Don’t tell anybody, but millions of American children, workers, and elderly people are enduring the personal horror of dispiriting, debilitating, deadening poverty every day.
It’s our national horror, too, for the greatest cause of their penury is not lack of ambition, drug addiction, stupidity, or other canards hurled at the impoverished. It’s because of the moral poverty of the rich and powerful — who routinely rig the system to cut off food access, hold down wages, eliminate health care and child care, jack up rents, privatize everything, and turn government into an exclusive club for corporations and the rich.
Such deliberate moves by moneyed and political elites to close off America’s pathways of upward mobility is both stupid and suicidal. Not only does it foment deep social anger, but it denies our country the creativity, enterprise, and the genius inherent in even the poorest communities.
Most pathetically, the callous moves to abandon the poor are driven by the worst traits in our society: 1) a condescending right-wing meanness that openly regards the poor as failed humans who are unworthy of public support, 2) upper class fears that the poor are hard-wired moochers who pollute the gene pool, so they must not be coddled.
Our people’s fundamental values are better than this, and America obviously has the wherewithal to do better. There’s no excuse for letting poverty bigots and billionaires set America’s ethical standards. To assert “little-d” democratic values and take action, go to BreachRepairers.org.
