Economic Inequality And The Growing Ranks Of Poor
Tuesday, July 28, 2015, 6:00 AM | Leave Comment
Little is being done about economic inequality and the growing ranks of the poor in the US and the world at large. The rich is getting richer and the poor is getting to the very bottom of the financial ladder. The latter folks take one step up on the ladder but then something happens and they drop down to the same first step. Some don’t have the strength even to get on the first step. It’s hard for them to keep their balance.
It’s pure politics that is being played with people’s financial lives. The political right does not seem to take part in any genuine discussion about how to make life easier for the poor. They prefer to change the subject. At the same time, the political left does not seem to have the time and the strength to provide economic justice to the poor.
Folks at both ends of the pendulum and folks in between – the so-called progressives – should be ashamed of the minimal and almost nonexistent amount of activism that at one time was taking place against the banks and the escalating numbers of foreclosures. Homes have been replaced by nothing else but hope and even that is dwindling. Despair and depression, because of the economic inequality, have overwhelmingly taken over some folks financial lives.
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Internet can be Helpful
In some other authoritarian regimes, Internet has played a major role in changing the government and the status quo, for example, in Tunisia and Egypt more recently. They have used the Internet in general and the social networking in particular to change the government and thereby to hopefully change their financial condition.
Here in the U.S., it seems that the Internet and social networking are being used as an escape from the daily routines and potential worries. It is consuming our time like never before. It is giving us another way to talk to each other, sometimes uselessly. Social media here seems to be more for socializing and not for any concerns in the economic landscape of the country.
The biggest irony is that the United States government seems to support Internet freedom abroad only and not within the boundaries of the nation. It restricts the Internet and spies on it at home as the FBI and other agencies have at times indicated as such. President Obama has already supported a law allowing him to shut the Internet down in the U.S. in a national emergency.
Hear no evil, See no evil, Speak no evil
The American public as always has been passive and believes in “Hear no evil, See no evil, Speak no evil.”
As Noam Chomsky puts it: “The population in the United States is angry, frustrated and full of fear and irrational hatreds. And the folks not far from you on Wall Street are just doing fine.
They’re the ones who created the recent economic crisis. They’re the ones who were called upon to deal with it. They’re coming out stronger and richer than ever. But everything’s fine – as long as the population is passive.”
One of the third world newspapers ran an article a while back stating:
“It’s very telling that trillions have already been spent to patch up leading world financial institutions, while out of the comparatively small sum of $12.3 billion pledged in Rome a couple of years ago, to offset the food crisis, only $1 billion has been delivered. The hope that at least extreme poverty can be eradicated by the end of 2015, as stipulated in the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, seems as unrealistic as ever, not due to lack of resources but a lack of true concern for the world’s poor.”
Watch some of the videos. Capitalism is not bad but implementing it seems to be one of the hardest things to do or is it? Be conscientious and help in any way you can.
In a Nutshell
If every human, who eats three square meals a day and munches on munchies in between and the daily waste that Americans and the world’s rich shred in their garbage disposal, stands up and donates one meal a day to the world’s poor, there might be some hope that extreme poverty here in the U.S. and abroad may be eradicated to some degree.
