and there is talking. There is a difference between going on about the 1% and the 99% and actually talking about, specifically, those of us on the bottom (or near the bottom) of the economic ladder. Yes, Sanders does talk about the poor... in very general ways, he is an intelligent man and a decent speaker and I think he does a good job. That's not my point. Over and over again, he needs to be hitting the media and his audiences with examples of these lives, of the issues people have faced and are willing to share. He needs to share these things so that they really hit home for people who are living comfortably, or who believe they will be if they just keep working 80 hours a week for minimum wage. There is a better world to be had, if we have the courage to take this fight where it needs to go.

The issue of the contempt that even many democrats have for the poor, the unemployed and so on... it needs to be addressed and utterly condemned. It is the elephant in the room - and why many previous presidential candidates have also been reluctant to really talk about the poor. I don't think he understands - that's how you win an election by a landslide. That's how you accomplish the kind of social and economic changes the new deal brought about.

Maybe some of this is my own resentment at living in a conservative area and being poor... but I hear people bitch, every day, about "women who just keep popping out babies to get their welfare checks" and just as often from democrats as republicans. Just as often I hear democrats mocking a fellow citizen who is getting food stamps, because he dared to buy soda with them. "There's our tax dollars at work!" You know where the tax dollars are really at work? Not on behalf of the individual citizen, poor or otherwise - but on corporate subsidies, the military industrial complex, tax relief for companies with record breaking, gigantic profits.

It's one thing when someone says they are a democrat and support social reform, social welfare, or the poor American people... it is another matter entirely to prove it by doing something about it. I think he's trying, which is why I think he needs to step it up. Time to rip away the illusions and show people just how poor and desperate many of us are - and perhaps we can give them advice on how to live, years in the future, when almost everyone else is poor too.

The culmination of which, is his current campaign.

It's also why a lot of other people did. However, if he can win the nomination, he will still have to fight for the general. This is why he needs to be more dramatic - and why he needs to present us with things that are shocking and awesome for their level of truth, pain and humanity. Trump gets the kind of media attention and support he does (even now, after some breathtakingly stupid shit) because the kind of shit he talks about and does... it sells. Those scandals and BS twitter wars and so on aren't the result of someone not knowing how to sell. He knows that the American populace is rather addicted to social media and scandals - even really, really stupid and petty ones.

There is a way to eliminate that. It can be done by demonstrating the truth, through sharing the lives of others - bringing them out into the open, into the spotlight - and telling their stories. Giving examples of why things need to change. Telling the thousands, even millions, of painful stories that poor people have all over this Country. It would bring tears, heartbreak, high drama... and the media would eat it up, because drama SELLS. Not only that, but perhaps they could even regain some relevance in this age of corporate insanity. That is why the media would do it... but it would be pretty damned amazing to be hearing news stories about that "outrageous socialist" and how extreme he is in his support of the poor.

So very many people I have known are ignorant of what it is like to be poor. Even many of the poor themselves are ignorant of the fact that they are poor (or consider themselves middle class with a 20K a year income) - or of how changing the policies of government can have a dramatic effect for the average person in one direction or another. I have talked to a lot of inspired, poor, young people. I have also talked to a lot of poor young people who firmly believe that change is hopeless, because the rot... the corruption, has gone too far beyond our means to fix it. Or those who believe that any of these people running for office don't give a shit about any of us, because they're rich pricks in a different world.

I prefer to believe that most people are simply ignorant of what life is like for us. If they knew, there is no way it would not change. There is no way that anyone beyond very extreme sadists and masochists would wish for it to continue.

Regarding the conservative area you live in, I spent a couple of weeks in Maine last fall and was astonished at your governor. I grew up in Alabama in the 1960's and 1970's. George Wallace was the governor in Alabama for much of that time, and the Republican crackpot you guys have in Maine makes Wallace sound like an intellectual. Maybe the single dumbest person I've ever heard to get to the level of governor or higher in American politics.

I wondered a lot about what regular people did to get by in Maine year round since so much of the economy is driven by tourism and the summer season is so short. I was in the Bar Harbor area (hiking and doing photography in Acadia National Park) and in the downeast area up to Lubec and Campobello Island, also in Portland for one night. Most restaurants and shops in the tourist areas appeared to be close to shutting down when I left in early October.

With regard to Bernie and the poor, I heard something from him this week that hopefully will give you a little more hope. The morning after he spoke to the huge crowd (estimated 18,000 plus an overflow crowd out of the main area) at the park in the South Bronx, the host of a local radio show (Hot 97, Ebro in the Morning), where Bernie appeared in studio asked him why he chose the South Bronx to kick off his NY campaign. Bernie said it was because the South Bronx was one of the poorest areas in the country and he wanted to send the message that he will not forget about the poor. I read articles about how long it had been since a national politician had been to the South Bronx and how much excitement and hope Bernie's event brought to them.

Here's the video of Bernie's radio interview with Hot 97, Ebro in the Morning.

Don't give up.

I hope everyone will take a minute to read your op and think about the people who've fallen on hard times through no fault of their own.

Hang in there.

If Bernie gets elected, he's more people oriented, and things will get better. It won't probably help you or me or millions of others directly...yet. But the dialogue will change, and it has to, or all of us at the bottom are going to die.

There is some hope, however. Socialism is no longer a dirty word, and there is broadening support for a guaranteed minimum income. Bernie will work on single payer health care, and maybe we can get a word in on right to food, housing and other necessities.

We're in a bad place right now, and I hope you can find some ease in knowing that you aren't alone, and you should be respected as part of the human community. Don't worry too much about the future, today has enough worries for you.

Relax and take comfort in the fact that you are doing the best you can in a corrupt system. Hopefully that system will be gone soon.

We're stronger together

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It's a shame that most of that money goes to the bourgeoisie and regional bosses.


Oh, and the rest of that money does into offshore corporate profits that remain offshore until they get a tax amnesty and pay no taxes on it. There is and always will be a need for tariffs to one degree or another, but some like to take the quick savings and then deal with the fallout later. It's a corporatists dream to see this play out, especially at DU.



Some dolt here is preaching about NAFTA, and how the lower tariffs help out the consumer. Sure, it knocks a few percent off, while the manufacturer still sells the products near pre-NAFTA rates and pockets the savings, all while not having OSHA, EPA, or a bunch of other issues to worry about. It's a win, win, win for them. Meanwhile, as jobs idle, less money goes into the local economy and a shitload of strip malls open up with Cash to Gold stores in them--the true sign of American Prosperity!


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and I'm very sorry that you and others haven't been addressed during the campaign. I have heard Bernie talk about the poor but most of the conversation is directed at the working/middle class. I hope that at least he speaks more to what can be done to help the poor get on their feet.

My daughter is a working poor millenial right now. I help her where I can but it's not much. Jobs are in very short supply and even if people can get one, it's not enough to be able to live on.

I hope your situation improves very soon.

I feel deeply, deeply for you and I am sure that so do my fellow Bernie supporters. Rage is what we feel when we consider the staggering inequality in America. We KNOW that some radical change must take place, a shift in how we think, a shift in our collective morality.

We need to see people as having the same value as we do whether they are rich or not.

I do NOT see Hillary as changing that and it frustrates me to see people settle for so much less than they deserve, so much less than other countries consider par for the course.

Good luck to you. My sister faced chronic pain and... all I can say is it is hard beyond any words. It is brutal beyond description. I know. I hope with all my heart that same change in the winds of your life happens and relief comes.