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America’s endless wars and it has lost almost all of them, especially on poverty

Crescent International

American officials are forever launching wars; shooting wars as well as wars on concepts whether it is poverty or terror. Apart from its war on Muslims, America has lost every war, none more thoroughly than the one on poverty

Washington DC, Crescent-online
Sunday April 20, 2014, 13:53 DST

It sounds unreal that a rich country like the US would have such a large number of poor: more than 46 million. The US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is $57 trillion. No other country comes close yet it cannot feed its poor.

There is a mindset among American elites that are constantly waging wars: war on drugs, war on terror, war on Russia, war on Muslims, war on poverty, war on anything they do not like. Apart from the war on Muslims, America has lost every other war so far.

Among the poor, the overwhelming majority is black. This also reflects the racial divide in America. The US Civil rights bill was passed in 1965 but African-Americans have not seen the benefits of such legislation. It is difficult to eliminate racism by passing laws although it is an important first step.

America’s burgeoning prison population consists overwhelmingly of blacks—53 percent—although their total population is a mere 15 percent. This has led racist commentators to pronounce that blacks are by nature violent and prone to crime. This ignores the fundamental point that the American judicial system is deeply biased against blacks. For the same crime, a black person is three times more likely to be sent to prison than a white person.

Among the poor, at least 22 percent are children or 16.4 million.

We must consider variation between racial/ethnic subgroups when looking at poverty figures. Poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics far exceed the US national average. In 2010, 27.4 percent of blacks and 26.6 percent of Hispanics were poor, compared to 9.9 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 12.1 percent of Asians.

The case of children is even worse. They constitute a disproportionate share of poor. While 24 percent of the total population, they represent 36 percent of the poor. In 2010, 16.4 million children, or 22.0 percent, were poor. The poverty rate for children also varies substantially by race and origin.

Black children make up 38.2 percent of the poor followed by Hispanic children at 35 percent. White children are 12.4 percent.

Lest racists, especially in the US media, immediately jump to conclusion that blacks are lazy, they should remember that the entire US system is loaded against blacks. They are routinely stopped by the police; more of them get shot and killed and they do not get a fair shake in the economy.

The injustices of the US system have now been acknowledged by a growing number of whites as well. This is what was witnessed in the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011. They realized that a tiny parasitical class usurps the country’s wealth impoverishing the overwhelming majority. Blacks come out at the bottom of the heap.

END


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