Common Dreams
The Dow closed the week at a record high. And all those billionaires? They're barely even an exclusive club anymore, what with 442 in the U.S. in 2012 and almost a thousand more than that globally, a jump of 200 in a single year, Forbes data shows.Capital Area Food Bank serving the Washington DC metro area.
So why is it OK for working Americans to go hungry? Why in the midst
such affluence for the wealthy do we, as a nation, simply turn our back
on those struggling, even when they are lucky enough to land a job and
work for a living?To me, it is the shrug with which most Americans seem to greet such questions today that offers the most alarming evidence we live in a broken and declining society. Sure, each month we wait with anticipation for the job growth and unemployment data. Today public radio was abuzz with excitement at the better-than-anticipated numbers for new job creation in October.
I'm all for success; we need a whole lot more. But why do we barely notice the figures about failure -- not the failure of individuals, but the failure of a society to take care of its children, its disabled, its old people? The failure of that society -- our society -- to even acknowledge it's wrong to let people starve in the midst of affluence.
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