Don’t be poor in America

I listened to this video and knew immediately that I wanted to share it.

This woman walking home from work, represents millions of us who are struggling every day, in this the richest country on earth.

I read often of American citizens working 2 or 3 jobs to put food on the table, pay the rent and hope there is something left over to buy their children or themselves 

a pair of shoes.

Then there are the stories of immigrants.  There are the people who left their homes to come here, to come to the land of plenty. Who came here with stars in their eyes expecting a better life.  Those immigrants who fall asleep with tears in their eyes, live in poverty, work their fingers to the bone and see no light at the end of the tunnel.

What they do hear are disparaging remarks from the members of The Clown Car and their cohorts on Capitol Hill. 

And I listen to our elected officials and other Americans who do not realize that they too are poor, denigrate those who struggle every day.  

Millions of us depend on Social Security.  If a bill passed and the stroke of a pen made that bill a law many of us would be living in a cardboard box, poor and homeless.

We are at the beginning of another Presidential election cycle. I want you to listen very closely to the speeches that will be made. The lofty rhetoric, the promises of a better tomorrow, and I want you to listen closely for a word.  A word that I never hear in speeches, that word is poor.  I hear “middle class”. The middle class was the alpha and the omega of past elections.  The poor were invisible, not to be mentioned. It was particularly galling these last 2 cycles as I listened and realized that thanks to the decisions made in Washington DC, many members of the “middle class” were rapidly becoming members of the class, the name which cannot be mentioned.

I want to extend my thanks to my friend who gave me permission to share the video.