Re: [Mpls] Property taxes, the poor and the rich in Minneapolis

[Gary Hoover]

I have a very different take on the "affordable housing" issue.  Minneapolis 
is located in the middle of the planet's wealthiest nation, which also 
happens to be the nation with the biggest income disparity gap -- a gap 
which is widening.  Even though the poor in the US make more than the poor 
in many other countries, food and housing costs are higher here as well.

I know people working a fulltime job and a part-time job in order to make a 
house payment and simply provide for a family.  While we do well to analyse 
the housing trends in Minneapolis, we need to see that they are dwarfed by 
this issue: the middle class in America is being destroyed, while the poor 
are further marginalized.  Welcome, Minneapolis, to economic stratification 
we once equated with the "third world" or to authoritarian "closed 
societies."

For information we citizens, our Mayor, and City Council folks need, here 
are some links:

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/executive2.html  -- Now with Bill Moyers did 
a good story on "Downward Mobility."  Warning -- start clicking around and 
there are many links for information and analysis..."how far down the rabbit 
hole do you want to go...?"

http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03october/october03lines.html     
-- second paragraph of this page relates a good summary as well.

There are many other good sources of information and analysis as well.
I think we need to reframe the question:  how can the citizens and political 
and civic leadership of Minneapolis respond meaningfully to this trend of 
extreme economic polarization?

This is a question of economic justice.  Ultimately it is a question of 
economic survival.  More working poor are losing ground. Economic injustice 
requires violence on the part of government to enforce the status quo.  The 
greater the injustice, the greater the violence needed to keep the rabble in 
line.  If economic polarization continues, will local governments respond by 
cutting more services to the poor and the shrinking middle class while 
catering to the needs of an increasingly dominant upper class?

Democracy is not surviving the Divine right of Capital, and the Religion of 
the Rich needs many a Dr. Pangloss to draw a veil over the economic reality 
of our world, nation, state and city in this Holday Season so full for some 
abundant gifts, lavish parties, music and lights.

What is to be done?
-- pedaling for peace and ecojustice from Kingfield -- Gary Hoover 

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