Chicago is in a state of emergency. It has been reported that 113 people have been killed in Chicago this year. The same number of U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan during the same time period.
The present structure is not adequate to secure the people. We are laying off teachers, closing schools, proposing shorter school days, reducing public transportation, laying off transit workers and raising the fare for public transportation and public parking. The basic issues in the zones of pain are not being addressed. Neighborhoods facing high crime and violence are also facing record home foreclosure rates and student loan defaults.
If talk about bringing in the National Guard illuminates the issue, then let the debate begin.
We need to revive the ban on assault weapons. We need targeted jobs, targeted job training, open skill and trade training in the unions and organized adult regulated recreation for our children.
We need a comprehensive urban policy plan now. We have a plan for security and development in Iraq and Afghanistan. We also had a plan to salvage Wall Street. Why not a plan for Chicago?
The robber barons of our time have been bailed out while the poor are being locked up and wallow in unacceptable violence. We need help now.
Just as we have decided that the Wall Street banks are too big to fail, the growing number of the poor and the unemployed are too big to abandon. They must no longer be told to wait. Those in the zones of pain, whether rural Appalachia or Alabama, are too big to fail as well.
Follow Rev. Jesse Jackson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/revjjackson
You folks made Chicago a cesspool, you folks need to fix it or move.
Jesse, you have been there for decades. And, obviously your plan is a FAILURE. It is time for you to get out of the way!
http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-wc67.html
http://www.freelegaladvicehelp.com/criminal-lawyer/juvenile-crime/Single-Parent-Homes-And-Child-Delinquency.html
http://www.content4reprint.com/family/parenting/single-parents-and-the-rise-of-crime-rates-among-children.htm
Life is what it is. There are children in poverty and children in peril. We need to deal with them because if we don't, they'll be a danger to all of us. Personally, I'd rather put my tax dollars into afterschool intervention programs for teens than into prisons....
Good Question.
http://buythecover.com
An excellent point indeed! If the money and resources that have been poured into Afghanistan and Iraq, trying to buy peace between warlords, had been dedicated to our own cities, maybe there would have been some progress. My daughter lives on the south side of Chicago and I fear for her as I would if she were in the army in Iraq. Why do we live like this?
Business Week in January or February had an article that documented the fact that 80% of the earners in the country make $30k or less, while real unemployment was somewhere closer to 20% when you add in all the categories that the Fed skips over. Our economy just doesn't have enough jobs to even begin to rebuild.
Miles "Cause and Effect" Long
Hope begins when people are gainfully employed and are able to live the American Dream, especially for many men who, politically correct or not, take pride in being the traditional providers for their families and the primary breadwinners (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-04/osu-hcr041002.php). Our country clearly benefits when the economic playing field is more level. I would posit that the current situation facing Chicago and other urban cities is the result of thirty years of class warfare and government corruption.
Reverend, as long as "your people" suffer while you wear $1000 suits, you are part of the problem.
disintegration. This country has been crapping on the urban centers of the U.S. for many decades. It does not bode well for the future and that's an understatement.