Free Killer Politics by Ed Schultz Page A

led to increases in obesity, diabetes, and other life-threatening ailments. Healthy fruits, vegetables, meats, and whole grain breads cost more than many people can afford. According to a study by Adam Drewnowski of the University of Washington, a healthy two-thousand-calorie diet could cost almost 10 times as much as one comprised of junk food. Meanwhile, it takes more junk food to feel satisfied, so people quite predictably overeat. A Scripps Research Institute study concludes that the brain responds to junk food just as it does to heroin.
    Little Debbie is dealing smack? And she seemed like such a nice girl.
    I don’t see any way that we can completely solve our health care crisis without improving the way we eat, an improvement that could take generations of education. And we need to make sure we have food security. A diverse network of small producers is essential, and we ought to support the legislation that will help make that possible. As long as other countries subsidize their farmers, it is only fair that we afford ours a level playing field.
    We have seen what unfair trade does to America. Unfair trade began as a shift of our manufacturing base to other countries. If we allowour market to become flooded with cheaper food from other countries, as we do other goods, this may seem great for the consumer in the short haul, but it will drive farmers off the land and destabilize our ability to feed the nation. We must never allow ourselves to be dependent on imports to feed our citizens.
    In a perfect world, American farmers could compete handily, with no trade barriers, but Europe is in no hurry to give up subsidies for their farmers. Expect subsidies to continue but to be slowly reduced globally.
    In the meantime, it is in our best interest to find new trading partners. Cuba, a country I broadcast from during an agricultural trade mission, is an obvious candidate. Healthy trade won’t necessarily damage relationships internationally; it could actually go a long way toward settling tensions in some corners of the world.
    Pillar #4: Educate the People
    Later in this book I will make the case that health care should be a basic right for every American. I feel the same way about education. I don’t believe economic circumstances should dictate whether any American has the opportunity to go to college.
    As the son of a teacher and as a student who was bused to the slums of Norfolk, Virginia, for high school, I have seen different aspects of the educational spectrum. In many classrooms, students are thriving, but in others, we are failing them miserably. When we fail to educate all of our children, our society begins to fail. Education in America is a crisis that really is not talked about enough.
    When we fail to keep students in school, they end up on the streets and become part of what Marian Wright Edelman, one of the leading children’s advocates in the world, calls the “cradle to prison syndrome.” Her website, childrensdefense.org, states, “Nationally, 1 in 3 Black and 1 in 6 Latino boys born in 2001 are at risk of imprisonment during theirlifetime…. States spend about three times as much money per prisoner as per public school pupil.”
    The fact is, and I’ve seen it, poor kids don’t get the same breaks other kids do.
    Poverty becomes a cycle of hopelessness from one generation to the next, and as a country we ought to be grappling with the fact that the richest country on earth has one of the highest poverty levels of any industrialized nation. According to a government report, America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, nearly one in five American children was living in poverty in 2007.
    There’s no silver bullet solution to such pervasive poverty and lack of opportunity, but part of the solution is addressing the disintegration of the American family and the poverty that is closely related to single-parent households.
    Let’s connect the