Half of America in poverty, RIGHT...

[snooper2]

Tell that to these guys---

[YoungDemCA]

1. Not sure I follow

What's the point of this thread?

[xchrom]

2. Our poor aren't poor - cause they don't live in sewed.

Nt

[HiPointDem]

15. +1. The right wing take on poverty; you're not poor unless your living conditions are

like those of the poor in victorian england.

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. To repeat a favorite Reich-wing talking point. n/t

[Cobalt Violet]

3. Okay, anyone not living in a sewer is not living in poverty.

[me b zola]

4. I know. A disgusting thread...and line of thought

Wish the poster would walk (limp) a mile in my shoes, they may have a different POV

[snooper2]

9. I've been poor, dirt poor...

Like, we had to catch a fish to eat and no electric for a year...

I know what government cheese is all about-

That other thread painting our current economic conditions as really just fucking miserable is pathetic.

[Gormy Cuss]

10. You know what government cheese is all about?

Subsidizing dairy farmers.

[me b zola]

11. The fact that you have been dirt poor does not mean that you have walked in my shoes

The inability for empathy/ curiosity to understand those whose circumstances are different is hurtful to society...and people.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

6. Well, that's refreshing to know. There are no poor people in this country....

....because other countries have poor people living in sewers.

Gotcha.

[bunnies]

7. Eating out of fucking dumpsters isnt poor enough for you?

Getting by on some measly government ration isnt poor enough for you?
Foregoing needed healthcare because people cant afford it is poor enough for you?
Have you EVER been poor?

WTF?!

[OneGrassRoot]

8. Trust me, if many of the Limbaugh listeners, Fox viewers and Koch Bros, et al...

could get away with driving liberals, and those living and working in poverty into a sewer, and then overtly try to kill us while there, they would.

Actually, not all but many of those thriving -- versus those struggling to survive each day -- would like to get rid of those of us who are struggling.

We're messy. We're inconvenient. We get in the way.

We threaten THEIR STUFF and their ability to get MORE STUFF.

There are too many people on this earth competing for space and resources, so people dying, however it occurs, is viewed as a good thing by many people of all ideologies, not just right-wingers.

Edit to add: Ditto to what those above me posted as well.

[Liberal Veteran]

12. While it is a lesson in contrast, people still go hungry and cold in the US.

And that is a terrible thing.

We can and should do better.

Unfortunately, this line of thought of comparison poverty is more often taken as a reason for apathy to the problems in our own back yard and ultimately do nothing but arm those who are looking for a reason to ignore the problems facing our country rather than as a call to action to lift our standards.

It is like the textile mills closing in small towns in the US because the company can make better profit producing these goods in Bangladesh paying terrible wages.

Our reaction shouldn't be, "Well, at least we have labor laws and minimum wage". It should be, how are we going to fix the fact that a town in the US was decimated and people who were previously scraping by are now forced to make do with increasingly stingy safety nets that leave so many caught in a cycle of generational poverty.

[sabrina 1]

13. Why tell it to those guys? Tell it these guys, right here in the US. Otoh, I suppose if you have

access to a tent, that makes you not poor, right?


Homeless Tent Cities in Silicon Valley's Backyard

http://vimeo.com/63373007

More 'not poor' Americans who are so wealthy they don't live in sewers, they live in tents, a growing trend now as unemployment and foreclosures and Wall St. corruption create more and more poverty in the US:

[link:http://www.businessinsider.com/lakewood-new-jersey-homeless-tent-city-2011-9#this-is-ninas-shanty-7|AMERICA TODAY: Heartbreaking Pictures From New Jersey's Homeless 'Tent City'

]



But these are the lucky ones, they are not living in sewers or under bridges or on the sidewalks like the people I saw in Ventura Co. CA eg, or NY City.

Hey, we are one of the richest countries in the world so our growing homeless population probably has a sort of 'middle class homeless' such as those lucky enough to be living in the spreading Tent Cities!

46 million Americans now live below the poverty line, one in five US children go to sleep hungry every day. BELOW the poverty line, that's one fifth of the population and doesn't include the numbers living on or just above the poverty line. That is just the most poverty stricken.

So yes, it is believable that half the country is poor.

But so long as they don't live in sewers, so long as they have a shopping cart and a sleeping bag etc, according to Rush and Fox anyhow, they should not be complaining because some people have to live in sewers in non-first world countries. I love right wing logic. Unbelievable.

How about we compare ourselves to other DEVELOPED countries? Why always the comparisons to countries that are so much in need of reform, economic and otherwise? Didn't we already get past that stage here, or are you confirming that we DO compare now to countries from which people used to come here to make better lives for themselves, because of our Liberal, Human Rights policies which did prevail over the regressive, far right draconian ideas that poverty is fine so long as they are okay??

[Arugula Latte]

14. A sickening factor in U.S. poverty is the difference between what is possible

and what we actually do. This country started in a very different place than Columbia, but it has squandered untold wealth and resources. And for what? The military-industrial complex. There's no reason we shouldn't have had close to zero homelessness, universal healthcare and the best public education and free university system in the world. But no. Corporations took over everything, enriched the very top, and fucked over millions.

[SomethingFishy]

16. Plenty of Americans living in sewers too..

The drainage system under Las Vegas is almost a small city in itself.


Too many Americans are too fucking blind.