Even the New York Times has noticed the disparity between rich and poor.  The following post from the Sunday April 28 Opinionator Column speaks to the vast and increasing differences in learning between the rich and all the rest of us.  Oddly enough, the things that make being poor so difficult are also the things that keep our children from doing well in school.  The author, Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford Professor, notes a large and and still growing gap in school performance between rich children and their less affluent peers.  Oddly all the changes in education policy over the last decades don't seem to have had any effect on this disparity.  Even thought all students are better in math and reading, the rich have continued to advance faster.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/no-rich-child-left-behind/?smid=pl-share
"No Rich Child Left Behind"  

The question is what if anything should you and I do about this disparity?  Should we care that we are two different societies and that more and more power resides in an upper class that works hard to be better than or at least better educated than the rest of us?  As a socialist at heart I vote for action.

There are lots of things that the national government could and should be doing to make the field of play level for all children.  Put early parental and child education on the national agenda.  Make sure the poor have what they need to provide children with adequate stimulus and nutrition.  Make sure that schools in poor neighborhoods match those of their more affluent neighbors.   Maybe most importantly treat the poor as if they matter.  Of course, the current national government probably can not or will not do any of those things.

Luckily the community has the ability to do what the government can not or will not do.  With the exception of money, the poor have everything we need to improve children's learning.  Community organizing could provide day care and early learning in poor communities.  The same is true of parenting classes and nutritional help.  Even the money problem can be solved with community help. Yes the one percent does have most of the wealth, but you and I and 300 million others between us can do quite a bit with what's left. We can and must use our own solidarity as a shield protecting against the propaganda that tells us being poor is the cause and not the result of larger forces in the nation.  We can fix this if we just try.

Reality vs Perception

I think that most of us spend our lives denying the unpleasant realities of life.  In many ways that's a useful way to live.  It lets us get through the day even when a large part of the world lives with poverty and carnage.  We wonder what could we do to change things and when the solutions aren't apparent or easy we let our minds take the easy path and adjust the perception to make it easier to live with.  Most of us know that the rich get richer as the poor get ... well you know.  What we don't let ourselves know is just how far apart the rich and poor are.

Take a look at this video and then let's talk about what these kinds of differences mean for all of us.

Here is the latest data from The Pew center:  http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/04/23/  Just a hint, it's not getting better.

Mirandize What?

I'm having a difficult time with law enforcement's decision not to give miranda warnings to Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing.  First and foremost, it is my contention that rights for Americans are the same as the rights that all humans should enjoy.  Secondly, this young man is not a foreign national or a known enemy combatant.  He is known to be an American Citizen and as such is constitutionally protected as being innocent until proved guilty.  If we don't provide him with all the rights of citizenship, what happens when you or I are accused of illegal acts?

Beyond the philosophy and legality of our treatment of suspected terrorists is the question of why someone finds it necessary to bomb innocent athletes and spectators?  Is terrorism a pathology that needs to be cured?  I think that is sometimes true as in the case of the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski or the many recent young men with assault rifles.  If so perhaps miranda warnings are beside the point.  These folks need treatment rather than punishment and if we catch them before they offend might even return to society better or at least safer than before.  We, meaning the medical profession, must find ways to identify and treat dangerous pathologies just as they would for infectious diseases.

More difficult, I think, is the political and cultural terrorism displayed by the Brothers Tsarnaev and members of various organized terror groups such as the Aryan Brotherhood or al-Qaeda.  They are crying out against real or perceived evils in their culture or the world at large.  It's hard not to sympathize with their plight if not with their solutions.  If you or I lived in the culture of poverty and want, we also might resort to extreme means to expose our plight - or fall victim to the "out to get us" attitudes of many stressed cultures.  In many ways there is little difference between the aims of Osama Ben-Laden and Mahatma Ghandi.  Using your body as a barricade is different only in degree from using your body as a bomb.  Yes I know, blood should not be spilled but the sweat of the poor might as well be blood for all it costs them.

So, where does that leave us?  How about redirecting the majority of our war spending to human needs, starting with places like Chechnya and Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, or you pick one.  The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $1,444,990,000 plus over 1,000,000 deaths.  What good could we do with a trillion and one half dollars?  Even if we wasted half of it, that would leave close to $400 each for the whole world population or considerably more if we properly target the least fortunate.  You say people don't appreciate a hand out?  Probably true, but people respond well to help if allowed to direct it and participate personally.  One thing is for sure, most folks don't send the suicide bombers after the people helping them out of poverty.