Theres a third-world America that no one notices

[JonLP24]

By Parker Abt
November 22, 2017 at 12:00 PM

Parker Abt is a research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Americans in Puerto Rico have spent weeks without reliable access to clean water, electricity and cellphone service. The conditions on the ground remain deplorable, with shattered homes and damaged infrastructure everywhere.

But what if hundreds of thousands of Americans lived in these conditions for generations and no one noticed? That's exactly what some border communities in Texas experience on a daily basis: third-world conditions compounded by public and official indifference to their plight.

In the "colonias" of the American Southwest, hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens have lived without running water for decades (not to mention the lack of electricity, sewage treatment and drainage). Homes are built without regard for safety codes or regulations. The result is structures that look like shacks, hastily built by residents with little money and even less construction expertise.

Some colonia houses have dirt floors and fit a full family in a single room. Many families in the colonias live on less than $250 a week. I visited one colonia this past summer where a family showed me the blackened shell of their house, which burned to the ground after firefighters took 30 minutes to arrive at the scene.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/theres-a-third-world-america-that-no-one-notices/2017/11/21/640c4c1a-c499-11e7-aae0-cb18a8c29c65_story.html

[roscoeroscoe]

1. True

I delivered pizzas to the barrios of El Paso

There is stunning poverty in our country. Not hard to find, impossible to forget

[SummerSnow]

2. Wow. Going to read more about LaPresa, Texas

[Nitram]

3. The conservative's credo: "Out of sight, out of mind."

Or the Sergeant Schultz version, "I see nothing. I know nothing,"

[Hortensis]

11. Not out of sight in traditionally red states.

This is an old CDC diagram, but I chose it for its clarifying message. The continental poverty divide The message is geographic, but there's also an extremely strong and obvious correlation of poverty with conservative populations and politics.

And, of course, there is an equally strong correlation of less poverty, dramatically less, with liberal populations and politicians, and their belief that government should be used to promote wellbeing. Everyone's. Progressivism as action, not just a label.

JonLPwr, in gross terms all that blue correlates with long-term liberal progressive patterns that I suggest add up to further proof of "caring."

(Btw, climate extremes tend to make cultures MORE conservative. Problems such as disease (think deep south) make cultures MORE conservative. Poverty itself tends to make cultures MORE conservative. Regional and cultural development crippled by a heritage of slavery and poverty makes cultures MORE conservative. Lots of syndromes go into intractable poverty, but conservatism in voters and politicians is a huge factor in the intractable poverty in traditionally conservative parts of our nation.)

[Nitram]

13. "...climate extremes tend to make cultures MORE conservative?"

How does that account for Sweden, for example? I suspect generalizations like that are not very useful. Also depends on your definition of conservative. What is your definition of conservative? "Poverty ...tends to make cultures MORE conservative?" What about the French Revolution? The Russian Revolution? Liberation theology in Latin America? All three depended on support from the impoverished.

BTW, I based my original comment (out of sight, out of mind) on my personal experience with two extremely conservative middle class parents who never believed there was a recession going on during a Republican administration. They lived in a very rural county in Virginia where the level of poverty was very high. My Mom: "I don't see fewer people in the supermarket. There's no recession."

[alarimer]

5. We could eradicate poverty altogether but we won't.

Unincorporated areas that have no services like water or sewer. There are places in Mississippi where hookworm (which was thought eradicated at one point) is thriving because of poor infrastructure.

In other words, there are pockets of extreme poverty in out of the way places (or even not so out of the way places) that resemble thrid world countries.

This is what Republicans want for all of us.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-lowndes-county-alabama-water-waste-treatment-poverty

Scientists in Houston, Texas, have lifted the lid on one of America’s darkest and deepest secrets: that hidden beneath fabulous wealth, the US tolerates poverty-related illness at levels comparable to the world’s poorest countries. More than one in three people sampled in a poor area of Alabama tested positive for traces of hookworm, a gastrointestinal parasite that was thought to have been eradicated from the US decades ago.

The long-awaited findings, revealed by the Guardian for the first time, are a wake-up call for the world’s only superpower as it grapples with growing inequality. Donald Trump has promised to “Make America Great Again” and tackle the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, but he has said very little about enduring chronic poverty, particularly in the southern states.

[Hortensis]

6. Actually, Hillary's 10-20-30 plan specifically intended to

address these areas. It was initially proposed by Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of SC.

For obvious reasons, when Democrats gain power, the budget we devote to rural development mostly tends to be invested where it will get the most bang for the most people for the buck.

The 10-20-30 formula would dedicate 10% of all rural development funds to those areas where 20% or more of the population have lived below the poverty line for 30 or more years.

So now you know that this article's opening premise, like all the rest of this false equalization of Democrats with the Banana Republicans that is flooding our nation, is at best mistaken, at worst devious propaganda meant to undermine our belief in ourselves.

The Democratic leadership does not just "notice," we have detailed plans to attack long-term poverty in these areas . And will when we have the power to do it.

This would be happening right now around the nation if all those who claim to care about poverty had voted Democrat.

[JonLP24]

7. I think they mean the public by & large

Which I think is fair to say. I have no issues with the headline. Someone else that reported on this topic say it's true that people don't care.

[Hortensis]

8. Then they're wrong, aren't they? These statements ALWAYS

also mean political leaderships and people in government. The people we choose to tend to these matters while we handle the business of daily living.

This article totally failed to point out how strongly the Democratic Party's plans contradict that basic statement. That hugely misleading omission makes it, as I said, at best wrong.

I do agree that, sadly, some of the noisiest on the subject of poverty revealed themselves to be hypocritically uncaring last November. Bernie Sanders, btw, did officially support the 10-20-30 plan, but of course it could not be implemented if Democrats were not elected to the White House and congress.

[JonLP24]

9. I think it is fair to say there is official indifference

Particularly when it comes to Texas Republicans and state governments are the ones that can do more or less much more than the federal government.

I applaud the author for shining a light on this issue.

[Hortensis]

10. And I think you need to let loose of a lie if "official" means

the leadership of our Democratic Party, as well as the leadership of the Banana Republicans. I've proven that false with only one specific example, but of course there are many others, including some you and the author of this piece could produce, such as the very ambitious plan to create economic viability in beautiful Appalachian coal country so families could remain and prosper.

Here's James Clyburn's statement: https://clyburn.house.gov/10-20-30-amendment . Among other things, he established a program that allowed electric cooperatives to to make low-interest loans to their members to retrofit and weatherize their homes. Many Democratic reps around the nation react to the problems of their constituents with this kind of action, and always have. It's progressivism as action, rather than just a label.

Hillary alone promoted 10-20-30 and many other plans meant to alleviate poverty all over the nation as she campaigned for 2 years. Why doesn't this author know any of this?

Do YOU know what WE, through the Democratic Party, intended to do for the increasing numbers of people trapped in the poverty spiral of 24/7 eldercare? They're hidden people, isolated, single, 7 out of every 10 women, often alone in the world but also too often exploited by their own families.

Those of us who paid attention know.

But this year many aging caregivers will STILL be immediately ordered from the only homes they have by probate courts, instant homelessness after devoting decades of their lives, and usually their own retirement savings, to caring for a needy parent who leaves his property to be split among a number of descendants.

It didn't have to be that way, and believe me, some of us care.

[JonLP24]

12. I was talking about Texas Republicans

Who are in charge of the state.