One of the first things that I was assigned to read in my Gender Studies class was an essay entitled "Imagine a Country" by Holly Sklar. I can't seem to find the full text online, but I would like to shar some of the tidbits that made an impression on me. The jist of the essay is that states a fact about America beginning with "Imagine a country."
"Imagine a country where one out of four children in born into poverty, and wealth is being redistributed upward. since the 1970s, the richest 1 percent of households has nearly doubled its share of the nation's wealth. The top 1 percent has more wealth than the bottom 90 percent of households combine."
"Imagine a country where health care aides can't afford health insurance. Where food industry workers may depend on food banks to help feed their children. Where childcare teachers don't make enough to save for their own children's education."
"Imagine a country where productivity went up, but workers' wages went down."
"Imagine a country where some of the worst CEOs make millions more in a year than the best CEOs of earlier generations made in their lifetimes. In 1980, CEOs of major corporations made an average 45 times the pay of average full-time workers. In 1991, when CEOs made 140 times as much as workers, a prominent pay expert said the CEO "is paid so much more than ordinary workers that he hasn't got the slightest clue as to how the rest of the country lives." In 2003, a leading business magazine put a pig in a pinstriped suit on the cover and headlined its CEO pay roundup, "Have they no shame? Their performance stank last year, yet most CEOs got paid more than ever." In 2005, CEOs made even more- 352 times the pay of average workers."
"Imagine a country whose constitution once counted black slaves as worth three-fifths of whites. Today, black per capita income is about three'fifths of whites."
"Imagine a country where health care is managed for healthy profit. In many countries health care is a right. But this nation has health care for some instead of health care for all. Nearly one out of five people under age 65 has no health insurance, public or private."
"Imagine a country where many descendants of its first inhabitants line on reservations strip-mined of natural resources and have a high proportion of people in poverty than any other ethnic group."
"Imagine a country whose president "has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution." A newspaper investigation reveals, "Among the laws [he] said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, 'whistle-blower' protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research."
While I saw some of the essay to be inflammatory and reaching for the negative, we need to be aware of what is wrong in our country and try to make positive strides for the better.
