the Ukraine; and roughly equal that of Ethiopia, Armenia, and India. 21/A violent crime occurs in America every 19 seconds, a murder every 29 minutes, a rape every 5 minutes, a robbery every minute, an aggravated assault every 31 seconds, 22/ and a woman is battered every 15 seconds. 23/ Nearly one third of American women experience at least one physical assault by a partner during their adult lives. 24/ Americans are four times more likely to be incarcerated than Englishmen or Welshmen, and African Americans are six times more likely to be incarcerated than white Americans. 25/ For every 100 residents, law enforcement officials in the United States have to make nearly six arrests a year. 26/ We can do better.
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