Joan Chittister on world debt

From Where I Stand by Joan Chittister, September 9, 2004 Joan is better known to me as a writer on matters of spiritual growth and development. So I ws delighted to see this article on the debt issue and that it is from a USAmerican perspective: certainly helped me to understand the cultural background that needs to be understood in order to communicate the issues effectively. In that way it's quite a good meditation on practical hermeneutics and communication.
Here's the telling bit, I think:
"What we are inclined to forget is that we also had the open land and slave labor that made it possible. We had new immigrant populations and investment monies. We had vast and incomparable natural resources.
We forget that those are what enabled us to take a land rich in natural resources and make ourselves even richer.
Which is exactly why we don't understand international debt. "

One of the things I have been doing over the last few years following closer contacts with USAmericans through a diocesan link between Bradford in the UK and the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia over there, is learning more USAmercan history and finding that there are things about it that explain a lot. I got that feeling from this article.

Then the other good thing she does is to tell a story in terms of western porpoerty ownership and work that helps to understand how international debt comes about and how there are built in unfairnesses.