I picked up this piece from Facing South entitled: Poverty: The Katrina Dialogue That Never Happened
As I have known about poverty most of my life, and sans Betts’ being with me, I’d be in deep poop as far as economic rungs go. The Disabled and the Elderly get shit from the so-called “Social Contract” in this country. I can understand, but not like it: we are not that productive for the economy and we are on our way “out”.
But… when it comes to the topic of the working poor, I cannot understand the Guvmit’s actions at all. Who the Hell is gonna pull your latte, mow your grass, stock the stores in the middle of the night if they are all dead from starvation and disease? Neo-con fucks don’t get it: they need these people in order to have their easy lives.
The Bushite regime discusses the Goal of Prosperity. I ask, “For Whom?”. Many folks like me aren’t into the game of getting rich. The goal of living is a Spiritual thing: people you meet, acts of kindness, the discovery/learning of things… The problem is that all people in this country deserve a living wage, and then let them decide what prosperity means to them.
I’m not going to rant all over the place on this topic, not right now. Please look at the links, read them, then study the map below. Notice that persistant poverty seems to be through many of the Red states? A living wage could conceivably turn those states Blue. Think about it. It could also change New Orleans.
Poverty forced its way to the top of President Bush’s agenda in the confusing days after Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast and flooded New Orleans. Confronted with one of the most pressing political crises of his presidency, Bush, who in the past had faced withering criticism for speaking little about the poor, said the nation has a solemn duty to help them.
“All of us saw on television, there’s . . . some deep, persistent poverty in this region,” he said in a prime-time speech from New Orleans’s Jackson Square, 17 days after the Aug. 29 hurricane. “That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action.”
As it happened, poverty’s turn in the presidential limelight was brief. Bush has talked little about the issue since the immediate crisis passed, while pursuing policies that his liberal critics say will hurt the poor. He has publicly mentioned domestic poverty six times since giving back-to-back speeches on the issue in September. Domestic poverty did not come up in his State of the Union address in January, and his most recent budget included no new initiatives directed at the poor.
Tony Snow, the president’s press secretary, said Bush is unlikely to invoke poverty when he addresses the national convention of the NAACP today, and instead will focus on opportunities available to everyone. “After all, the goal is prosperity,” Snow said.
Administration officials and outside advisers say education accountability and school choice; home ownership; and efforts to encourage marriage and further revamp welfare by requiring more recipients to work — all efforts Bush supports — ultimately help the poor.
“The Bush administration has had a consistent, forward-looking strategy on poverty,” said Robert E. Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “They have had a consistent effort to raise work levels, reduce out-of-wedlock childbearing and promote marriage.”