Life In America

Sometimes when I’m sitting in my car behind a red light, I marvel at the orderly way life is going on around me. Cars stop at the red light, they continue driving at the green light, pedestrians cross the street at their white light, at least 2 airplanes are in the sky in high altitude and almost daily I see a plane either take off or land due to a local airport.  I see people going around doing their business.  There is nothing exciting going on, its pretty calm and quiet. You hardly ever hear a car horn here. The sky is blue and maybe a few puffy clouds are drifting by. This makes me feel blissful and safe, I’m never afraid for my life nor do I worry about theft of my possessions. I get my mail around the same time every day, the Gardner comes every Thursday and the pool man shows up every Saturday.  

You would think this is utopia, but no, it’s just life in America. 

Because of having Atlantic Ocean in the East and the Pacific Ocean on the west and two friendly neighbors in its North and south borders America is insulated from war, famine, drought violent revolutions, displaced people, and epidemics. Where at the same time there are so many countries at war, there has been blood shed and destruction of whole cities, great number of people have been displaced from their homes and have been forced to leave their country to be safe. 

There are still countries around the world dealing with famine.

America looks great from afar, in movies, music videos, the internet and Google Earth.

But the reality is far from those images. Here are some facts about life in the U.S.A.

• Every day 310 people are shot ,from those 100 die, every day 21children and teens (1-17) are shot and 4 die from gun violence. 

• In 2017  47,173 people in America committed suicide that’s 129 per day on the average. 

• In America 40 million people lived in poverty in 2017, and 41 million people faced huger.

• In 2018 the population of homeless people had reached to 553,000.00 The largest, most populous and glamorous cities have the worst homeless problem. New York City is number one, then Los Angeles, Seattle, San Diego, San Francisco in that order have the largest number of homeless people.

• The American Criminal Justice system was holding 2.3 million people in prisons. 

• Thirty million people in America can’t red or write, that is 14% of the population. 

•   Racism, LGBDQ phobia and discrimination are alive and thriving.  

Of course despite all of these problems I still prefer to live in America.  Always there are large number of people around the country working to solve these problems and find solutions.  Compare to some other countries individuals here have more freedom and rights.