What’s happening to poor is warning to us all

[dajoki]

What’s happening to poor is warning to us all
Jesse Jackson [e-mail] November 14, 2011 7:58PM
Updated: November 15, 2011 1:20PM
http://www.suntimes.com/news/jackson/8823042-452/whats-happening-to-poor-is-warning-to-us-all.html

The canary does not soar like an eagle. It doesn’t mark the change of seasons like a swallow. But the delicate canary captures the attention of the hardest miners, for it warns of impeding danger. When the canary keels over, miners run, realizing that the atmosphere is becoming a threat to life.

For societies, it is the poor who are the canary, warning of conditions dangerous to the economy and to life. Sadly, we pay less attention to our social canary than miners do theirs. The ads celebrate the lifestyles of the wealthy.

We should listen to the canary in the mine of America for it is now warning us that our economy is dangerously fouled, and our society is suffering lethal conditions. The poor in America are growing in number. More children are being raised in misery. More seniors are forced to choose between food and medicine. As the poor spread, the middle class declines and inequality worsens. The economy doesn’t work when 1 percent of the population captures as much income as the bottom 40 percent.

Evidence assembled by the Poverty, Promise and Possibility Initiative at the University of Chicago demonstrates that poverty is becoming ever more threatening. The percentage of Americans living in “extreme poverty” is growing, reaching the highest level ever recorded. In 2010, more than 20 million Americans, one out of every 15, were living in extreme poverty, defined as those with incomes of 50 percent or less of the poverty level. And now, new poverty measures adopted by the Census Bureau indicate the numbers may be worse than previously noted.

<<snip>>

Yet, even as the poor grow in number, they become ever more isolated. America has outlawed segregation by race — but economic segregation grows ever more entrenched. The “very poor” are increasingly being pushed into “bad neighborhoods.” At least 2.2 million more Americans, a 33 percent jump since 2000, live in neighborhoods where the poverty rate is 40 percent or higher, according to a recent study by the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

If Gandhi was right about poverty being the worst form of violence, then America is becoming a far more violent society

[redqueen]

1. Biggest K&R ever.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. Our country has been turned into a third world nation by Repigs...

and the complicitness of our own representatives.

This is why the OWS movement is all-important.

[sarcasmo]

8. You are correct Sarah.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

9. :( That's what denial and ignorance led us to. (sigh) Hopefully the message is getting out there

and people are waking up.

[dajoki]

10. Its sad but I don't think the message is getting out there n/t

[Sarah Ibarruri]

11. You don't notice the articles out there in the regular media reflecting the damage companies have

done? Reflecting how Congress is bought and paid for by corporate money?

[dajoki]

12. Yes, I do see them...

but that is because I look for them. I think most people don't even bother to keep up with it, they are just trying to scrape by.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

21. So? Did you see them before? I didn't! Get that chin up! Things are changing.

They might not be changing overnight, but we didn't get this screwed up overnight. It took decades. We'll change for the better faster than that.

[dajoki]

26. You mean...

it will take dacades, with an "s" till things turn around. Well at least my grandchildren will have a chance.

[sarcasmo]

16. They have woke up to the bankers now let's see if they will wake up to reality.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

22. Well, people have been pulling their $ out of banks and into credit unions enough to cause

finance papers to publish articles about that.

I know we're all frustrated after 3 decades of Repuke ideology, but, gosh, we need to stop being so depressed that we don't realize that attitudes are changing already.

[stuntcat]

3. k & r

yes :kick:

[baldguy]

4. Compared to the 1%, we're all poor.

[dajoki]

15. True, but...

some of us are poorer than others. People working paycheck to paycheck are probably poor, but what about people with no paycheck or the homeless? I know because right now I am living it.

[OneGrassRoot]

5. Huge K&R n/t

[Hydra]

6. I warned people about economic segregation years ago

But it's so easy to rationalize how people "deserve" the place they reach in society...because of a supposed lack of "hard work."

They don't have to ask for your "papers" if you can't afford to go anywhere.

That's ok, though. There have always been "invisible" people or people who were deemed of less worth by the "worthwhile" people.

We live in a world of illusions.

[Newest Reality]

7. We may look outside for changes ...

We may hope that someone will make it all go well or that change will simply happen. We can root for it and agree with small, positive things happening, or identify with massive protest.

Yet, if we watch and wait and consider change, caring, compassion and charity, (amongst other needed movements of our culture) to be something out there that will happen to others or ourselves, then we may realize that we are voyeurs whose optimism is for some future time. Wishful thinking can be enjoyable and it can be a barrier to the dynamics and numbers that true change for the better of us all requires.

When you are still making it, getting by and not too worried right now about your survival, that is the ripe time to ask yourself, "what about the others?" That is the best way to forge a better security for yourself and those you love and care about. Start there. Be there for a bit. Let what comes, no matter how small, be a step that begins an active journey and wakes you up from the dream/nightmare that this culture calls reality. If you wait too long, you too might be one of the others that did not matter. That's too late for you.

I'm personally at the edge of it all myself, as are many others I have met. My fingernails are still stuck in the mud at the edge of the cliff, and still, I care about others and do my best to be of help and service within limited means. Can you?

You an do this with a selfishness that is good. That is, expanding your idea of self to include others. It feels very good and is its own reward.

[mmonk]

13. This:

If Gandhi was right about poverty being the worst form of violence, then America is becoming a far more violent society

[Downwinder]

14. Everybody is just one step away.

[dajoki]

18. So true n/t

[butterfly77]

17. Kicked&Recommended..

[truedelphi]

19. These words come from a man who single handedly stopped the police from

tearing apart the Occupy WS camp just a few days ago.

Push on Jesse and you get yourself some media coverage, which is something none of these scumbags in riot gear want to have happening.

[dajoki]

23. Exactly n/t

[pmorlan1]

20. Excellent Post

Thank you for posting this. Jesse is right.

[dajoki]

25. Yes he is n/t

[lonestarnot]

24. kick and highly recommend!

[AikidoSoul]

27. People are frightened to even LOOK at poverty. They avert their eyes.

The poor are invisible to the 1% who only look at nice things that make them happy.

[truedelphi]

31. No one is as scared of being poor as the rich.

I have lived with them, worked for them, and they are terrified of the boogie man of socialism (or immigrants or communists) coming and getting it away from them.

[Solly Mack]

28. k/r

[Starry Messenger]

29. k&r

[evrstrong]

30. As someone who lives below the poverty level

it has always bothered me that Obama can only talk about the middle class and the hard times they are going through....

I can't even remember a time that he has used the word poverty, although I read it once in an article. I really have
my doubts as to what his concept of "poverty" is. Does he think we are all illiterate and homeless?