Nathan, very nice linkage. It's great to see the interesting section on this war on poverty. Labor united is one of those dreams I have for the future. The numbers are bleak, but the grassroots movement organizing some unlikely workers will change that. Thanks for putting this up, Tracy.

United We Stand--Divided We Crawl--Si Se Puede

What is poverty in 2006?

Is it having a car, multiple TV's, an iPod, DVD players, cable TV, designer clothes, and vacations?

Does poverty have anything to do with teenage pregnancy, lack of solid mother-father families, not graduating high school, poor work ethic and lack of a moral compass and strong American values?

Do our county, state and federal welfare systems help more than they contribute to the problem?

Do those in poverty stay in poverty all their lives? Are many of those people considered in "poverty" teenagers, young adults, people between jobs and stay at home mothers?

I understand that there will always be a class of people that are at the lowest rung in our society but I also understand that most of them do not stay there.

When talking about poverty I think we need to put all the cards on the table and be honest and open about what is going on.

I think those people that truly need help (have illnesses, physical limitations, etc) should get help. Those people that simply do not want to work, want to have babies on the taypayer's dime, won't take a job that is "beneath them" or similar circumstances need not apply.

Our economy is doing very well. I see every mall I go by and it is packed. New cars on the road. New homes left and right. People vacationing at my work. I see job posting all over. I talk with fraud investigators about welfare fraud and the fact that county authorities simply are not concerned about it because they do not want to stir the pot, lose precious government staff or possibly future funding.

We need to take care of those that are truly in dire need of help and just as importantly we nee dto protect all taypayer's as they are also in dire need to keep their own money to pay for their mortgages, car payments, children's education or whatever they deem necessary with their hard earned money.

Poverty exists and will always exist in some form but it is definitely not something that is rampant nor anything that our wonderful, free country and capitalism won't take care of.

Have faith and remember that the power is in the people not in the government.

Each person must make their way and there is no better place on Earth than this great country.

God Bless America and thanks to all that took the time to read this.

I have a dream also. My dream is to stop all wars. Feed all the hungry. Give health insurance to all. Stop all the suffering. Stop all the greed. Alright I know I live in a dream world. Put its a nice place to visit sometimes.

MNandy is a troll. Trolls don't care about real issues, they just want to spread their lies.
Having been one of the people who got a boost up in the 1970's with that part of the CETA program that paid for job training, I would say that I have more than paid back the cost of my training in taxes I've paid. Then Reagan shut down the CETA program. That's when I started to listen to the Democrats.
New houses? Yeah, we have new houses, the rich and greedy are spoiling our great state with the oversize trophy houses in gated communities, and trying to deny us access to our public land, while claiming to be residents of other states and not paying their fair share of the taxes it takes to support roads, police and fire services. Oh yeah, I just love the way they drive up the property taxes, and the costs of housing around here. It's soooo Republican of them.
Job postings? Ever try living on one of those jobs that are posted around? Right now we have people, here in Montana, who are working two or three jobs to try to make ends meet. They are not lazy, they are tired.
They don't have health care, they are being sucked dry by the out of control gas prices. Last winter their kids slept in their overcoats, and this winter is looking even more grim.
It's not just here and it's not just working families.
They are the old folks whose pensions went south, and are starving along on a pittance, while being cheated by this prescription program which the administration had the pharmaceutical companies write.
They are the people whose jobs were taken and shipped to other countries by the expensive "free" trade agreements.
They are the immigrants, illegal and otherwise, who are economically displaced by those same agreements.
They are the young people who are trying to get a college education so they can get out of poverty, and are facing cuts in Pell grants, higher interest on student loans, and steadily rising cost of tuition.
They are the kids who went into the military to get college money, and are being betrayed by an administration who cynically started a war based on lies, and who just as cynically are cheating these same kids with "targeted pay raises" and a deliberate and continuing underfunding of veterans' services.
Luxury goods? Designer clothes? Not where I live. Lots of SUVs, boats, and RVs though. They're parked close to the roads with "For Sale" signs on them, because their owners can no longer afford them.
Cable TV? It's definitely cheaper than going to a movie, especially if you have several kids, or have to drive very far.
Some of these socially irresponsible boneheads need to try living on a minimum wage job, with no medical insurance and see if they can do as well as the rest of us.
Or will they manage their budgets like Bush manages this country's?

Yes, indeed war on poverty! The rich get richer making weapons and supply and airplanes. While the
poor really end up paying for all of the rich destructive elements!!
I have an idea :for every dollar that is spent on war why can't % be set aside to feed the poor, to house the homeless, to pay for RX for the sick who need it.
Let the people who have gotten rich off the war pay for a little of the sadness they have brought us all in the working class. And not to get off the subject but why aren't all service members declared gentlemen by congress? They can resign!! Another Class issue still yet in our poor rarvaged demoracy!
All I am saying and my family have been democrats since there was a democratic party.
Democrats need some balls male and female!!
The people see that reps. and senators have been collect the money while we have suffered still with no relief from the many hurricances through
the gulf coast, thorough the GW gas screws and all
other screws, this land is a sad land and it breaks my heart to see it suffer when it works so hard, just given the chance!
The People will give respect, if they are given it!!!
We need Leaders Please Help!!
With every goood wish I am sincerly ,
Paul Powell

****Culture and Cultural Design****

Culture is that which people do that is passed down from one generation to the next and cultural design is the introduction or removal of a cultural practice or tenet “for the sake of its consequences”.

A tenet or practice of culture is a “cause” and a consequence of a tenet or practice of culture is an “effect”; if a practice or tenet of culture is either added or removed as a cause, a practice or tenet of consequence is added or removed as an effect; the process of adding and removing practices and tenets to and from culture, that which is passed down from one generation to the next, for the sake of the consequences is Cultural Design.

Cultural Design may be used to serve either vested interests in a society against the greater good or in the greater good dependent upon how culture is controlled and used for inclusive or exclusive benefit by those who design, control and implement a given cultural design.

Cultural Design that serves the greater good is inclusive of the majority population, is liberal, is progressive, is dynamic and subject to change as the society it serves develops and grows.

Cultural Design that serves a vested minority class interest that is exclusive, is conservative, is regressive, inflexible and opposed to change as the society it serves grows and develops.

In the study of Culture and Cultural Design, it is a most important thing for a student to look closely at both culture and cultural design with academic detachment, and evaluate both culture and cultural design for both the politically liberal and conservative tenets, and what societal class and governmental purposes the culture and cultural design is intended to perpetuate, serve and defend; i.e., the greater good or against the greater good as a weapon.

Culture and Cultural Design can be and has been used as a weapon in the past and is being used as a weapon at present in the public school system of the United States. Cultural Design has been used in the United States to pacify slaves during the time of the “Fathers”, Washington, Jefferson and the like, to pacify the peoples of the Native Nations of the United States during the Colonial Period and to pacify the Working and Poor Class and Culture and eliminate class warfare as a result of oppression, suppression, tyranny and abuse by the economic and political elite in the United States.

Individual people live and die from generation to generation and the only thing that succeeds them is culture. Culture can be used to perpetuate oppression and tyranny from one generation to the next, and culture can be used to perpetuate freedom and democracy from one generation to the next.

When we as citizens are being indoctrinated with culture and cultural design as a matter of education, we must be academically skeptical, so that we are not indoctrinated with culture and cultural design that is designed to perpetuate oppression and tyranny.

The public school system is used by the government to indoctrinate citizens with culture and cultural design that is sanctioned by the State to perpetuate the interests of both the State and the Government; a student must be aware of culture and cultural design and study both with academic detachment because both are used in the interest of the State and the Government, have been used in the interest of the State and the Government in the past and will be used by the State and the Government in the future, either in or contrary to the best interest of the people of the Nation. It is, therefore, unwise to be indoctrinated with a culture and cultural design intended to be passed from one generation to the next, if the culture and cultural design that is being indoctrinated is contrary to the best interests of a citizen and the best interest of a citizen’s existing class and culture.

Bibliography:

Adams, David Wallace, "Education For Extinction". Lawrence, Kansas
66049: University Press of Kansas, 1995.

Hume, David, "A Treatise of Human Nature". Oxford, New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000, Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data, Hume, David, 1711-1776.

Merriam, Charles Edward, "The Making of Citizens". Chicago, Illinois:
The University of Chicago Press, 1931.

Skinner, Burris Frederic (B.F.), "Science and Human Behavior". New York,
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1953, Third Printing 1957.

The American people are TIRED of the regressive right's
blame-the-victim ideology.

The Republicans, and Republi-lites are the foot soldiers in big business' War on the Working People.
Why do the 90% making the 10% have to bear the brunt of taxes, while we pay through the nose so the petoleum companies can make windfall profits?
Why do we have to work our butts off for eroding pay because the big busineses want to make huge profits, not for the share holders, as they claim, but for the corporate executives who demand "golden parachutes" even as they ship our jobs overseas, and/or drive once honest companies into bankruptcy?
Why do we have to put up with a phony war started on lies, which, instead of creating more security for US citizens is instead creating more terrorists?
Why do the Republicans and the Republi-lite sell-outs think that the common people are so freaking stupid that we will continue to go along with their lies when we can see that the real truth is 180 out from what they want us to think?
What gives them the unmitigated gall to get angry at US, when we not only see through the lies, but act on the solution, which is to fire them from their jobs in politics in which they are malfeasant?
Clean the House and the Senate! Back to truth and ethics in government!
Hooooah!!!

No surprizes here/ Repubs have always been associated with doing little or nothing for the poor or middle class/

The "War on Poverty" has become the "war on the poor". Currently the real unemployment rate is 8.6 per cent +, real wages have not grown since 2001, 41 million Americans have no medical insurance, the savings rate has been -1.5 per cent for the last year. Borrowing on credit cards has reached historical highs and 45 per cent of the people carry an increasing balance each month. During the next twelve months 1.2 Trillion dollars worh of ARMs(adjustable rate mortgages) and HELOCs (Home equity loans) will be readjusted with payments increasing significantly. The number of children provided with two meals a day at school continues to climb and food banks are seeing massive increases in their clients. Welcome to the War on Poverty, like the War on Terrorism it is going great.