Donna: Your kind heart blinds you to the ugliness that lives inside others. I was surprised that you lauded praise on Ms. Ormond. Why didn't that media pundit for "sound money management" speak up about current pay-scale disparities? Or the sickening gap between the interest banks currently pay on what's left of our savings, and what the credit card usurers take, as their reliable pound of flesh?

Another thing about the limited options the poor get to "select" amongst, takes us to the new deal in the way of decimating public education.Without education, without jobs, poor people will HAVE to turn to crime. Then, the system is set up to punish them intensely for breaking laws that penalize them from the get-go, or lock up for life, those who feel no recourse but to break laws TO survive, thus earning the status of repeat offenders.

If having a "criminal" record includes charges for recreational drug possession, then such persons carry the Scarlet letter and seldom can find employment, especially in financially depressed times like now.

My point is that the system punishes "the least amongst us," and then, when those persons do what they can to survive, they are further punished. The entire scenario is designed to feed human resources into the prison-industrial and/or military-industrial complexes.

Meanwhile, the rich fiddle as our nation, a modern Rome, begins to burn.

From the ashes a more humane way of living will slowly resurrect.

If the poor were listened to many if not most citizens of this grand land would still call it "whining," would quote Candidate Gingrich and tell them to "take a bath and get a job," and would still believe that they're just lazy loafers angling for government handout freebies.

The only reason any of their stories get out there at all is the money-driven mediameisters can tell aw-jerker human interest stories which usually end with depictions of people who have managed to temporarily bootstrap themselves out of the mess they were shoved into. Or one special case that gets televised with follow-up stories about all the help that came pouring in from people who were touched by their situation, but abused animals do better than suffering people at that.

Even Jesus there was no way there could never be a population of poor. See Mark 14:7.

poor is a dishonest word...it implies a natural standard or wealth that these people are below...

the natural standard is owning nothing...no wealth, at all...no rich, no poor...

therefore, no one can be poor, unless 'ownership' is taking place...

poor is simply the state of not owning as much as someone else, by some definition...

so, the poor are the poor because the violent stole everything, and sold it back to the poor at gunpoint for wages, becoming the rich...

undo the stealing and owning of everything, and the poor will not be poor...

they will just be...same as everyone else...

enriching the poor is not the answer...enpooring the rich is...

Does anyone actually think that any of the republican front runners for president has the slightest idea of what it is to be poor? My bet would be no!

Last night I put up with every platitude --although, granted, they were interspersed with good insights and great passion and a few good recommendations-- and listened carefully through the whole broadcast, but I didn't hear a single one of the participants focus on the need for universal health care (whether single-payer, or tax-funded).

As Donna Smith points out, many a household in the U.S.A. is faced with dire choices whenever a health issue arises. All too many people have taken out home equity loans or second mortgages to pay for treatment for catastrophic illness, surgery, etc. not adequately covered by current health plans. All too many people are getting sick and sicker because they lack proper health monitoring and basic care.
It is also true that one's health will deteriorate in the absence of a proper diet (which few can afford today in the U.S. or anywhere in the world) and in the presence of constant environmental stress and the anguish of detrimental working conditions and the threat of losing a job or, worse, the anxiety about not finding one. But to have no health security, such as the knowledge that you won't be bankrupted by emergency surgery or cancer treatment, and that you won't have to choose between an annual physical and fixing your car, is surely one of the worst economic crimes being committed against the majority of the population, and a basic violation of human rights.
While we are justified in worrying about the loss of free speech and freedom of assembly, it really is time every American mobilized for basic human rights: to health care, housing, education, clean water, and adequate nutrition.
I was really unimpressed with the omission at the G.W.U. forum last night, especially since even Michael Moore did not bring it up, at least as far I as I could tell (and I withdraw my criticism if I napped momentarily and missed it).
Universal health care would go a very long way towards solving the problem of poverty, certainly the crisis of the impoverishment of the middle class and the dooming of the already-poor to premature death or endless, unnecessary suffering.

I didn't see the show.

On my retirement income, cable TV has too low a priority for me
to spend money on it.

In the Michigan winter I'd rather spend the money on feeding wild
birds. In summer, I use it to rescue graves & grave markers in
abandoned cemeteries.

Trylon

I am low income - or poor - so we don't have cable either, though I don't think we're missing anything.

This has got to be one of the best proposal articles I've seen on a progressive website for a while. (or any website.) I too have noticed this income gap between those who talk about poverty and those who actually live it - and aren't paid any money to talk about it. How much did the television station pay each guest to appear, and why couldn't they pay some lower income individuals to make an appearance to share personal experiences? Or were they no fee guests?

I don't know most of the guests mentioned - one I do know I love - Michael Moore, of course. I see his movies after they have been released on DVD and after I have waited through at least a hundred others at the public library.

We don't go to other movies either, and I remember the economic days when it was easy to go with your friends once a week. I also remember relatives' stories of heading to the Friday movies in the thick of The Great Depression to see greats like Charlie Chaplin.

Yet these days, can you imagine spending 10.00 bucks a week on one person alone, let alone a family to go to the theater? Or even 7.00 on a reduced matinee if it' around. I bet I know at least a hundred others who can't.

I don't know what the show covered, but there is a new report out on the changing parameters of "poverty" and some other statistical "great discoveries" that have not. There are a lot of poor people out here!

If they didn't talk about single payer as one of the single most critical factors in this landscape, they should have.

The same reason "poor people" weren't on this show is linked to some of the reluctantly admitted problems in the occupy movement. A dividing line between those, for example, who welcome the homeless and make no distinction for the sake of the greater's society's hang-ups - and those who feel that occupy should have this sortof "bougeoise front" so to speak - continuous apologetics about how "we are NOT homeless, we are respectable, housed, working members of society" - and - "we do not smell."

A Village Voice piece I read yesterday talked about how the ows library tried to join forces with this dj and nightclub group - but it tragically resulted in many ows people being shut out from the event because "they had to make money" and "they LOOKED homeless" - "they smelled," etc.

I think to myself: I could be a smelly person one day. I could be homeless.

Like the writer says, one doesn't want a lot of things, but one wants some peace.

I don't like Orzman so much. People have stuck her in my face in pulling the same head trips the writer is talking about. And a number of them represent themselves as leftists too. Plus, Orzman as I recall, is really into this New Age bullshit about your mind is your reality. Her father created his own poverty, and her great success through a type of self-discovery process about attitudes with money led her to fundamentally make the same psychological conclusions as Republicans.

They need to tear apart the housing mythology, however, and none of them will because their houses will decrease in value if they do that. I don't own a house and I didn't buy a house I couldn't afford so that, too, makes me suspect as a good poverty subject for their discussions. What would work best for me would not be seeing the market propped up artificially, but watching it collapse, in which case, they would lose a lot of money. Right? Their interests, as well-to-do progressives may be adverse to lower income persons in reality. (Affecting their opinions on issues.) But what do I know about financial interests, right?

As one person said, they didn't even mention single payer - did Orzman talk about how 35 million Americans are unemployed? Did they talk about social security - how it should be radically expanded? What did they say about the student loan system - and how they send people to universities on loans because they have been forestalling populations they can't employ until a later date - when they still can't employ them? And how long this has REALLY been going on!

How much room is there in our economy for how many people to "create their own reality" with wealth ? And not be Orzman's dad? Responsible for his own bed that he himself made? And does she ever take off that expensive ton of make-up on her face and wear old clothing? What does that say about her values?

And THEY want to get rid of credit cards? The only thing keeping us afloat at this point are credit cards. Easy for them to talk about shredding credit cards. Let their houses fall in value. They'll still have something over their heads. Then maybe they will stand up and fight for social security expansion. And we can buy a roof dirt cheap, stop paying rent, stop worrying about homelessness every day, and pay off credit card debt.

"But I do not want to stay vigilant about the wrong things.
I want a life without the terror of poverty."

Huh? Fear of poverty is the wrong thing to be vigilant about. Poverty is great. Poverty allows us to keep a light footprint on the planet. Poverty allows us to have real community/cooperation. Poverty allows us to step out of slavery to elite masters. Don't fear poverty! Feel great that you have broken out of the gilded cage! Fear of poverty is exactly what the elites want of us. They NEED us to run the rate race. The NEED us to be morally conflicted about that rat race, so we'll fall into slavery, so they can continue dangling their carrot, and suck our blood. The author of the article needs to come to terms with the message of Occupy Wall-Struck: Prosperity in the form of UNIVERSAL ENLIGHTENMENT, EQUITY, JUSTICE is the only kind of prosperity that benefits the people. Thankfully, a lot more people are understanding this today, despite this onslaught of liberal elites, power-drunk on the prospects of another four years squatting on the imperial throne, ramping up their pretenses to represent the people. No thanks! The people will represent themselves!

Poverty is fine as long as you live in a country with a proper socialised medical service and have a Council House to rent cheaply from the local Council with socialised water supply. And decent low-cost public transport, with a good public library and your kids can go to a public school with adequate decently paid well-trained teachers, subsidised school lunches and school milk and a garden in which you can grow vegies, fruit trees and hens that lay eggs. And it is nice to have a decent bicycle. And university fees paid by the local Education Authority with means-tested grant assistance for living costs whilst at university.Oh, sorry, I wasn't talking about the USA. And since that monster Thatcher first came to power, the UK has also changed much for the worse.

Not only do the poor have no money, but they have no voice. When do we listen to the poor? When a beggar comes through a subway car in NYC asking for money, most of us turn up the volume on our iPods. If the OWS movement has accomplished anything, it has provides some places and spaces for the dispossessed to speak and have people listen to them. I listened to a man speaking at Liberty Plaza (Zuccotti Park) before the Bloomsberg thugs shut down the place with their violence. He was giving advise about how to survive sleeping in the park when the cold winter weather set in, and he said he had researched how the military survives in cold climates. A homeless woman then spoke, saying she had lived on the streets for a long time and didn't need an expert to tell her what to do. The people gave her more credence than they did the expert. We need more of this. Fewer experts telling us how to deal with the hardships of poverty. More poor people telling us and being listened to. Occupy the voices of the established experts with the voices those who live in the streets.

The Occupy! movement provides a forum for many voices (and bodies!) to join in sometimes effective protest against this whole mind set. As more and more people decide that Occupy! resonates with them, more and more people will have to admit that it is not just the lazy, the shiftless, etc., that suffer under this hugely unequal system.

Occupy!

One thing is certain and that is that the American media has completely ignored the fact that the rich have received more government welfare than the poor could ever dream of because they were in bed with the corrupt political class and much more interested in the personalities of politicians than the effect of their policies.

Excellent article. I'm so sick of people like Suze Orman telling me to cut up my credit cards! As others already pointed out, if you're living paycheck to paycheck and the car needs $500 in repairs and w/o the car you can't get to work or whatever, what choice do you have? W/o that credit card you'd lose your job, your home, and be out in the streets. It's not a matter of mismanaging your money, it's a matter of not having enough money to manage. I really do wonder what the response would have been if someone had asked the panel what they recommend a "poor" person do when faced with a dead car or sick child or empty refrigerator, no money but a credit card. I think they would have side-stepped the issue and not really answered the question head on. Because it's obvious the only choice is to pull out the plastic.

So here's what's happening to me right now. Slushy icy roads and my car spun out of control on my own street (so I wasn't speeding, not even close the road was so bad). Hit a snowbank that must have covered up a rock or tree trunk because my Honda (a '96 w/ 217,000 miles but no rust, runs great, and I had hoped to keep it on the road for another year or two) now has a bent unibody. And so it's sitting at the body shop waiting for the insurance adjuster to decide if they'll deign to allow it to be fixed (I was able to drive it there, and it seemed to drive just fine) or decide to "total" it because it's old and might cost as much or more to fix than the book value of the car. That's pretty straightforward. Problem is, if it's "totalled" then I have a paltry $2 - $2.500 to get a replacement car. And no way will I find one as reliable as that Honda, that I've had since it only had 30,000 miles on it. It has no rust, has been garaged, very well-maintained. So I figure I'll need another $3500 in addition to the insurance $ to get a car that is, maybe if I'm lucky, as good and reliable as my Honda. So I called my credit card company and asked them about the possibility of them giving me one of those "cash advance" checks at less interest than a regular cash advance just in case I find a car from a private person. I don't have the $ in the bank. Just enough in there to pay our property taxes. So what did they do? Instead of just saying "no", they actually lowered my credit limit to just $200.00 over the current balance (before the call it was $7,000 over the current balance). Okay. So screw me. And get this - we've had this account for at least 10 years, have NEVER, not once, been late or missed a payment, and often pay over the minimum. So what happens now if the insurance company totals my car? I live in a very rural area in Maine, no public transportation, my job is 15 miles away, the closest shopping is about 10 miles away, my sister is disabled. So I'll have to get a cheap piece of shit that will cost more $ over time than we can afford, credit or no credit.

Thank you! Even much of the progressive community turned it back on poverty and the poor. Reality is, not everyone can work, and we don't have nearly enough jobs for all who need them. Little is left of the social safety net. It's good to call for job creation -- in fact, we've been doing just that for 30+ years now. But until our government stops giving corporations massive annual handouts to cover the costs of exporting our jobs, poverty will continue to grow. Much needs to be done to restore jobs and the economy. In the meantime, how long will we continue to turn our backs on those who are truly suffering today, in our post-poverty relief country? If we want to restore American prosperity, we're going to have to reverse the policies that destroyed it, and restore those policies that (between WWll and the Reagan administration) made the US the most productive, wealthiest nation. The longer we fail to re-regulate business and restore the entitlement to poverty relief, the more the middle class will fall into poverty.

Cut up your credit cards, Suzie. And then try to book a flight or qualify for a rental or make a purchase on-line or get a rental car or...

Way to go.

due to the self-destructive competition engendered in a culture whose forms are unsustainable and in which operational scarcity is constantly increasing, the winners win, and the losers are left to die or to slavery...the question then is around competition, and whether operational scarcity can be reversed....or, what is true wealth?.. since the 70's these issues have been decided mostly by the heritage foundation and its clones...

donna smith,

thanks for the thought provoking essay and for bringing this conference to my attention (i just finished listening to the cspan podcast).

i also am hopelessly poor and i see no chance of fundamentally altering my situation. i found moore, west and ehrenreich the most convincing panelists on the show. i agree w/ you, i would have enjoyed seeing an actual 'poor' person who isn't a noted writer or celebrity on the stage.

as a person who made less than 10,000 dollars last year, who also has lived in my vehicle (sleeping chamber) for the past 2 1/2 years - i didn't sense that any of the participants (including ehrehnriech whom i admire, who voluntarily experienced poverty to write a book 12 years ago) on the stage had a visceral understanding what poverty feels like today and what that poverty feels like relative to the fact that so many are experiencing the same phenomena simultaneously (living in an economy experiencing massive surplus labor).

my other critique of the program is more fundamental. although capitalism was mentioned as the legitimate monster, not a single one of the panelists mentioned the name karl marx or the socialist democracies of western europe.

ehrenreich says there's a class war and we can take on the 1%, roger clay said we can redistribute the wealth to the people (he mentioned natural resources like oil and patent law) but we can still call it capitalism (and democracy, always remember to remind everyone of democracy), cornel west accurately describes the evolution of industrial capitalism into finance capitalism - (ehrenreich also said capitalism will self destruct, it's inherent) - but then stops short of what could happen if the people united and revolted (what does class struggle actually create - a socialist state ?).

there are two words missing from the narrative (as though they were cut out w/ scissors). socialist democracy and revolution. the left is afraid of being pigeonholed as communists - but their fear is preventing them from employing the language of revolution (very real systemic change). although they try to affiliate their ideas w/ marx's critique w/out giving the marxists credit. moore actually said that if the rich acquiesce now they might be able to prevent revolution as that would be the people's last resort (i guess he's passively/aggressively suggesting rebellion).

i agree w/ chris hedges, the liberal class is a sell out and will not provide the leadership (that mantle that the panelists all smugly believe they are entitled to perch on).

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/17

{An ineffectual liberal class means there is no hope of a correction or a reversal through the formal mechanisms of power. It ensures that the frustration and anger among the working and the middle class will find expression now in these protests that lie outside the confines of democratic institutions and the civilities of a liberal democracy. By emasculating the liberal class, which once ensured that restive citizens could institute moderate reforms, the corporate state has created a closed system defined by polarization, gridlock and political charades. It has removed the veneer of virtue and goodness that the liberal class offered to the power elite.

Liberal institutions, including the church, the press, the university, the Democratic Party, the arts and labor unions, set the parameters for limited self-criticism in a functioning democracy as well as small, incremental reforms. The liberal class is permitted to decry the worst excesses of power and champion basic human rights while at the same time endowing systems of power with a morality and virtue it does not possess. Liberals posit themselves as the conscience of the nation. They permit us, through their appeal to public virtues and the public good, to see ourselves and our state as fundamentally good.

But the liberal class, by having refused to question the utopian promises of unfettered capitalism and globalization and by condemning those who did, severed itself from the roots of creative and bold thought, the only forces that could have prevented the liberal class from merging completely with the power elite. The liberal class, which at once was betrayed and betrayed itself, has no role left to play in the battle between us and corporate dominance. All hope lies now with those in the street.

Liberals lack the vision and fortitude to challenge dominant free market ideologies. They have no ideological alternatives even as the Democratic Party openly betrays every principle the liberal class claims to espouse, from universal health care to an end to our permanent war economy to a demand for quality and affordable public education to a return of civil liberties to a demand for jobs and welfare of the working class. The corporate state forced the liberal class to join in the nation’s death march that began with the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Liberals such as Bill Clinton, for corporate money, accelerated the dismantling of our manufacturing base, the gutting of our regulatory agencies, the destruction of our social service programs and the empowerment of speculators who have trashed our economy. The liberal class, stripped of power, could only retreat into its atrophied institutions, where it busied itself with the boutique activism of political correctness and embraced positions it had previously condemned.}

i would have enjoyed watching a marxist economic professor like richard wolff on the stage, to counter the panel that was excessively weighted w/ reformists (it was tavis' project). of course that isn't possible in a fascist country that can't even allow single payer health care to be put on the table by a neo-liberal democratic president, whom the panelists were still fawning over despite the hell called america in 2012.

Capitalism Hits the Fan - Richard Wolff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZU3wfjtIJY

...peace...

Welcome to third world America!