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In the Central City of Milwaukee, where unemployment runs around 50%, you scramble to make a buck any way you can. This is one of the tougher, but legal ways to do so. The gentleman in the picture didn't seem to concerned to have his picture taken, more curious than anything. I talked with him for a few moments. He is articulate and street smart, and homeless. He grew up in the South, working in the fields and left school after the 3rd grade. He never learned to read or write anything much more than his name. He came to Milwaukee in a time when it was possible to get a decent paying job in manufacturing without a real education. As the work has left so did his prospects. He has been homeless for 15 years, making his living collecting cans and turning them in to recycling centers. 365 days a year. Saving his money on Saturdays so he something for Sunday when the recycling center is closed. He lives on the streets unless it is bitter, bitter cold, then he turns to a shelter. I find it ironic that he is pictured here with the American flag. The American dream has surely passed him by. Radical right wingers out there will almost certainly say that he has had oppurtunities to get an education over the years, which is surely true, and that he needs to pull himself up by his bootstraps. What they don't see is that he has no boots. He saw no future outside of the manufacturing jobs he had done for years, with or without that education. He may well be right with unemployemnt in the African-American community running near the 50th percentile. Radical left wingerss will pity him and deplore the fact that we haven't done more for him. He doesn't want your pity, he wants hope. To use the same analogy, radical liberals not only want to make sure he has a pair of boots, they want to hand deliver them and stop back 3 times a week to clean them and shine them. Without realizing that we don't have the resources to do that for all of the millions of bootless people out there. The Centrists, like myself, and I'm firmly convinced the vast, vast majority of people across the country agree that everyone should have a pair of boots, the tools to take care of them and somewhere to walk to so they can buy the next pair themselves. In other words we have to give people the HOPE of a better life, as well as the tools to get there. This country has allowed itself to be split and thereby to forget one of the very words of the Pledge of Allegiance..."Indivisible". We allow ourselves to be labeled: Liberal, Conservative, Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, Pro Gun Control, Pro NRA, African-American, Hispanic, Caucasion. Labels divide us. What we are folks are Americans. And while the gap between the rich ond the poor continues to grow, while CEO's rake in millions while running their companies into the ground, while athletes and actors are paid more for one season or one film than most of us will make in a lifetime, people are livng hand to mouth, collecting cans and pushing their cart to the nearest recycling center, which by the way is 3 1/2 miles from where I snapped this shot. Studies have shown that the current generation is the first in history that doesn't think they'll have a better standard of living than their parents. A news blip the day noted that price of oil is climbing now that the stock market is climbing a bit. Got that? The price of oil has nothing to do with supply and demand, it has to do with where the futures traders on the stock market think it should be. This country is broken folks, because we have allowed ourselves to be divided and distracted. If we do not unite as AMERICANS, rebuild the dream, offer hope, and rebuild the middle class scenes like this will become more and more the norm. Our entire economy is based on HOPE if you think about. Nothing backs our money since we left the Gold Standard, except hope and faith. That's really what caused our current crisis. The greed of the power-brokers drove everything to the point where it was no longer possible to BELIEVE that something was worth what some balance sheet somewhere claimed it was. Without that belief everything crumbled. We need to strip power from the lawmakers, the lobbyists, Wall Street and the lawyers and return it to where it was intended to be...with WE THE PEOPLE. I believe in that flag that is visible in this picture...a flag that promises that we are indivisible and offer liberty and justice for all...