Richest Country on Earth. Yet some celebrate people being so poor.

[n2doc]

That to me is the real story. Senator Ernst brags about starting out poor, and wants to make sure that more people stay that way. The truth of her story doesn't matter as much as the fact that a lot of people support that philosophy.

Shouldn't we be embarrassed that, with all the riches that this country has, we can't be bothered to provide a basic, dignified life for all Americans?

[2naSalit]

1. Yup. n/t

[BrotherIvan]

2. Yes

And many people vote exactly for assholes like Ernst who perpetuate the cycle. That's all they know.

[Munificence]

7. Please

realize that there are plenty of these "assholes" on both sides of the isle.

[woo me with science]

3. Corporate corruption and propaganda.

We are also being relentlessly propagandized now to pretend the past six years did not exist, and that the bipartisan depth of the corporate, monied corruption of our government, including both parties, was not revealed to us over and over again. Caring about poverty is lip service from corporate politicians in a thoroughly corrupted system.

Now that the DCCC midterm strategy of "Accept Doom" was successful and Republicans are back in power, corporate Democrats can once more lie to our faces and ostentatiously pretend to support the policies they insulted Americans for wanting for the past six years. All those "fringe," unrealistic ponies like reversing the theft of of our national wealth by the One Percent and restoring our Bill of Rights.

But the monied corruption of our party, both parties, is still there. The perversion of the sytem is still there. Our corporate Democrts are now free to lie to us again about what they support, but nothing has changed in the system that drives their allegiance to Wall Street to make them mean it. Red versus Blue is not the relevant fight anymore. The relevant fight is against oligarchy, the bipartisan, monied corruption of both parties and our government as a whole.

The goal of the oligarchy right now is to get us to forget what we learned about the deep, systemic, bipartisan nature of the corporate corruption of our government, and the need for drastic, fundamental change.

They want us to sink comfortably back into our Red and Blue teams, believing the illusion that we have a functioning democracy, believing that our only problem is that Republicans are now in power, and believing that all we need to do to fix things is work harder to get corporte Democrats back in.

[Avalux]

4. "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!!" ((or breadbags))

That's the dystopian philosophy that we are fed by society from a young age. We are taught competition, we are taught we must get there first or someone else will, and don't help them or they'll get more than you. Every man for himself.

Yes we should be embarrassed. I am.

[NCTraveler]

5. Good op. Thank you. That is the message I got.

It is being looked over by many.

[Taitertots]

6. I call it the Horatio Algers Masterbatory Fantasy

The reality is that social mobility is all but non-existent.

The reality is that our economic system will cut economic growth to keep several million people in poverty. We call it "full" employment, when there a millions of people who can't find work.

[Orsino]

8. MLK noted that poor whites fed on Jim Crow.

We have never lacked for political hacks who praise the poor, or the working poor, as an excuse not to tackle poverty.