Brandon Lacy Campos' post is very interesting because of its false assumptions.
1. That the European Countries have far fewer poor people than the U.S. is because they are more enlightened than us is a false assumption. Actually their illegal alien population is quite a bit more upscale than ours. When they have immigrant populations there because of a labor shortage their immigrant populations are very seldom given the opportunity to become citizens, (look at Germany and its treatment of Turkish labor). Also, I do not believe they have the same refugee situation as we. France and England handle refugees very well, but were not mentioned by Brandon, probably because they also have some serious poverty. Countries in Northern Europe tend to treat "Native Citizens" very well, not because of "enlightenment", but because labor shortages have caused "labor" to be a very powerful political force. Immigration, particularly illegal immigration, and the cheap labor which industry has taken advantage of, has eroded the power of labor in this country. Look at the building trades, (particularly roofing), they are dominated by cheap Mexican labor. A great deal of this labor is by illegal immigrants, who are easily taken advantage of. Mexican people work hard and I deeply admire them, but do not delude yourself into believing they do not displace legal labor or do not drive the price of labor down. 2. Brandon, where have you lived other than a school or suburb or a City? Your bootstrap statement indicates that Europeans are correct in their derision of American young people's knowledge of history. Some do not even know American History. The duplexes of Minneapolis were built by recent immigrants working to build a better life and figuring out that if they used some rental income to augment their salaries they could afford a better house and amass capital. IT WORKED. Today industrious Latinos are doing the very same thing in my community. They are buying duplexes and amassing capital. Some recent immigrants have become millionaires in south Minneapolis after ten years from the time they arrived. They arrived in this country without money, without speaking English well, without much education, and without business contacts. I would say that this exemplifies the idea of "Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps". I do not honestly know if Brandon's background affords experience in the real world that is America, but mine has. I and many of my friends grew up in abject poverty on sharecropper and tenant farms in the south. I had the most childhood education of this group with a ninth grade education. Most of us went into the military to escape this poverty, some of us, like Larry and Freddie died, in strange places like Phuoc Long and Lam Dong, the rest seem to be examples of that "Bootstrap theory" which Brandon thinks of as "ridiculous and myth". While some of us might sometimes appear ridiculous in our actions, I can assure Brandon and the List readers we are not "Myth". Rick Graham is the Facilities Manager and a Director of a hospital in Osage Beach Missouri, Leonard Harris after retiring as a Colonel in the Marine Corps owns two Meineke Muffler shops in Biloxi Mississippi, Harold Odom after retiring from the Air Force works as a consultant to the Air Force at Little Rock Arkansas, Jim Graham,(me), is an urban planning development consultant and has a real estate business in the Minneapolis area. These are a few of us from a small community, there are others. All at a minimum graduated from College, and without much "assistance", (other than the GI Bill), pulled themselves up by their "Own Bootstraps". If you call ahead some of us will even let you touch us to make sure we are real, and not"Myth". Heck we may even show you our bootstraps. 3. Brandon is correct about the corporate welfare, but underestimates the amount of "welfare for the rich". Target cost a great deal more than 30 million dollars, and did not even offer living wage jobs. I believe Target refused to offer even this minimum of what should be given to employees at the same time they were getting what I have heard is now approaching 60 million dollars, and threatens to go higher before the accounting is finished. What this country can do to break poverty is start expecting and demanding that our people succeed. The first step is to provide trade school and college classes for two years for all people finishing high school or getting a GED, and who maintain a minimum C average. For those who maintain a minimum B average in these two years, pay for one more year of tuition and books. DO NOT PAY FOR ROOM AND BOARD, help the person to own a duplex. It gives the person stable housing and income while going to school. Most housing programs focus on single family or apartment rental support, and do not leave room for the �Boot Straps� Bootstraps are a lot longer and easier to pull these days, but you have to know they are there. A bunch of "pseudo liberals", calling themselves enlightened, have taught a whole generation that bootstraps are a myth. So, to not even look. They are directly responsible for untold numbers of dropouts by kids who decided to not even try if failure was assured. The real myth is perpetrated by educated "enlightened" people who have never had to pull on anything but daddy's checkbook and who perpetuate this lie to the poor youth of America. They CHEAT the poor of a future. I remember being told the same lie, and being told I should take a job at the cotton gin or a filling station and forget my crazy ideas. I had been taught to not believe such non-sense, but I knew they were lying, and I just kept on believing and tugging on those straps. We have the greatest country in the world, with problems yes, but a whole lot better than other places. That is why so many people want to come here. It is a place where disadvantaged can succeed. Those that do not believe so should maybe show their enlightenment and move to Europe. It would make room for an immigrant from somewhere else who does believe in the "American Myth". Jim Graham, Ventura Village, Clear Lake Cotton Fields, and "Myth" _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
