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THE INVISIBLE POOR - I don't honestly believe that most Americans lack compassion. I still believe that people are basically good at heart. The new tricknology, as far as I'm concerned, is that contact with the poor has been taken away.
An article by Barbara Ehrenreich (yeah, I know, *another* radical like myself) expresses it quite eloquently, I think. You can read her thoughts on it here.
Now be aware that Ms. Ehrenreich and I don't agree on everything. I still consider her much more a child of the privileged class, and their sentiments, than I shall ever be. I also disagree with her about the quality of the American worker.
In my view, Americans are among the world's least educated, lowest skilled, and completely duped populations on the planet.
- Americans do not have the benefit of actual exposure to different cultures --- what's the latest stat? About 16% of our population even have passports?
- Americans have invested less money in educational resources per child than any industrialized nation over the last twenty years.
- Americans have the highest child poverty rate of ANY industrialized nation.
- Americans do not have the benefit which workers brought in from abroad can evidence of a spiritual underpinning to their lives, *actual* family values, or any sign that they know the difference between citizenship and consumerism. Welcome to the Gold Mountain.
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I would just be darned interested in hearing what *valid* counter-arguments you have to raise.
Not to start on another rant here, but I can give you chapter and verse from DOCUMENTS PROVIDED BY OUR OWN GOVERNMENT to back up my assertions. So I shall expect you to do the same.
And that brings me back to my core issue about poverty in America.
My core issue is that we TOTALLY UNDER-REPORT the level of poverty in our country so that the rich, and what remains of a genuine middle class, doesn't have to face the facts. By my estimates, at least 30% of our population lives in poverty. I didn't stutter: I said 30%.
But we have rendered them invisible.
Sure, in certain cities, you still see the homeless, the crazies thrown out of our former mental institutions who haven't been bussed out of town --- but how many of those who can afford to get away live in cities in America anymore?
Most folks live in the suburbs where the cops give the truly poor the bum's rush.
Among the more congenial reasons for moving to the suburbs is to get away from "them."
In American today, "them" is not just People of Color anymore.... "Them" is the poor, the insane, the violent, all the people that we don't want to have to confront who represent the unpleasantness of the society we have created.
"Them" is the people we have rendered without hope.
Them is the people we wish were not there, and so we have worked, conspiciously, to make invisible.
That, too, is part of being an Evil Empire....
RDR RECOMMENDED SITE OF THE DAY: Here's another great article over at the American Prospect that might make you think! Enjoy!
