Welcome fellow intellectuals to The Mind of Leon Rantz. I must first congratulate you on making the choice to broaden your horizons by viewing this blog. Well, its no secret that there is homelessness in America. Most of us see them as we commute to work and or other places that we frequent. Upon returning home we more than likely turn on our televisions and after the mindless reality show or sitcom see an image that goes something like this...
The above image is is normally accompanied by overweight Sally Struthers begging for us to save the children, even though she is living well and might be the reason that there is a lack of food. Or possibly even a missionary that that seems to have little to no contact with the people who are starving but more so reading lines with the poverty stricken on a green screen behind them. At any rate our hearts and minds go out to these people and we feel inclined to help. That is why our government has dedicated millions of dollars to help these places in our world. The military even plays pizza delivery with thier supply drops over these desolate areas. Our country's celebs even get in to the act with millions of dollars in donation to the problems of third world countries. This is all well and good in the global scheme of things, but what about the people that we just passed on the streets? What happened to the man that will work for food according to his sign? Or the mother that you passed holding her baby close to her because her child is hungry? I myself have not known where my next meal was going to come from, for I have lived on the brink. I thought to myself, why has this happened? I live in America and face the some of the same problems as a citizen of Somalia. It seems that there is an underlying problem that is destroying lives in out own country. According to bread for the world.com there are at least 35 million Americans who are on the brink of starvation.
This brings me to my question for the week. Why do we give so much to third world countries and give our own people so little? One argument is that we have been given a chance to live while these people have not. I would believe that, however in a system that is perpetually flawed I don't accept that theory. Then again I will admit that we do have more access to health care and other resources. I still feel that this is a cop out due to the fact that many fast food chains on average waste collectively 17,000lbs of food daily and do nothing to aid America in our fight against hunger. This occurrence also poses the question of why our leaders have not addressed the issue. I hear a PSA every 2 minutes about cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol, and teen pregnancy and how they kill and maim our society but hunger and nutrition related deaths kill more people in this country than any of those other causes that our politicians latch on too. Now comes the hard part, you the people of intellect have to decide if we are doing wrong or right. Are we doing whats right in this world by continuing in the efforts to cure the problems of a dying globe? Or allow the 35 million of our own poor to suffer in the world's "greatest" country in the same manner that Ethiopians suffer daily.
vs 
The discussion begins with you my intellectuals... Let us begin.
