Do we really Care?

-Do we really care? David Wilkerson for a typical Pentecostal loyal to USA to the end Republican mindset founder of Time Square Church in New York surprised me when in ‘America’s Last Call’ he complained that tax cuts had reduced the amounts of money paid to poor- A point well made in the documentary film by Michael Moore ‘Bowling for Columbine’ where a young mother travelling long distances to work for low wages in a shopping mall was neglecting the care of her six year old son who took a gun and went to school and shot dead a fellow student as a result of all that saving of money by the government… Look honestly do any of us reading this give a fig about the conditions that the poor of USA live in? In New York in the critical 1860s the historian Mark Kurlansky writing in The Big Oyster tells us ‘In 1864, a New York citizens association undertook a block by block inspection of the city. In 1865 published its three hundred page report which was widely distributed …the goal of the report, which was largely sponsored by the wealthy, was to clean up the sanitary and moral conditions in the slums that caused disease. The report pointed out that ‘The mobs that held fearful sway in our city during the memorable out-break of violence in the month of July 1863, were gathered in overcrowded and neglected quarters of the city’. P206 We get to the absolute heart of the issue. Can the American Economy continue? Well yes as long as those who are poor and disadvantaged within that economic system do not rise up as happened that Fateful for the American Civil War; Fateful for the emerging out of New York –Empire State- world wide movement; Do not emerge to loot and burn the city and open up USA to’ Chinese Peace keepers’ coming into USA to take charge…. Well God alone knows what happens then! The Torah if one were to take it seriously pays attention to the plight of foreigners, of the widow, the orphan, the disadvantaged, those who have lost their land and makes redress and essential seven year and fifty year Return. A lot has happened since that fateful week July 1863 in New York. In the century 1864-1964 when our current report into The United States was published. In these past 50 years? Does anyone care for those living in slavery in New York’s Chinatown- exact same location as where one fifty years ago the riots that almost destroyed New York and The Union came from. Will it come again. Equality.. Gone? ‘Of great importance for the democratization of the American economy is the trend towards a narrower range of incomes. There is still considerable poverty (1964) at the bottom of American society, and there are huge fortunes at the top. Poverty is a problem- even in Franklin D Roosevelt’s famous ‘one third of a nation ill housed, ill clad and ill nourished’ of 1937 had been reduced to less than a fifth by 1965, and even if among the poor are included many who elsewhere would be considered well-to do. For several decades the range of incomes has been narrowing, while at the same time there has been a rapid general upward movement. Between 1941 and 1963 the increase of average incomes, measured in goods and services purchased was 79% of the lowest 20% of the population and 30 percent of the top 5% of the population. The numbers of families in the middle income groups has been steadily increasing… p71-72 Professor Salvadori The United States. Time Life 1965. But fifty years later the trend is; Disappearing middle..