EVERY city in america has it's poor section, kept from the rich section

[mopaul]

it's always been that way. i grew up in east st. louis, illinois where it's very apparent. the slaves were kept on the east side of the mississippi, and the rich white folks on the west side in missouri. st. louis, mo., and east st. louis, illinois.

katrina simply revealed what i've always known

[China_cat]

1. This says it well

From a long time ago: Woody Guthrie

http://www.woodyguthrie.org/biography/woodysez.htm

[orpupilofnature57]

2. It's called Other Side of the tracks,Shrub wants to do that to our Country

Except with religion and politics.

[noneopirates]

3. Here is where shrubs base is homesteading their spoils

The $24 mil home mentioned in this article is one or two houses north of the Donahue home at which George held his pre-fraudulent election fundraiser in Southern Florida, on the beach.

http://www.naplesnews.com/npdn/news/article/0,2071,NPDN_14940_4089510,00.html

Deep-pocketed buyers steering Naples market clear of bust talk
By GINA EDWARDS, [e-mail]
September 18, 2005

When home prices hit the outer stratosphere, the number of potential buyers admittedly shrinks. But the Naples luxury market is still in boom mode, local agents say, despite forecasts of a housing bubble that some predict eventually must burst.

A slowdown?

"I just don't see it," said Bill Earls, an agent for John R. Wood, who specializes in ultra-high-end homes.

Earls had a $20 million month in July and said, "I think I've topped that out in August."

The $24.8 million Gordon Drive estate of billionaire Campbell Soup heiress Dorrance H. Hamilton flew off the market in less than a week when it was listed in May. That sent tongues wagging in real estate circles.

[newyawker99]

10. Hi noneopirates!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[ktowntennesseedem]

4. Two Americas - John Edwards nailed it. -nt

[KharmaTrain]

5. The Hidden Elephant In Every City

Those are those areas that people are told to "stay away from". Be it Compton and South Central in LA, the Bronx in New York, the West Side of Chicago and so on. These people have been boxed into the deepest parts of the inner city and unless there's a riot or catastrphone, most Americans don't want to see them nor care about the conditions they live under. Every problem is there fault, and those who are trying to make their lives better are "bleeding hearts " or "nigger lovers".

What I'm seeing now is the gentrification of some of the older neighborhoods in Chicago. Areas that were lovely homes 100 years ago that became "slums" for blacks and hispanics is now being bought by yuppies...and the poor, once again, are forced out of an area they can't afford to live in and pushed out of sight out of mind.

It's sad how many whites in this country...especially those who live in or near a major city can't realize how bad things have gotten in America for tax paying American citizens.

[whistle]

6. That's correct and every republican believes that the poor are

...that way by choice, that they deserve all the misery they bring upon themselves and that helping them in any way, just gives them more incentive to be lazy and be an economic and social burden on the rest of society.

Just to prove that the republicans and neo-conservatives are totally correct in this, they and the Prez frat-boy have been systematically and deliberately un-installing as many social and poverty safety net programs for the poor, the elderly and the disabled as they could in the last 50 months.

De-funding Social Security will be the crowning moment for the neo-cons who will demonstrate by that accomplishment that real Americans will pull themselves up out of the economic cesspool of liberal/socialist (uhmm, I think I've also heard that these programs are actually communistic in nature) subsidized poverty and welfare. Every true American will begin earning their true place in the ownership society, one minimum wage hour at a time. Children with the entrepreneurial spirit at any age (maybe as early as 8 or 9 years old) will adapt the enterprising spirit of frontier America and will earn their own keep after loosing one or both parents, instead of being a burden to tax payers by receiving that dastardly monthly social security check. This will most certainly breed the next Bill Gates, Orville Redenbaucker and Kentucky (KFC) Colonel, eh.

Oh, and all that property these new entrepreneurial Americans will accumulate, will be passed on their children, tax free when they die, just like the current privileged class of ultra-rich are doing now. No government redistribution programs.....just Big Poppa's plantation wealth, out-sourced overseas slave labor manufacturing factories and other non-taxable assets protected forever from liberal/social government confiscation disguised as graduated taxes.

What will keep the economy going for all of these entrepreneurs? Why consumers will. Those who have ownership will consume so that the rest may work to accommodate their consumption needs. And as wages fall and the taxes on those wages disappear, even the poorest in society will consume something with the meager tax-free income they earn. As for the wretched poor, well they never knew how to handle money anyway. So they'll be much happier with the scraps they get by with then with those welfare checks which buy them only misery.

Those who aren't willing to work, well there won't be any work for them. Bush will make sure of that also by telling everyone that the unemployment rate of 5.3% is really full-employment, even though he know st hat the real unemployment rate is twice the officially reported rate.

The most ambitious in society will work two, three even four jobs, reaping their rewards. They rest being lazy by nature, well they can just scratch out a survival existence, or die. That about covers it. If you are rich now, you will remain that way. If you are poor now, you'll remain that way also. If you are middle class and able-bodied, work you ass off or become subject to the plight of the lazy poor. You get exactly what you deserve.

[B Calm]

7. I made a delivery to a business on Natural Bridge Road once.

I could have sworn I left the United States after getting off I-70. Kings Highway is another wonderful section of town. Two street gangs chasing each other pulled into the parking lot where I was delivering at and sprayed the side of the store with bullets.

[Missy M]

8. Poverty is a vicious cycle. It is cruel and many times almost....

impossible to climb out of without the help of our government. I don't think there is a single person who wants to live in poverty. I'm sure everyone would love a shiny new car, a nice house, nice clothes, good food, a good education, a nice family, so don't tell me it is their fault, it is all there for them just for the taking. It is simply not true, not in this world. I do think it can be changed to some extent by the help of others.

[teryang]

9. The plutocrats export industry and import cheap foreign labor

It's a formula for economic, social and political diaster.

[tuckessee]

11. Not my town!

Well, not much longer. The city is using eminent domain to run out scores of families in the black city sections.

They also have another eminent domain project which is destroying a historically black farming community in the county.

[Armstead]

12. True. It is amazing that we have "suddenly" recoginzed this

Katrina didn't "reveal" anything that wasn't already obvious to the naked eye.

This sudden discovery by the media, politicians and the general public that there are poor people in America is just the usual frenzy about a particular problem that lasts a few weeks after a disaster.

[patdem]

13. mopaul, here is my contribution...thanks for the opportunity!

poverty

The rodents and roaches are attracted to it
they always find cavernous passages
into the walls of the run down tenements
and dilapidated dwellings.
They follow the path of least resistance-
those pests.
No expensive poisons laid in their way
but the sweet pungent smell
of yeast and barley beckons them welcome.
And they are here to greet me
when I too
join the ever burgeoning ranks
of the working poor -
paying more for less until I give all for naught.
Then what?
enlarge the holes and join the scavenger pests?
The sound of it surrounds me -
the car in need of a muffler-become-luxurious
rumbles it's way down the street.
My own car
endeavoring to sound like an aviary
under attack by an army of cats.
Human voices -
not of playful children's
unrestrained laughter
but of emasculated adults
begging to be heard -
even by the powerless.
And every night
the human inhabitants fight -
as if to proclaim their existence
each to the other
and their rising voices
take on the characteristics
of a heart monitor
attached to a corpse.
(loud, flat, hopeless)
the gunfire -
never followed
by the anticipated sirenes-
only cadavers
are favored with the blue light special
in these-
the hospice neighborhoods
where all those afflicted
with terminal poverty
can fill the back wards of the city -
inconspicuous,
unobtrusive.
Replete with pain killers
(cocaine, alcohol, crack)
and screams of the hopeless
and blood
and fear.

[Lars39]

14. And also many black communities had by-passes constructed

thru them that effectively killed off their businesses.