Inequality in the US

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Permalink Reply by Lavona Grow on August 21, 2011 at 8:01pm

This is perhaps the fundamental battle of our time -- rich vs. poor.  The discussion has been fueled by much opinion, but the most informative media segment I have seen on this issue is Jon Stewart's opening piece last Thursday night. It truly contrasts the clash, and the media coverage of it. Upon seeing that segment, i just had to ask, what moral or ethical or spiritual values do those super-rich (the "have mores" in Bushian terms) hold?

 

Here's the Reuters story about the segment, which links to the Jon Stewart piece. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/19/idUS176364188120110819

 

Bob Denniston

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Permalink Reply by Moya Marlene Atkinson on August 26, 2011 at 10:10am

Thank you very much for your posts. I believe that we as a large and prosperous congregation should make this subject a priority.

 

The October 2011 Movement, a group with which I'm involved, asks that we create a new world - "One where people's needs are more important than corporate profits. A world where we end the wars and occupations overseas; where our priorities are jobs, education, housing, healthcare and human rights; and where we are free to implement solutions for a peaceful, just and sustainable world." Click on october2011.org

 

I was going to call the group"radical", but there's nothing radical about it! It's what UU-ism espouses, what Martin Luther King, Jr. taught, what generations of past leaders and religious persons have told us through their example and their words, and what many of us, in the depths of our being seek.

As we speak out against injustices to our neighbors who are immigrants, to assure their right to a loving place in our society, so too we can march on October 6 and beyond to support a nation that chooses human well-being over corporatism and militarism. Our congregation is blessed with the opportunity to embrace this kind of change. Let's go for it!

Moya Atkinson, Co-Chair, Global Peace Through Justice, UUCA representative for the Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice (the Baltimore, Washington and N. Virginia region) and the Washington Region and National Religious Campaign Against Torture

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Permalink Reply by Laura Dely on August 29, 2011 at 4:29pm

Thank you Susan! This is such an important issue that more of us (nay all of us) need to become aware.

Why do you think that young woman said she prefered the current 84% in the hands of a tiny minority holding all the wealth? Was she just being flippant? Maybe she blocked the explanation offered by Paul Solman, and so didn't understand what had been shown to her, or thought she could save face as Solamn expressed disbelief in her expressed preference.

Or am I guilty of trying thinking that people are just too dumb to recognise what is in their own self-interest?

 

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Permalink Reply by jill herndon on September 5, 2011 at 1:12pm

I have been house hunting up  and down the Northern Neck of Virginia.  The inequalities are abundantly clear neighborhood to neighborhood.  I told my friend that I had found the mansions and she told me there were none around.  Well, down a road and another one and through a gate.  It is the reverse of what I found in NC where the down and around leads to dirt roads to mobile homes hidden from view.  Mansions as second homes.  She can just check the local marina and see the yachts, but she is sitting on her own dock below a modest ranch home.  Getting to her house is through a neighborhood of exceptionally modest homes, and more than a few are abandoned.  She took me through the trailer park that caters to summer boating -- maybe 500 sites in the same area or less than a single mansion.

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