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Extreme Poverty in the US Is A Political Choice of the Powerful

Kenneth Surin CounterPunch
A homeless child in Bend, OR. Following his US fact-finding mission, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights concluded extreme poverty in the US “is a political choice made by those in power. With political will, it could readily be eliminated.”

Communing with Dr. King on the 50th Anniversary of his Beyond Vietnam Speech

Howard Machtinger National Council of Elders
What follows is written in concert with the project initiated by the National Council of Elders on April 4, 2017: Time to Break Silence. Groups around the country will stage public readings of Martin Luther King’s Beyond Vietnam speech on its 50th anniversary. In confronting the deeply rooted racism, militarism and materialism of the United States, Dr. King described the United States as the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.

How Inequality Became as American as Apple Pie

Jessica Weisberg The Nation
The word “inequality” makes conservatives uncomfortable, as if it invokes class struggle, the 99 percent versus the 1. They much prefer “mobility,” which connotes a purely aspirational relationship to wealth and the wealthy.

Undercounting the Poor,The U.S.'s New, but Only Marginally Improved, Poverty Measure.

Jeannette Wicks-Lim Dollars & Sense
The 2011 official poverty rate is 15.1%. The new poverty measure presented—and missed by a wide margin—the opportunity to bring into public view how widespread the problem of poverty is for American families. If what we mean by poverty is the inability to meet one’s basic needs a more reasonable poverty line would tell us that 34% of Americans—more than one in three—are poor.
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