Reading, Pennsylvania

One can only marvel at the callousness of American capitalism and the combination of individual greed, apathy, and corruption that sustains it.  The New York Times gives us a glimpse today of the misery and hopelessness of 21^st century life in Reading, Pennsylvania.  Government figures indicate that Reading is now the poorest city in the nation with a poverty rate of 41.3%, but make no mistake – the same dismal story could have been written anywhere.

In the richest country in the world, the global superpower, we read of a woman trying to support her family on $900 per month as a waitress, and of another who “packs cakes and pies all night at $8 an hour” and then cares for her children during the day.  Subsidized day care is lost if these desperate individuals are out of work for more than 13 days and it takes months to reinstate.  Basic medical care is also abolished should one of these neo-slaves become lucky enough to earn more than $10 an hour.  What incredible brutality!

It’s a lack of education, the Times assures us (as if the uneducated deserve living in squalor):

One of Reading’s more entrenched problems is education. Just 8 percent of its residents have a bachelor’s degree, far below the national average of 28 percent.

But it’s not really education, is it?

Even for young people with a bachelor’s degree, the economy is making life difficult. Vickie Moll, who runs the day care center, said the number of applications from teachers who have lost their jobs had grown as the waves of budget cuts washed over the state. “We have people in here with bachelor’s degrees making $8 an hour,” she said.

The Democrats have much to answer for these third world conditions and Bill Clinton’s contribution is indirectly cited in the article.

In the mid-1990s, welfare reform resulted in more women joining the work force. At the time, jobs were plentiful, but now work is scarce and low-income families’ lives have become hectic balancing acts to keep the few benefits they have.

We should also take note of our current president who, while doing so very little over the past years, is now campaigning as the man of the people.  An utter disgrace.

We live in a brutally stark and inhuman class society.  We need to demand an immediate elimination of poverty and insecurity in this country.  There can be NO excuse that people need to live this way.  We have no basis spending a nickel on high science, the military, golf courses, expensive homes, yachts, Park Avenue palaces, you have it, when so many are living in such barbaric conditions.