Research dispels myths about moving off welfare

http://www.energypublisher.com/article.asp?id=19756

Hmmm. I've always wondered about this. My cousin was able to get off welfare but she has 4 children and certainly still has financial troubles. I think many people only live in poverty for a short term, but there are definitely many more that have chronic poverty. It's not easy to get out of either, with the way our capitalist economy is run. And of course, women are faced with cumulative oppression, and if they are a minority woman, it is even worse. The cards are stacked against them.

So what do we do? How do we fix this broken system? :(

In case you need some perspective.

***DO NOT PROCEED IF YOU DO NOT WANT A SLAP OF REALITY***

If you start to think life isn't fair because you could not buy those stellar Christian Louboutin's that were on sale (because they still cost $585) or because you had to sit on the highway behind gramps going 40 miles an hour, read this.

"On one of the trips I took to Darfur with Samantha Power in late Spring 2004, we met a woman, Amina, cooking on the ground. She had fled her village during an attack. Her husband had been shot as soon as he left their hut. She had two of her children on her back and the other two in her arms as about Janjaweed chased her on camels. First they ripped her five year-old, Adom, from her, and when she stopped running and begged for her child, they told her they would shoot her. So she continued running away from her village that was up in flames. The Janjaweed then tossed Adom into the fire. He was screaming and calling her name, but she just kept runing. Despite her speed, her seven year-old, Asam Mohamed, was taken then and shot, once in his side and once in his back. She was never able to bury her children." - John Prendegrast, Not on our Watch, 2007, p. 80

I will admit that I have momentary lapses of the important things in life. I won't deny that I like little gadgets and video games and books and food, etc. I am an American and I am allowed these little pleasures (if I can afford them, that is - but that is an entirely different post). However, we really need to grasp reality in this country. Get our heads out of our asses and start taking notice at what is going on immediately around us, and off in the distance. We should all take part in making this world a safer, happier place.

Choose what it is you care about and DO SOMETHING. The world (and the planet, for that matter) is counting on you.