October 26, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

THE REALITY OF POVERTY

Right-wing think tanks, their mouthpieces in the media, and the average beer belly right-winger love to ostracize the poor. If you're poor, the story goes, it's your own fault. You're lazy, you're stupid, you don't plan ahead, you drink or use drugs, you're promiscuous, and so on. The Horatio Alger myth of rags to riches should have died a long time ago, but it serves the power elite for people to buy into the idea that success in the United States is based on merit. This article by Alyssa Katharine Ritz Battistoni is at www.thenation.com:

There are some who would point out that poor people in America are still rich by world standards, that compared with the 1 billion people who live on the oft-repeated "dollar a day," they are doing pretty well for themselves. It's certainly true that those of us who live in this country are very lucky to do so. But a key aspect of evaluating poverty is considering the ability to participate in one's society, and that is growing increasingly difficult for poor Americans to do.

The opportunities and choices available to low-income individuals and families are so different from those available to their wealthy and even middle-class counterparts that they might as well be living in another country. You're more likely to get sent to Iraq, more likely to go to jail, more likely to have an unplanned child, more likely to have asthma from breathing polluted air if you're poor. More likely to have to choose between paying for food (none of that organic stuff, either) and medical treatment, less likely to get adequate care if you choose the latter. Pointing out that there are still people in the world who are worse off in an absolute sense does not absolve us of the responsibility to address our own country's need.