COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN
Trump turning US into
'world champion of extreme inequality', UN envoy warns
Special rapporteur
Philip Alston, fresh from fact-finding tour, issues devastating critique of US
society and condemns ‘private wealth and public squalor’
"Trump turning US
into 'world champion of extreme inequality', UN envoy warns"
I'm sorry, but that is an uninformed statement.
I grew up in the United States, in a large city, and the
kind of slums we see here have been around since I was young.
Detroit, Baltimore, Toledo, New Orleans, parts of Chicago,
parts of New York, Newark, Gary, and dozens of other places would shock
Europeans who are used to seeing only travel photos and Hollywood movies.
The stark poverty and ugliness are not in way distinguishable
from parts of the third world.
And it’s not just cities. Many years ago, I was taking some
photos of river bridges near Joliet, Illinois, and I turned onto a small road
to get one of the shocks of my life. There was a sizable settlement of homemade
shanty structures ahead on both sides of the road. It looked exactly like
something from Soweto, South Africa, and perhaps worse.
The United States is full of such surprises. You find them
in Appalachia and out on the Southwestern desert, quite apart from all the vast
urban slums. A great many Americans live in beat-up little trailers in places
like rural Maine or Arizona.
It isn't Trump, although I’m sure he won't be helping.
And it isn't just Republicans.
Democrats in the national government along with Republicans
have done nothing about this.
Obama, the first black president, did nothing.
The places I've listed plus many others have looked like
scenes from hell for forty or fifty years.
America's government has busied itself with creating new
ruins in many parts of the world. instant ruins with bombs. That’s how it
spends its time and resources.
Washington has shown no interest and made no effort for
decades to help the American people. Washington resembles more an occupying power
than a government “of the people.”
