THE THIRD WORLD IN THE UNITED STATES?

Singer and activist Jackson Brown wrote this back in the eighties at the height of the US interventions in Central and South America. This is not the whole subject of this entry but it is a part of it.

SOLDIER OF PLENTY

God is great, God is good
He guards your neighborhood
Though it’s generally understood
Not quite the way you would
You try to take the slack
Stay awake and watch his back
But something happens every now and then
And someone breaks into the promised land
Ah boy boy
This world is not your toy
This world is long on hunger
This world is short on joy

A-e-i-o
You speak as if you know
What’s good for everyone
What’s good in what you’ve done?
What’s good about a world in which
War rages at a fever pitch
And people die for the little things
A little corn, a little beans

Ah boy boy
This world is not your toy
This world is, this world is
Long on hunger
Short on joy
How much longer
You gonna keep the world hungry boy?

You measure peace with guns
Progress in mega-tons
Who's left when the war is won?
Soldier of misfortune--
Soldier of an angry call
Soldier on foreign soil
I’m not here to fight your war
I know what you're fighting for

Ah boy boy
This world is not your toy
This world is, this world is
Long on hunger
Short on joy
How much longer
You gonna keep the world hungry boy?

There is poverty in this country. There is a widening of the gap between the richest and poorest. The rich who will never spend all they have and the poor running like marathoners just to stay in place. The disappearing middle class. Yes there are cities with more and more homeless. And yes we have an individual at the center of power who scares the living daylights out of many of us. This hemisphere has seen leaders who seemed to be insane before. This is a first for this country however. Yes we have a border patrol that seems more out of control than reasonable. 

But I have been seeing some links to news feeds that trouble me. That much of this country is now experiencing third world conditions. I have to wonder if this or those reporters have actually traveled in truly third world countries. 

Countries where women walk for miles in search of drinkable water and fuel for their cooking fires. Where children have little access to schools. Where the rich own most of the land and poor are forced into stining slums on the edges of shining cities. To countries like Guatamala or El Salvador where being a church worker, labor organizer, community organizer, literacy worker, outspoken reporter, supporter of land reform, in the wrong place at the wrong time during a sweep for so called subversives or even being a member of an Indian community could get you tortured or murdered or both. Countries where some citizens try to get by on a couple of dollars a day and their children dig through garbage dumps. 

We have problems in this country. Big ones. But we need to be careful when labels such as third world are used. If we have third world conditions in much of this country where does that leave much of the rest of the world? Fourth world? Fifth world?