WO KEEPS THEM POOR?

 It is not difficult to identify the states with the most citizens who have been left out of America’s abundance. Rates of unemployment and poverty tell the story. In every survey they include: Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and a tier of the border states. One needs to go back in history to find many of the answers for the obvious disparity. But it was not only slavery, reconstruction and segregation that tell the story of lost opportunities. Plenty has happened in more recent years to keep these populations bereft.

 

 It is no secret that the political heavyweights in those states have systematically fought against most of the things that would benefit their marginalized populations.
Consider a raise in the minimum wage—or even having any minimum wage for that matter. They have also fought organized labor though infamous “right to work” legislation. Having successfully pulverized private sector unions, they are now hard at word seeking to dismantle public sector unions. They have been opposed to the Affordable Health Care Act, which millions of Americans have seen as their only path to decent medical support. While tens of thousands of decent jobs could be had in repairing America’s bridges, water lines, highways, transportation systems, schools and public buildings they have blasted any effort to provide jobs in these critical areas, describing the support for infrastructure projects as “big government.”

 

They have made it far more difficult for the marginalized to obtain a good education. They consistently underfund public schools, and put money into re-segregated semi-private schools.

 In order to keep their less fortunate citizens from exercising the political clout necessary to change these economic and social devices, these same states have passed laws making it more difficult to vote. “Voter fraud” has been the excuse.  The real agenda, however, has been efforts to discourage the poor and marginalized from getting to the polls. Voter fraud was simply an unproved excuse. Control of the already marginalized is the real motive.

 

 What is startling is why these economic and social  under-classes fail to understand how they are being manipulated by those determined to keep them in check. Practically every one of the states ranking at the top—or shall we say the bottom—of both the unemployment scale and the poverty index are bright red. Just travel through those areas and you will see a multitude of indications of how the powers-that-be exercise control of the political and social landscape. The result is that those who are suffering under the oppression generated by joblessness and poverty feel as if they have no options.

 

 That is not to say there is no one doing well in these scarlet states. In many cases they have been highly successful in welcoming white-collar industry, banking interests and multitudes of well-paying professionals and business concerns.

 

Absurdly low tax rates provide the incentive for those interested in making serious money. For example, the State of Texas ranks 4^th in both the rate of unemployment and the percentage of its citizens living below the poverty level. However, in terms of the best place in which new businesses can make serious money, Texas comes out number 1.

 

 Big monied propaganda controls these political machines and still buys the loyalty of too many of the victims. And the victims just seem to go along. Someday this sleeping giant will awaken, stretch his arms and realize how badly he has been had.

 

Charles Bayer

candwbayer@verizon.net