This was from a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1967:
As I continue to awaken from my Rip van Winkle-like slumber and take the first steps in a journey towards doing what I can to fight back against the extreme ignorance many of us in the United States are facing, I was particularly struck by the challenge of organizing around a cause such as pursuing peace (i.e. reducing funding of the military industrial complex), or fighting poverty.
MLK wrote those words over 50 years ago, and yet, here we are. It feels as though we have lost half a century’s time, disadvantaging the country in light of the new global economy. Despite what I would imagine are most Americans sentiments that the Forever Wars need to end, that education and infrastructure would be a far better use of our funds, that getting our own house in order should be the top priority now and moving forward into the foreseeable future.
When I look out across the programs in our country to combat poverty, I see a landscape that is sparse, highly disorganized, disjointed. This is, I’d guess, what happens when there is no national initiative that is organized to rid ourselves of poverty, homelessness, etc.: an insufficient patchwork of citizens comes together to do what is likely only possible through a national, coordinated effort, and although these selfless individuals fighting poverty are likely the only thing that has prevented our nation from slipping further into the abyss, it is a gross displacement of responsibility.
So what are the main challenges facing a nationally organized movement to fight and end poverty, once and for all? What would be necessary to get the government to take a war on poverty as seriously as, say, a war on Vietnam or Iraq? If it will simply never happen if left to those who wield power, then ethically and morally, how long will society throw its collective hands up and say change simply isn’t possible?
lol if you think
that the last 50 years have been lost
grab any chart and read it
any economic or demographic indicator
what is so bad that makes you say
we’ve lost 50 years?
and that nothing is being done
to end poverty?
read propaganda if you want to
but read other stuff too
step out of that goddamn echo chamber bro
Also seems odd that the Federal Minimum Wage has not been increased since 2009, and has only gone up $2.10 in the past quarter century…doesn’t it seem like the cost of living has probably increased in the past 25 years (more than a $2.00 raise would suggest)?
Right, like those who embrace capitalism here and those who embrace socialism don’t have their own rendition of the echo chamber. Their own propaganda narratives.
Bring out the charts and the statistics to “prove” that poverty around the globe is being taken seriously.
But if the discussion is about “ending poverty” once and for all worldwide, give me a break if you actually believe that capitalism is the “final solution” here.
Is or is not the inherent goal of Big Business around the globe to beat the competition in order to make the most profits? And does or does that not involve keeping, among other things, the cost of labor as low as possible? And in increasing automation? The very nature of capitalism itself involves exploitation. And, with the increasing rationalization of labor, alienation.
It’s just the nature of the historical beast.
Yes, progress has been made in ending poverty. And, in part, because there are those involved in political efforts around the globe to temper the more extreme consequences of dog-eat-dog capitalism. The global equivalent of a “welfare state”. Government policies that blend elements of capitalism and socialism into what may well be “the best of all possible worlds”.
But: Fifty years later there are still millions around world living not just in poverty but in extreme poverty.
And the stats still make it quite clear how far we have to go if ending poverty around the globe is something that is deemed to be a moral obligation of mere mortals.