Left behind

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore …” We’ll make sure they suffer even more – that’s the American Way! Suffering is the new civil right!\nThe Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal demonstrates how some of our most vulnerable citizens suffer. The Washington Post documented inhumane conditions as soldiers from Iraq who lost limbs, suffered brain injuries and experienced post-traumatic stress were stuck in rooms teeming with black mold and rats while medical professionals failed to provide adequate follow-up care. After this report, veterans across the country have shared stories of similarly bleak hospital conditions and poor medical treatment at military facilities nationwide. Suddenly the bumper-sticker slogan “Support our troops!” takes new meaning.\nBut neglecting our tired, poor and vulnerable masses doesn’t stop with injured, traumatized veterans. \nIn 2005, a disastrously slow federal response left thousands of Gulf Coast residents stranded in flood waters. Eighteen months later, they still suffer. Half the homes in New Orleans do not have electricity; 60,000 families in Louisiana still live in 240-square-foot trailers; almost half the public schools remain closed and untouched since Katrina hit. The citizens in one of the poorest regions of our country suffer despite big promises from the current administration.\nCase in point, last April President Bush stood beside Ethel Williams in front of her uninhabitable house in New Orleans and said, “We’ve got a strategy to help the good folks down here rebuild. Part of it has to do with funding. Part of it has to do with housing.” Bush promised Williams a bright future. As of last week, the only change is that her former home – her only remaining possession – has been condemned.\nThe suffering epidemic extends further. The administration has pumped us full of the “No Child Left Behind Act” propaganda that stresses “accountability,” “achievement” and “success” in every school. Yet schools in poorer communities – both rural and urban – lack the resources or support to provide suitable (or humane) learning environments. Author Jonathan Kozol documents American schools without clean, functioning bathrooms; where mold grows on the walls; where barrels throughout the building collect rainwater that pours through the roof; where four kindergarten classes and a sixth grade class are packed into a single room with no windows. These children are typically poor and predominantly black and Hispanic, communities we repeatedly neglect.\nThe current administration is hell-bent on protecting, preserving and promoting certain lives and standards in word but not in deed. After all the hype and lip service, we desert our own citizens and sacrifice the most vulnerable among us.\nHow can we be proud Americans when we show such disdain for our own brothers and sisters? Something must be done to help the tired, poor and suffering.\nUnfortunately, we seem intent only on twisting the knife a little deeper.