From: Mark Grant (mark@unicorn.com)
Date: Thu Sep 11 1997 - 14:11:50 MDT
On Wed, 10 Sep 1997 QueeneMUSE@aol.com wrote:
> No one can convince me that the
> "poor" ( which in common semantics means a life without proper shelter,
> medical care and adequate food) give a damn if we chose to think of them as
> "richer" than the starving homeless who lived in medieval times.
But this is precisely the point; by any *rational* definition of poverty
there are few poor people in the West today. The US government's
definition of poverty is something that most of the planet's population
can only aspire to.
> Not only that- to use that line of thinking to
> ignore the truth of that reality, to NOT acknowledge their very real
> experience of starving to death, is denial of the worst sort, and IMO
> downright mean.
How many people starve to death every day in the US? Every study I've seen
shows that obesity is far more of a threat to the average American than
starvation.
> The bottom is still the bottom.
But in the West today the bottom typically includes a place to live,
health care, food, beer, a TV, a fridge and quite possibly a car. I've
been to places where most people don't have those things, so forgive me
for not falling over in a fit of compassion for "poor" Westerners.
Mark
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