Economic inequality kills babies. Really.

[urgk]

(I actually wrote this as a response for a DUer asking how to talk to a Tea Party supporter here -> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x818283 . I'm not sure if it would actually be helpful in that conversation, but it sure helped me to get it out on the page)

"Go ahead, make fun of those protesters, if you want, but the income inequality they're protesting raises the infant mortality rate. It causes Americans to die younger and makes it more likely that when they do, that death will be violent. It makes the rest of us pay higher insurance premiums when more Americans are morbidly obese, and higher taxes when more Americans are in prison (http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html ).

But, it's a joke. It's funny, right?

We like to talk in this country about how are kids are lazy, how they'll never amount to anything. But here is a group of kids...and grandparents...and hard-working taxpayers.... who are actually doing something - they're organizing to demand that somebody, anybody, take it seriously when the United States Constitution says:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

What could be more patriotic, more noble, more...."productive" than to demand our Constitutional rights? What better way to "make change happen" than to demand that our elected officials enforce the very document upon which our nation is founded? What greater purpose could there be than to point out that we have as much right to be protected from greed -- from the unbridled pursuit of profit -- as we do to be protected from foreign enemies?

If you want to get upset at something, get upset at the people who are telling these kids to sit down and shut up...to give up their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble; to give up the birth right of free speech earned by the blood of our soldiers, broadened by the courage of our civl rights leaders, written indelibly into law by our founding fathers. Get mad at Newt Gingrich whose best response to a national economic crisis is to tell those who are demanding something be done to take a bath and get a job. Get righteously angry at every news outlet, pundit and congressman who's asking you to let what happened to our economy, our jobs, our neighborhoods, our friends, our tax dollars and our nation happen again...so the 1% can buy another yacht or pay off another Senator.

Ask those kids to report and to ostracize the violent protestors. Ask them to be civil and to be respectful. Ask them to throw away their trash. But don't you dare ask them to throw away their Constitutional rights. Or their belief that this country can, and should, change for the better."

-----

Edited for clarity. And to say "shoot...didn't mean to put this in GD: Presidency." Can an admin move it, please?

[OneGrassRoot]

1. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing. K&R n/t

[urgk]

2. Shoot....dangit...didn't mean to put this in "GD:Presidency." Sorry guys. n/t