Bobby Blah Blog

My Blog today was more to get something off my chest for myself.  I pass it  along and warn you now it isn't  so cherry.  It may not actually make any sense, and forgive me if i have taken up your valuable time.

 I read an interesting article in the English version of a Philly (Philippine) newspaper the other day and it has struck in my "craw" the last couple of days.  "Incidentally does anyone really know what a craw really is?" A.R.  I will pass on the idea of the article because it makes you think/understand, and I sincerely hope I understand his point of the USA being such a great country.

The article's title, remember this is by a newspaper writer who is Philippine, was titled "Why I think America is still great!!"  He started to write about some of the recent failur

es of the USA under the Bush

administration, and I thought this should be interesting.  He quickly turned the tide to the embarrassing  

differences in the way tax money  in the USA and Philly are used for.  He said what makes the USA a great country is that tax money is to help directly and indirectly the people and the infrastructure of the country.  Schools, roads, elderly, the needy, medical care, all are accepted and expected uses of taxpayers taxes.  He pointed out of course, as we all know there are failures to all of this but in most cases tax money is used for the "good of the people".

In the Philippines, you don't know that the continued economic failure, (Philippines was the only Asian country that did not experience a recent period of growth, i.e. Korea, Viet Nam , China) as I have learned, heard and read in numerous places, is due to the excepted corruption of the economic system

from the President down to the local street cop conducting routine traffic stops.  If you don't put 40 or 50 bucks with your license when presenting it to a cop for a routine stop, don't expect it back till you show at the police station.  To wait in line for six or seven hours to retrieve your license is common practice.

In the article the writer said that politicians in the Philippines feel that tax money allocated to them is there money and there god given right to do with it as they wish.  Anyone sent to investigate allegations of wrong doing quickly report back all is Kosher.  

Millions of children are starving in the Philippines.  Millions of children go with out medicine and many die from what are common very treatable ailments.  A twenty-six year old woman told me she has a very painful cyst in her breast, that her Dr. advised her to have it removed.  I asked her what he will do?  She said, "I just won't think about it, I'm not going to die tomorrow, and all the money that I have, I need to feed my family."