"Racial Poverty Gaps in U.S. Amount to Human Rights Violation, Says U.N."

UNITED NATIONS - Despite enormous wealth and various federal and social welfare schemes at work, the United States is failing to help millions of its people trying to get out of poverty, according to an independent United Nations rights expert.

"Resource constraints have limited the reach of the assistance programs and social discrimination has aggravated the problems in many situations resulting in poverty clearly seen as a violation of human rights," Dr. Arjun Sengupta declared after visiting the United States last month.

"If the United States government designed and implemented the policies according to human rights standards much of the problem of poverty could be resolved," he added.

Dr. Sengupta, an expert on human rights and extreme poverty of the world body's Commission on Human Rights, said he chose to visit the United States because he wanted to illustrate that extreme poverty was not only prevalent in developing countries, but a phenomenon that is found in most nations in the world, according to U.N. officials.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1130-01.htm

bush failure?

another bush failure!

that just gets me in my warm fuzzy places.:)

and until we take responsibility for our fellow brothers and sisters who have not we are all to blame for their plight. It is the action of indaviduals not governments that will erase poverty.

When we let money vote, the inevitable result is that it votes for Bushes. But Bushes press for ever-greater influence by money, exacerbating the problem. We are headed for, or already in, a new age of robber barons.

The trend will continue for exactly as long as we continue to let money vote. Ban private/corporate money from the political process, and the division of wealth will be more equitable. Problem mitigated--or perhaps even solved.

What will happen after the latest cuts toward school lunches, student loans, etc.? How many people will die as a result of health problems, winter weather and neglect?

How can we change? This administration does NOT care and continue to keep the wealth in the hands of the elite. We have Chavez helping the poor with heating costs while our oil companies stash their pockets with higher and higher profits.

It's shameful.



more from the article:

The independent expert noted that a multitude of federal and state benefit systems and means-tested programs have been designed to provide assistance to poor people, but noted that there were "significant gaps" in the current system.

The report identifies high costs of healthcare, inadequate access to quality education and vocational training, low wages, limited protection of tenants, and lack of low-cost housing as major factors that pose "serious obstacles" to people struggling to get out of poverty.

"Poverty is not only deprivation of economic or material resources, but a violation of human rights too," according to the Geneva-based U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

"No social phenomenon is as comprehensive in its assault on human rights as poverty," it says. "Poverty erodes or nullifies economic and social rights such as the right to health, adequate housing, food, safe water, and the right to education."

In addition to Dr. Sengupta's findings, a similar report is also under circulation at the world body, which point to human rights abuses in the United States.

we could all be in poverty.

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Comparing apples to oranges. This story has to be a hoax. I have seen extreme poverty in the US I have worked with the Homeless in the US and to compare this poverty to the poverty I have seen in Central and South America is disgusting.

Human rights standards..which standards?? Where in the US can you no tfind food,shelter or medical care???? The united States provides housing and food and medical care for those in poverty(which is much thousnds of times better than 2/3 of the world population living on less than 2 dollars perday!!!)

There is no extreme poverty in the united states. to claim so is to ignore what extreme poverty is.

I wonder how many resources he used up while flying around collecting his "data"?

He visits NOL and uses it as part of his declaration. what a fool.

I see that there are no substative details to his claim of Human rights violations as well as any details in his sweeping condemnation of government policies. There are literally thousands of public and private groups fighting poverty in the US andn his commemnts are a slap in the face to those who do hellp unlike this asshole.

(Gov't policies, that is... as in the bush agenda.) Sorry if I'm misunderstanding you, but that's what it sounds like you're saying.

You're right, there is shelter available... freeway overpasses & bridges are often used for this purpose.

"The united States provides housing and food and medical care for those in poverty..." No hunger, no homelessness, no lack of medical care in the great USA, eh? Only a figment of the vivid imaginations of the poor, hungry, homeless, and neglected ill... so vivid are their imaginations that others are able to see their "imagined" plight... others w/a heart, that is.

"so vivid are their imaginations that others are able to see their 'imagined' plight... others w/a heart, that is."

yes!! you said it better than i could ever hope to!!

"others w/a heart, that is."

"others w/a heart, that is."



thank you!


peace!

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You say "The united States provides housing and food and medical care for those in poverty"

Then later say "I have worked with the homeless and I have seen some pretty bad situations such as those living under bridges and eating scraps from the garbage."

Where is the "housing and food and medical care" that the US is providing for "those living under bridges and eating scraps from the garbage."?

I apparently misunderstood your support of the gov't/bush policies... as I wondered that I might have in my initial reply to you. Thanks for clearing that up.

I never said the government provided ALL that was needed. One thing that I was hesitant to bring up is the prevalence of mental illness in homeless populations. Sometimes people do no twant help or refuse services due to mental imparment. This is a majo rproblem that probably surpasses resource distribution in the homeless problem.

At one of our local shelters we have an issue getting people in during cold weather due to mental issues.

... is being provided to those in need... while at the same time the very wealthy continue to receive more benefits.

True, you never said that the gov't was providing ALL that was needed. I reacted to what the gov't is and is not doing w/their reverse Robin Hood policies, and my misunderstanding that you were defending those policies. Again, sorry for that.

In regard to the mentally ill... another failure of the gov't in not providing the care for these Americans.

Yet, the budget cuts against the poor continue. This is where my argument is, not w/you.

think there are no people in this country lacking for food, shelter, and medical care? Ask at homeless shelters how often they have to turn people away. Those people do not get 3 squares a day or regular medical care, if any at all.

So no, our poverty is not as extensive as many places in the world but it does exist. :(

why I spend my time and resources to help prevent it.

:rofl:

outside of the US.

It will shock you. It might even make you fight poverty in the US as I have been moved to do.

not in the same United States you have been "moved" in.

What are the numbers, do you know? Our number of children living below the "poverty line" compared to, say, France?

And so on?

when it comes to poverty. You probably know that already. To compare the absolute poor in the US with the absolute poor in other countries is an exercise in apples to oranges comparison.

But to answer your question

for total polulations:

0.107162 per 1 million people France per capita below poverty
0.040577 per 1 million people United States per capita below poverty

I am glad to hear that you are aware of poverty and that you do something about it!!! Thanks.

googling but didn't have time to look at it. fyi

Just what I needed more research!! :)

Thanks for the heads up I have looked through some good stuff already.

people turned away from packed shelters in subfreezing weather - packed, as in people sleeping covering every inch of floor.
people turned away to try to survive under those overpasses, in cardboard boxes, under layers of newspaper..

mothers with children shrieking of hunger (!!!) turned away from food stamp offices (!!!), to walk in the freezing cold to food banks across town.

seen with my own two eyes.

many times.

it's here. you obviously care a lot about it, foflappy. please find it here. you can not fight it adequately, if you do not see it.

there is a long way between fascist oligarchy and socialist dictatorship. we have to find that place.

this is not working.

thank you


peace!

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disagree with you, is if we don't know as much as you.

some of us know more. much more.

you are wrong.

i'm sorry you chose to throw out the chance to know more.

i don't have any more time to educate you. i tried to offer you another view from yours' and you were not capable of valuing that. do you even notice your attitude?

i am too busy for this.

goodbye.

that poverty here in the US is not comparable to the poverty in other poorer places.

I am NOT saying that there is no poverty in the US. I do value the point of view of others but that does not mean I can always agree with them.

peace

are not seeing something.

people have tried to tell you that they see otherwise - SEE WITH OUR OWN EYES.

you would call us liars before realizing you are missing something.

that is why i can not bicker with you.


peace!

ps - what i done? i taught the mother how to panhandle on the richest white shopping corner in the country. redistribute some VULGAR wealth.
saved her kid from dying of tooth decay, after nights shrieking to sleep.
degrees of agony?? PAH!

My point has been that although there is poverty to be found in the US the degree and the scale of it is not comparable to other areas of poverty.

That is why I support any effort to elliviate poverty anywhere I find it and I support and thank those who help.

Thank you for sharing your experiences. It does matter.

on the same side, in caring so intensely about poverty.

still, i have to say that you are incorrect about the depth of poverty here. it is because it is disguised, as behind walls in many places, literally behind walls, in others; and because it is in pockets, areas kept from view of the privileged (one of their privileges, in fact), versus in wide open refugee 'camps,' and whole villages, towns, cities, that you are not seeing it here.

here, look at the individual scale, the small local block scale, instead of the broad scale as it manifests in many other countries.

that mother i mentioned, living in her barely intact car with her children, one shrieking from toothache, one from flee bites all over her body, was denied food stamps for not having an address. others because in family shelters, sleeping 16 people to a 9X12 room, they are not allowed to give that address. filthy, showering as can sneak into different cold public showers at fishing docks, where they risk arrest. starving, slipping into near-coma sleeps, brains being visibly degraded by malnutrition.

it is all relative! individual is just not so visible, AS SERVES THIS ECONOMIC STRUCTURE BEST! serves how? look. you don't see it. most would swear it's not so. including many many many so called aid and social workers.

maybe if you KNEW that poverty is every bit as deep here, you would be looking for it as much here as out in the world.

i say, take a walk through the hobo camps in secluded alleys of this vulgarly wealthy nation.

only difference is that they have existed since the beginning of this country, so they take more care of each other.

me, i think we should legitimize hobo economics, and subsidize it better.

i will not be able to reply to any reply of yours till later.
thank you for talking, foflappy.


peace!

Ethiopia or South America!!!!
:woohoo:
Guess we don't have anything to worry about!

USA!! USA!!! USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!

Carry On Proud Americans!!!
:patriot:

But there are still neighborhoods and counties where infant mortality is comparable to Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Bolivia.

in my opinion. I am not saying you are sick but the post made me sick.

I wish people did take a real look at world poverty then maybe we would do something..not make jokes about it..of course humor is often used to mask a horror...

That is extreme poverty, they don't even have running water in some house and almost no local economy with zero jobs. The best example is I think it's a fair comparison, because if you look at Pembroke, Eastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia and the Delta regions of Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas you are going to see some bad conditions that could mirror those of some of those in Central and South America.

When I saw it on TV I thought it was filmed in Arkansas where I used to live. I could not believe that this level of poverty was in my own state.

I had not seen such poverty since living in southwestern arkansas where it was common for there to be no running water or plumbing.

It was my experience living in Arkansas and subsequent trips to central and south america which opened my eyes to the effects of poverty.

My only argument with the original post is that the extent and degree of poverty in the US is nothing compared to others places I have seen.

Poverty is an enormous crime against our fellow humans and if we do nothign we are all guilty.

Come to central California sometime and I'll take you down the dirt roads to the impromptu migrant farmworker villages that exist in our countryside. Imagine seeing 75 people (including children) living in a dozen foundationless doublewides and dirt floor lean-to's with no electricity or running water, and sewage systems that consist of ditches to drain the effluvium away from the houses. They exist, right here in the US. I've been to one, and it was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen.

:kick:

:kick:

before we jump on the bash the US bandwagon.

think globally act locally is quite appropriate in the case of poverty. Once you are aware of how the poorest of the poor live outside the us it will make the job of ending poverty in th US seem easy.

The man is absolutely right.