General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe "War" on Poverty (& other issues) Never Ends When Appeasement is the Goal
Excerpts below are taken from a very timely interview at Real News, especially since the darn war on poverty just keeps on keeping on, if it sounds like it could be a statement from the 60's, it may be because the 60's war on poverty is with us today. Only today, the war on poverty involves promise zones, but in the end, it just may be that the reason history repeats itself is plain and simple, we just don't learn from past mistakes, or perhaps the issues never get solved, they only mutate and we use different labels.
Today, more than any other time, it seems the only transparency we are getting is the harsh reality we are finally seeing through.
We understand solutions offered are sometimes only concessions. We are offered the appearance of dealing with issues. How could that be? As always, one looks to the winners and the losers, follow the money.
Who is enjoying unprecedented wealth during the harshest times, perhaps second only to the Great Depression?
Why would SCOTUS declare personhood for corporations? So many questions.
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http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11302
The War On Poverty Was Aimed at Quieting The Popular Movements of the 60's
FORD: Well, of course they were concessions. We don't get these kinds of programs unless we agitate. Often we don't get the kind of programs and response that we ask for, but the kind of response that state thinks will quiet us down. And so we had a mix of those kinds of programs during the '60s in what is broadly called the war on poverty.
And I think we ought to make a distinction between programs like Medicare and Medicaid and some very targeted programs that were designed to tamp down feelings and tempers in the ghetto. And those were the kinds of programs that we saw, that were quite visible on the streets--the new storefront community operations that were subsidized by the government or by cooperating philanthropic organizations or by intermediate kinds of groups like the Urban League. And so you saw a kind of established storefront politics appear on the city streets of many, especially, big northern cities. And these were designed to do what you were directly addressing, and that is appease the young folks on the streets, get them--the idea was to get them involved in responsible community activities that would deal with basic social ills in the community, not for them to become highly political and agitators, that the appeasement was designed to keep them from becoming wildcards in the community.
FORD: He does not address poverty, not with government direct intervention. All of his proposals for jobs actually are bundles of tax incentives, ways of luring businessmen to do that which they do not want to do, which is to invest in factories, to invest in the kind of enterprises that would lead to a generally higher living standard, invest in anything that would require the larger compensation to workers. So President Obama has a totally privatized approach.
If we compare it to what--look in hindsight to the gargantuan efforts of the '60s, it's no approach whatsoever. During this period of the '60s, the state was really experimenting as it confronted a people who were concerned not just about the bread-and-butter issues of life, but much more intensely about the meaning of self-determination. In fact, it was a turn that people were discovering. And they were trying to figure out, well, what does that mean in terms of my relationship to my community and my community's relationship to the larger society and the state? And so they experimented during the '60s to divert or appease this rising tide of black independent political thought.
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I post the above because so many here at DU are accused of being haters, when what we are truly attempting is for a better understanding of the little victories. Who here does not applaud victories, no matter how small? There comes a time, however, when we grow in understanding and see that perhaps the little victories hamper the larger victories.
Who here does not strive for those larger victories? Please ask yourself that before you rush to denigrate dissenters amongst dissent. Our voices are important, let's ask these questions of ourselves and each other.
Skeeter Barnes
(994 posts)Their function is to prevent radical change that the working class really needs, as Howard Zinn would say. Unions are all us workers have left. That is the only way we can really fight poverty.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Mine! Mine! All Mine!
Like cartoon villains.
How absurdly banal they are in the end.