I have an idea.... Citizen Casualty Project....

[liberalitch]

In this project the goal is keeping track track of how many American citizens have lost in one of these ways since January 2001. It will be a portion of the website I am building. People will be able to send in submissions (articles, news flashes, editorials) with regard to each category. Feel free to add other examples:
People have lost:
Their health (healthcare.... the loss of your health is the next step)
Their prospect at higher education
Pensions
Jobs / careers
homes
family members in war
freedom
privacy
civil rights
sanity (increase in OCD Bi-polarism and depression)
Respect for their nation.... national morale.

[LiberalEsto]

1. Savings, home ownership opportunities

affordable rent
fair elections
voting rights
affordable medications
affordable utility bills
affordable insurance
affordable property taxes

[liberalitch]

2. Amen to all of that!!!!!

When I am ready to go on line would you write about the affordability of life here in America getting.... well more and more rare

[LiberalEsto]

3. Their futures

We have 2 daughters, 19 and 22.
They've lost their futures.
One just dropped out due to emotional stress. She is 10-12 credits short of a BA, and she is more than $45,000 in debt from student loans. She works part-time as a nanny. I don't know how she will ever afford an apartment in this area, given that the cheapest rents in our area - for really awful places - are more than $900 a month. Unless she shares with lots of others. I don't know how she will be able to afford to pay rent, car insurance, food, utilities, etc.

The other is 19 and works part time as a waitress. She commutes to college, but gas costs a lot and it's a 50-mile round trip. If she managed to get a dorm room in September, she'd accumulate $30,000-plus in debt for her junior and senior years, plus the $8,000 she already owes in loans.

We are comparatively well off in terms of income, but we can barely pay the bills each month, have no savings or emergency money, and are screwed if someone needs dental work or car repairs. My husband and I never eat at restaurants, go to concerts, or buy new clothes. My house is almost entirely furnished in yard sale purchases.

I don't know how people get by these days. We are blessed to have what we do have, but we are just one serious illness away from losing everything.

[liberalitch]

5. Then you have to write!

The Saga of.... (think of a catchy way to refer to yourselves)

[LiberalEsto]

6. We are still much better off than others

I was just using them as an example of what I know personally. I think many in their generation are without hope or opportunities for the future.

[greendog]

4. This was written a few years ago, but...

...it might give you a few ideas.

Hidden Holocaust, USA...Michael Parenti

At present:

* 5,100,000 are behind bars or on probation or parole; 2,700,000 of these are either locked up in county, state or federal prisons or under legal supervision. Each week 1,600 more people go to jail than leave. The prison population has skyrocketed over 200 percent since 1980. Over 40 percent of inmates are jailed on nonviolent drug related crimes. African Americans constitute 13 percent of drug users but 35 percent of drug arrests, 55 percent of drug convictions and 74 percent of prison sentences. For nondrug offenses, African Americans get prison terms that average about 10 percent longer than Caucasians for similar crimes.
* 15,000+ have tuberculosis, with the numbers growing rapidly; 10,000,000 or more carry the tuberculosis bacilli, with large numbers among the economically deprived or addicted.
* 10,000,000 people have serious drinking problems; alcoholism is on the rise.
* 16,000,000 have diabetes, up from 11,000,000 in 1983 as Americans get more sedentary and sugar addicted. Left untreated, diabetes can lead to blindness, kidney failure and nerve damage.
* 160,000 will die from diabetes this year.
* 280,000 are institutionalized for mental illness or mental retardation. Many of these are forced into taking heavy doses of mind control drugs.

More:
http://www.michaelparenti.org/HiddenHolocaust.html

[rucky]

7. K&R

these are real-world effects that people can relate to.