Will People Now Wake Up Concerning Poverty?

[BamaLefty]

Or will it continue to be just our vast liberal conspiracy to help heal the sick, feed the hungry and clothe the naked?

Anyone who has been to Louisiana and Mississippi has seen the poverty. This disaster, though, shows how many poor people were sitting there helpless as this storm rolled over them.

This is an extremely wealthy country. A lot of the reason 9/11 happened was that a group of people half a world away from us believed we had an unfair share of the wealth and power. Revolutionary leaders are persuading recruits, many from desperate conditions, that our wealth and power are in part confiscated from them, that we exploit them and help their corrupt political leaders stay in power. It was and continues to be a very saleable argument, and we have had no policy response whatsoever. Save to invade the heart of Islam, which endeared us literally to no one.

Even in our own country there are large numbers of people living in desperate conditions. Maybe an event like this one will call attention to the widening gap between rich and poor in our own back yard.

The real opportunity here is to root out the corruption that has ruled much of the Louisiana business sector for 150 years, and rebuild the economy from the ground up. Graft and corruption have kept too many people down in the Deep South.

Peace. I'm out.

[Joebert]

1. Get it right

It's a vast liberal conspiracy to take hard working Americans money and give it to poor, lazy people.

:-)

That's how it will be spun, like it always has been.

[Mairead]

2. No, only the poor care about poverty. And the leftist loonies

..who are themselves very often poor!

[BamaLefty]

3. True.

And that's the sad part. Only liberals and the poor themselves are willing to fight for what's right.

The rest (including most of the middle class) side with Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay. Or at least in Alabama they do.

[katsy]

4. No.

Sadly, the people who actually wake up living in poverty every day have no representation in this government.

Name one piece of legislation since reagan that has strengthened the poor or middle class in any substantial manner.

America is beautiful for the haves and have mores. That's the bottom line.

The haves and have mores won. What would make anyone think that the privileged have any concern for anything beyond their next tax cut? Reagan's legacy has been brought to fruition by junior*. With all of the blatent lies, crimes, scandals that we've endured for over 5 years... what has stuck? Not one. Power protects power whether it wears a Democrat or Republican label. It's over. Game Set Match.

An opportunity to rebuild the South and eliminate graft? ROFL! Only the haves and have mores will be able to profit from rebuilding. Aren't they the reason we're in this mess? Land that has been in the hands of the middle class or lower middle class will be foreclosed on when these evacuees can't make their mortgage payments because they can't find jobs or whatever. Who will buy these properties? The haves and have mores.

My rose colored glasses have shattered. Sometimes I think the power players can't wait for the bird flu to come here and wipe out the "unwanted" and "wanted less".

[Wordie]

7. They've introduced legislation to exempt evacuees from some of our more

draconian laws, such as the new federal bankruptcy law...so maybe they should consider giving them protection from losing their property as a result of not having the money to pay the taxes on it.

Unless, of course, all this is part of why the response was so slow.

If you were a NO resident, which would you rather have, protection against draconian bankruptcy laws, or protection against losing your property?

[katsy]

9. Both.

<<<< "If you were a NO resident, which would you rather have, protection against draconian bankruptcy laws, or protection against losing your property?" >>>>


I would probably also want to work in rebuilding my community and expect that the government would pay me a reasonable salary if I'm qualified to do the work.

You raise a troubling point about the slow response. I would venture a guess that the rich & powerful do not gain their power without the innate ability to exploit other people's tragedies.

[Wordie]

13. Well, yes, I guess that really, one without the other would not help.

>>I would venture a guess that the rich & powerful do not gain their power without the innate ability to exploit other people's tragedies.

I think that is true, for the most part, but I doubt that they really are aware they are doing any exploiting. Its just that being rich and powerful provides the opportunity to do so, in a sort of automatic way. (I don't think that rich and powerful people are innately evil, btw. I think it is just the major flaw in human nature that all of us are willing to exploit other's weaknesses. The degree to which we recognize this and control it in ourselves is the degree to which we are or are not evil. But...maybe these musings are better on a philosophy board. Sorry.)

[katsy]

15. FWIW...

We agree that the rich and powerful are not all innately evil nor do they all seize the opportunity to exploit other's weaknesses.

It's just this time, this place, this government that has seized power without any conscious thought to the ramifications of their actions upon society.

I have never witnessed a more amoral pack of thieves. The 1st clue was Halliburton's no bid contracts in Iraq while Iraqis suffered what... a 60% unemployment rate?

To expect anything other than getting your pocket picked by this pack of criminals is unrealistic.

[Wordie]

18. I'm 100% with you there, Katsy. N/T

[realFedUp]

5. Hope they also wake up to how we've treated others in the world

Many world citizens have died, suffered, lived
with no clean water, electricity, food and without
loved ones at our hands.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Totally Committed]

6. Poverty is one of the biggest reasons I abhor the DLC and the RNC...

No safety nets need apply. Let the poor fend for themselves. And so on. Corporatism is the biggest bugaboo tempting us away from doing the right thing for our fellow human beings. We must resist it.

If we care about the least of our bretheren, it is the least we can do.

The biggest shocker (and the saddest day) of the Clinton Administration was the day he signed the Welfare Reforms Act, as it had been negotiated. Even NAFTA didn't hit me as hard.

We must take care of our poor better than this, my friends -- there but for one lousy paycheck go you and I!

TC

[katsy]

10. Take care of them?

I'm all for that.

But it's imperative to do one better: Get the poor registered to vote and get them to the polls on election day. NOTHING is more important than that and getting them to vote for Democrats.

If that can be accomplished... maybe we can start weeding the dinos out of office next.

[AJH032]

11. The DLC isn't that bad

They may be the moderate wing of this party, but they're certainly not against the idea of federal assistance to those who need it. Most DLCers are in favor of expanding health care and saving social security, for example. I think it's unfair to put the DLC and the RNC in the same category, even if you disagree with them.

[txaslftist]

8. I wanna be a conspirator!

If the conspiracy is to help heal the sick, feed the hungry and clothe the naked.

I mean, call me a radical and all...

[ulysses]

12. it's an American birthright

to not have to care about the poor.

[[e-mail]]

14. no they see this crap and

will get worse

[Ericmaxey]

17. just give them more money

at least a 100k a year, thats the only way to break the poverty cycle. Or maybe it will just continue to increase dependency. A friend of mine is advocating that throwing so much money around has destroyed the black family structure, he makes some good points.