Views in brief
Poverty in America
IN GENERAL, one does not choose to be poor. So why does over 14 percent of the U.S. population live below the poverty level? It's no accident in most cases. Contrary to what many believe, it is not because people are lazy. In fact, many of the poor have jobs and work very hard to survive. Many are from households headed by women with children. They are poor because there is a system of oppression in place that virtually guarantees that the poor will always be with us. It's called capitalism.
As practiced in the U.S., capitalism is a way to rearrange the distribution of money unevenly. It's supposed to reward hard work and creativity, but it really doesn't. It rewards indolence, in that those with money can loan it out and do nothing more productive with it than collect interest. This results with those having money moving up the economic ladder and those without moving toward poverty.
Capitalism favors competition over cooperation. This competition is like a race in which the rich always get to run downhill, while the rest of us have to run uphill. It ensures that someone will always be left behind. It nurtures a climate of dishonesty and allows huge disparities in incomes. Many criminals are created in the finance community in the pursuit of wealth.
It is ironic that our educational system has glorified capitalism as an answer to many social problems while ignoring the problems that it causes. At this point in our nation's history we have experienced some severe limitations of capitalism--banks have failed, insurance companies have failed and homes are being foreclosed on.
It seems horribly wrong to ask the citizens of this country to bail out enterprises that, over time, will continue to impoverish them. And yet we shovel our hard-earned cash into relief funds for the rich out of fear that not doing so would be bad for our country and its economy.
Americans should be afraid of a government that is run by business and tired of spending more of their money on salvaging the gluttonous businesses that run the government. We should not be afraid to change our economic model to one that would be more responsive to the needs of the average citizen.
The first thing we must do is to separate government from business and make government responsive to the needs of the people by limiting the influence of corporations in elections. The electorate must become savvy enough to select leaders who will truly represent their interests and not some corporate-sponsored shill.
Education, willingness and ability to work have always been important safeguards against poverty. But poverty should not be fought with charity alone. It must be fought with justice and an overhaul of the system that lies at its root cause. Americans need to understand that the existing system of capitalism is rigged against their success, and that a new economic model is desperately needed.
George Damasevitz, Vestal, NY
The corporate tax cheats
GENERAL ELECTRIC won't pay any federal taxes for 2010.
If we citizens are required to pay taxes then multinational corporations should be required to pay taxes. Our government should end all subsidies, grants and loan guarantees for all corporations. Corporations shouldn't receive tax cuts, rebates or credits. Corporations shouldn't have the right to lobby or contribute to political campaigns.
We need a government that puts the needs and wants of the people over the needs and wants of corporations.
Chuck Mann, Greensboro, N.C.
A union renaissance
IF YOU were to ask an individual who was hostile (or merely apathetic) toward union activity what they thought of the labor movement three months ago, they might say something like, "Unions have outlived their usefulness, and now they possess exclusively those negative qualities you would expect of moribund institutions."
You might even be inclined to agree, since unions have been so thoroughly marginalized in the modern American workplace and other public arenas.
What a difference a few weeks makes. Currently, labor unions (and those that rally with them under the same banner) are all that stand between the people of Wisconsin and a massive theft of public property. In fact, much of the strength of the resistance movement in Wisconsin derives from its atavistic tendencies.
By returning to the well-honed strategies of their past--organization, education and direct action--unions have recovered their ability to act, not just react, with determination and energy.
The aforementioned attitude, that unions are irrelevant or have been superseded, has come into question in the minds of many Americans. As they shed their pernicious prejudices about organized labor and come to realize that the struggle of the Midwestern unions is their own, the movement will grow further.
Jonathan Puthoff, Portland, Ore.
Making Madison more inclusive
IN RESPONSE to "Wisconsin and the shape of things to come": I think your editorial hit the nail on the head. I was privileged to make four trips up to Madison from Chicago. The beautiful young faces of the protesters were an inspiration; unfortunately most of the beautiful young faces were almost all white.
As time went on, the movement grew geometrically, rather than just by ones and twos. New layers of supporters came into the struggle: private-sector workers, students, farmers.
Still, the question I kept asking myself was: "Where are the busses from Milwaukee, Kenosha, Beloit and Racine filled with Black teenagers, workers, and mothers?"
No sector of the population is being hit harder than the African American community in Wisconsin. Instead of having Jesse Jackson deliver a vapid speech, he could have been utilized in making African American involvement happen.
The AFL-CIO has activists and connections and money that should have making that obvious link.
Guy Miller, United Transportation Union Local 577 (retired), Chicago
No more waiting on our rights
IN RESPONSE to "A strategy to win LGBT rights": Thank you, SocialistWorker.org and Keegan O'Brian, for this inspirational essay.
I didn't hide my whole life to finally "choose" (I love that: "It's a choice"!) to identify with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, just to be told to "wait."
Housing, employment, physical safety--all on the backburner. I don't think so! We must keep pressing forward. Yes, it does "get better," but not in a vacuum. We have to make it better!
Liz LaVenture, St. Louis
