By the still poor, few times homeless - Jan Lightfoot
Please write to local, small or alternative media, and to national news media, such as the New York Times, saying that you want to hear the voices of the poor and homeless. In this land of freedom of the press, where are their voices?
The untold story: The media side-steps its freedom of the press by failing to report that many part-time workers are paid less than $172 a week after taxes--while most US Senators are paid roughly twenty times that amount, or $3346 a week. It ignores its freedom to expose governmental and corporate wrongdoing while keeping the financially poor, the hungry, the homeless silent.
The homeless are just regular folks who are usually at the bottom of the poverty ladder.
In its government-approved misguided coverage of poverty, one story the news media hardly ever covers is just how difficult it is for the working poor and their families--about 150 million Americans--to obtain healthy food. Lacking cars or easily accessible public transportation, as well as being exhausted from their daily grind, they are often unable to get to the market, purchase and then lug home even this country’s poor excuses for food--like canned vegetables with most of the nutriment drained out of them, processed mashed potatoes, and Twinkies--let alone find, afford and bring home fresh meat, fruits and vegetables.
This is one of many aspects of human suffering gladly overlooked by the print and broadcast media. Why would the vanguard of society, our media, disregard the pain of one third of our population? (For I contend that is the proportion of people in our country who are “lacking the resources to meet the basic needs for healthy living; having insufficient income to provide the food, shelter and clothing needed to preserve health,” which is how Wikipedia defines the absolute poverty line.) Simple--the media is owned by billionaires. Their advertisers want you to believe the lies and propaganda which for thousands of years have promoted a lifeless and colorless society, and which have failed to reveal the inhumanity which underlies the functioning of our economy. They do not want anyone to suggest or experiment with more humane and equitable economic models. They are afraid of the untried!
The elite fear trying a “humane income for all,” even though it is hidden in the New Testament that a leader called Christ said the proper amount to give the poor is "the full need.” That would entail asking the poor how much more it would take to break even and feel human. The answer would be two to three times their minimum wage, or two to three times what the disabled are paid by the government.
The untold story: The media side-steps its freedom of the press by failing to report that many part-time workers are paid less than $172 a week after taxes--while most US Senators are paid roughly twenty times that amount, or $3346 a week. It ignores its freedom to expose governmental and corporate wrongdoing while keeping the financially poor, the hungry, the homeless silent.
The homeless are just regular folks who are usually at the bottom of the poverty ladder.
In its government-approved misguided coverage of poverty, one story the news media hardly ever covers is just how difficult it is for the working poor and their families--about 150 million Americans--to obtain healthy food. Lacking cars or easily accessible public transportation, as well as being exhausted from their daily grind, they are often unable to get to the market, purchase and then lug home even this country’s poor excuses for food--like canned vegetables with most of the nutriment drained out of them, processed mashed potatoes, and Twinkies--let alone find, afford and bring home fresh meat, fruits and vegetables.
This is one of many aspects of human suffering gladly overlooked by the print and broadcast media. Why would the vanguard of society, our media, disregard the pain of one third of our population? (For I contend that is the proportion of people in our country who are “lacking the resources to meet the basic needs for healthy living; having insufficient income to provide the food, shelter and clothing needed to preserve health,” which is how Wikipedia defines the absolute poverty line.) Simple--the media is owned by billionaires. Their advertisers want you to believe the lies and propaganda which for thousands of years have promoted a lifeless and colorless society, and which have failed to reveal the inhumanity which underlies the functioning of our economy. They do not want anyone to suggest or experiment with more humane and equitable economic models. They are afraid of the untried!
The elite fear trying a “humane income for all,” even though it is hidden in the New Testament that a leader called Christ said the proper amount to give the poor is "the full need.” That would entail asking the poor how much more it would take to break even and feel human. The answer would be two to three times their minimum wage, or two to three times what the disabled are paid by the government.
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