GROWING ILLITERACY IN AMERICA: CREATING ENTRENCHED POVERTY

 

 

By Frosty Wooldridge
March 24, 2011
NewsWithViews.com

[Disclaimer: The opinion expressed in this article are solely those of Frosty Wolldridge and not necessary the opinion of NWV, its staff or other writers.]

Let us consider the one word that defines poverty and human misery around the world: illiteracy! It creates destitution, loss of human dignity, starvation and chaos throughout any civilization. Examples: Haiti, Somalia, Mexico, Detroit-Michigan, Bangladesh, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan and dozens of other countries.

Because of illiteracy, today, in excess of 1.5 billion human beings cannot procure a clean glass of drinking water when they wake up. In the neighborhood of 2.0 to 3.0 billion human beings will not enjoy a toilet or shower today. This year, 18 million human beings will starve to death.

Why? Answer: illiteracy!

Each day in India, 1,000 children under the age of 12, die of diarrhea, dysentery and other water borne diseases. No toilets, no clean water, no sanitation! Again: illiteracy! (Source: www.populationmedia.org)

In the United States today, according to CBS anchor Katie Couric, 13.4 million American children live below the poverty line. Millions of these children suffer malnutrition and hunger as a daily reality. Why? Illiteracy of their parents! Even our social services, welfare, food stamps and free lunch programs cannot keep up with the sheer magnitude of America’s new poor class. Another 43 million Americans subsist on food stamps because they lack the educational skills to secure a job. (Source: Reuters News Services)

Disturbing fact: 42 million Americans suffer functional illiteracy according to the National Right to Read Foundation. They cannot read, write or perform simple math. Another 50 million Americans cannot read past the 4th grade level.

Illiteracy Statistics

• 42 million American adults can't read at all; 50 million are unable to read at a higher level that is expected of a fourth or fifth grader.
• The number of adults that are classified as functionally illiterate increases by about 2.25 million each year.
• 20 percent of high school seniors can be classified as being functionally illiterate at the time they graduate.
Source: National Right to Read Foundation

Where Illiteracy Leads

• 70 percent of prisoners in state and federal systems can be classified as illiterate. [2.3 million Americans languish in jails]
85 percent of all juvenile offenders rate as functionally or marginally illiterate.
• 43 percent of those whose literacy skills are lowest live in poverty.
• 7,000 teens drop out of American high schools every day; one every 26 seconds

NBC anchor Brian Williams reported that 1.2 million teens hit America’s streets every June unable to read or write. Detroit, Michigan epitomizes this country’s educational dilemma: 76 percent dropout/flunkout rate. Dozens of cities across the country suffer 50 to 60 percent dropout rates.

CNN reported on August 30, 2010, “7,000 American high school students drop out every day; one every 26 seconds.”

ILLITERACY DEFINES THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES: ENTRENCHED AND INTRACTABLE

What causes illiteracy in third world countries? Answer: culture, religion and diminished intellectual capacity! In other words, citizens of Somalia live pretty much in the Stone Age as to their existence as hunter-gatherers. They remain at the mercy of their environment and conditions.

What happens when a first world civilization imports millions of people from third world countries where illiteracy maintains a strangle-hold on human beings? Answer: that first world country methodically dismantles its ability to educate, enlighten and lift such persons out of their cultural and intellectual deficits.

Today, the United States adds 3.1 million human beings from the most poverty-stricken areas of the world. They rush into America so fast; we cannot educate them quickly enough to bring them into the mainstream. How many? We import 225,000 to 250,000 every 30 days. They birth 900,000 babies annually. Migrants crossing without papers add another 800,000 annually. Total: 3.1 million! (Source: www.cis.org, Washington DC, Dr. Steven Camarata, additionally, www.TheSocialContract.com)

Today, American taxpayers shell out $346 billion annually across 15 federal agencies for illegal and legal immigrants. Year in and year out! (Source: Edwin Rubenstein report www.TheSocialContract.com)

The question anyone might ask: what will happen to the American taxpayer within the next 24 years when the projected addition of 72 million more third world immigrants manifest within America?

Answer: intractable, entrenched and ruthless poverty on levels that cannot be educated, uplifted, fed, watered, housed or sustained.

Can anyone tell me I’m off base, wrong or erroneous in my calculations? Am I wrong in my research that I stated with the sources given? Do you not see it in your own cities? I mean, dear reader, we already see illiteracy swamping Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Denver, Cleveland, Kansas City and San Francisco.

As our educational systems implode, our own citizens become useless to themselves and our civilization as to becoming useful members. As we degrade academic standards to make everyone else feel good, we diminish our country and deliver it into the hands of poverty, illiteracy and hopelessness now seen in one-third of the human race around the planet.

I don’t know about you, but our kids will find themselves paying for this human-illiterate-overload beyond their capacity to feed, house and educate their own families. It will get too big, to expensive and too unyielding. It already is!

How can we save ourselves, our children, our communities and our civilization from the ravages of illiteracy?

• Suspend all immigration into this country for 10 years.

• Or, immediately reduce all immigration to less than 100,000 annually.

• Make sure all immigrants pass educational tests and English. comprehension before being admitted to the USA.

• Engage E-Verify as a mandate for all employers across America.

• Disengage from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya for savings of $15 billion a month to be applied to our educational systems.

• Stop “Free Trade” and bring back “Fair Trade” to bring manufacturing and other jobs back to America to employ our parents.

• Teach sex education and introduce birth control information into our inner cities and most distressed minority areas to help teen girls to make better choices. Why? Today, according to a recent report by Dottie Lamm in the Denver Post, 68 percent of African-American teens are single mothers. All of them draw on welfare that costs you billions of dollars annually for Aid to Dependent Children.

What are the alternatives if we fail to act? America will degrade into the same conditions that I have witnessed around the world on my bicycle travels. It can only worsen if we fail to do something for future generations.

Listen to Frosty Wooldridge on Wednesdays as he interviews top national leaders on his radio show "Connecting the Dots" at www.themicroeffect.com at 6:00 PM Mountain Time. Adjust tuning in to your time zone.

� 2011 Frosty Wooldridge - All Rights Reserved