Quote of note:
A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population - the highest percentage in the developed world. They are found from the hills of Kentucky to Detroit's streets, from the Deep South of Louisiana to the heartland of Oklahoma. Each year since 2001 their number has grown.
37 million poor hidden in the land of plenty
Americans have always believed that hard work will bring rewards, but vast numbers now cannot meet their bills even with two or three jobs. More than one in 10 citizens live below the poverty line, and the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening
Paul Harris in Kentucky
Sunday February 19, 2006
The Observer
The flickering television in Candy Lumpkins's trailer blared out The Bold and the Beautiful. It was a fantasy daytime soap vision of American life with little relevance to the reality of this impoverished corner of Kentucky.
The Lumpkins live at the definition of the back of beyond, in a hollow at the top of a valley at the end of a long and muddy dirt road. It is strewn with litter. Packs of stray dogs prowl around, barking at strangers. There is no telephone and since their pump broke two weeks ago Candy has collected water from nearby springs. Oblivious to it all, her five-year-old daughter Amy runs barefoot on a wooden porch frozen by a midwinter chill.
It is a vision of deep and abiding poverty. Yet the Lumpkins are not alone in their plight. They are just the negative side of the American equation. America does have vast, wealthy suburbs, huge shopping malls and a busy middle class, but it also has vast numbers of poor, struggling to make it in a low-wage economy with minimal government help.
A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population - the highest percentage in the developed world. They are found from the hills of Kentucky to Detroit's streets, from the Deep South of Louisiana to the heartland of Oklahoma. Each year since 2001 their number has grown.
Under President George W Bush an extra 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line. Yet they are not a story of the unemployed or the destitute. Most have jobs. Many have two. Amos Lumpkins has work and his children go to school. But the economy, stripped of worker benefits like healthcare, is having trouble providing good wages.
Even families with two working parents are often one slice of bad luck - a medical bill or factory closure - away from disaster. The minimum wage of $5.15 (£2.95) an hour has not risen since 1997 and, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest since 1956. The gap between the haves and the have-nots looms wider than ever. Faced with rising poverty rates, Bush's trillion-dollar federal budget recently raised massive amounts of defence spending for the war in Iraq and slashed billions from welfare programmes.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Newsvine
Furl
Google
Yahoo
No.
No.
Prob'ly not. The white
Prob'ly not.
The white people who really should realize this are convinced that life is a win-or-lose proposition. To them, black folks gain only when white folks lose.
The white people who really
The white people who really should realize this are convinced that life is a win-or-lose proposition. To them, black folks gain only when white folks lose.
You are being kind. I think that their disdain for black folks at this point can appropriately be described as being almost visceral. They don't believe that black folks should have anything; anything at all.
What so curious about the
What so curious about the dilemma faced by these folks is that similarly inclined people voted overwhelmingly for Bush/Cheney. According to the American Prospect of one issue ago, whites with only high school educations and lower middle class incomes, voted in the majority for this current crew in DC. That is, in effect, voted against their own self interest. But, as the old saying goes, "at least they are not Black." Huh?
I'm thinking of those folks
I'm thinking of those folks in West Virginia who have been hurt recently by fires and other fatal mishaps in the coal mines. I realize that it is unfair to describe these people as being racist especially when I have no objective evidence that would support my suspicions or allegations. I am continually puzzled, however, as to why or how these folks and their family members, friends and fellow town members can knowingly vote for someone like Goerge Bush and they did it not once but twice. And Bush rewards their loyalty by appointing a former mining industry executive to oversee the safety standards of the mines and I find it difficult to believe these folks and the United Mine Workers Union are not aware of this fact.
There were articles that
There were articles that year that suggested that those people who voted against their economic interests were ignoring that factor in favor of a seeming religious/moral connection. They view this administration as having similar values. They love the fact that this president speaks openly that he is Christian.
They don't seem to evaluate things deeply enough to realize how hypocritical some of that crew are. Nor were they able to see through the "gosh golly I'm jest a cowboy" act of Bush. Some people will vote against anything they percieve as a threat to their world view. If they percieve a challenge to what they see as their "rightful place' they will react. The other sad thing is that many small business owners (that are TRULY small businesses, not those that just fall under SBA's def. of less than 500 employees) think that the politicians are including them when they say their are fighting for the interests of small business people. The business that are benefiting from the legislation being passed are those that are a. larger than the local roof repair/HVAC/family restaurant and b. those that have family and business wealth that is tied up in assets.
It is an unfortunate that it is so easy for the rich multinational corporate interests to divide people to the extent that it is more important to defeat "the other side" than to vote in their self interest. Some people cannot tolerate nor resolve cognitive dissonance -- they'd ather ignore it.
White men with a high school
White men with a high school education gave George Bush 27 percent more of their votes than they did to John Kerry. White women with only a high school education gave 21 percent more of their votes to Bush than to Kerry. What I find interesting about these statistics is not what it reveals about the behavior of high school educated white voters but what it implies about the level of consensus among black voters regardless of education, income and social class. Populist cultural appeals have worked well for the Republican Party since 1968 but these appeals have not succeeded in wooing black voters from the Democratic Party.
Faced with their overwhelming and persistent failure to move even 20 percent of the country's largest bloc of minority voters to vote for Republican candidates, the GOP is now running black candidates like, for example, Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania, whose only real appeal to black voters is the color of his skin and, perhaps, memories of his prowess on the gridiron.
So this disjointed state of
So this disjointed state of affairs begs a few kwestins on the intrapolitical level. Not the first time it's been engaged either.
Personally, reflection on this subject has prompted me - just this week - to consent to the establishment of a digital media technologies club - in a hood that is not my own. If I see and respond to the need in my own community, on what grounds can I reasonably and ethically withhold these same initiatives from little white kids, especially if their parents and teachers are asking for leadership in this direction and stepping up to the plate with time, resources, infrastructure, etc...,
The model is decidedly black partisan and afrofuturistic - at the same time leaning heavily on the use of open source tools and technologies which are not. As KellyG said;
To which I respond with my digital, two turntables and microphone.....,