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Every government, in any nation, at any point in the history of civilization, was primarily concerned with the wealthy. This is a basic law of nature. Government officials are recruited from the upper classes, and the cadence of government functioning is primarily influenced by those classes. America is no different. What is different is our ingrained illusion of equality and "We the people".
You're right .What you say is true. My late father's family in Germany is a good example. Not sure how far back they go, but according to german records, They were land holders, petty court officials,and military men. Some relatives in the Black Forest were hereditary foresters,which was more than just going around counting trees in some Grand Duke's forest. Whether they spread money around to get the job, or got it as an reward I'm not sure.One of the Garmisch relatives in the 1690s was a burgermeister and a steward to the ruler of bavaria at that time. In Himmelstadt, two of my cousins, father and son were burgermesiters,. Those in the military were officers. My grandfather's cousin was commanding general of Army Group Courland during World War 2.
People used to tell their kids, oh you can maybe be president someday. Because years ago people believed that we were to an exstant equal.That's why many immigrants came here,because it was a land of freedom and they felt their families had a chance to escape proverty and be a rich man or someone successful.
But that's a lie nowdays. The days of Abe Lincoln are long gone. None can afford to run for president,no one except a rich man. Sometimes I think it's worse than living under a monarchy, which is what we are becoming with these rich elitists.
Yes, but I think it's important to note that even those who do make a mistake in their lives do not deserve to be poor for the rest of their days because of it. Nowadays in America, you get pretty much one chance to make a good life for yourself. Screw that up with any bad decisions and you may find yourself poor for life. Look at all the job ads that won't even interview people who have been unemployed for six months or more. You're telling me that's fair? That that's going to help people get off welfare, food stamps unemployment?
This is really to the point regarding the ever diminishing prospects for ALL American's not just those who are now poor but the millions waiting for the second act of the global economy who will soon be joining them. For all the ranting about the comparative status of America's poor when compared to the poor of other nations most of us know the plight of those who need heat, need food, need transportation, medical, and tons of other stuff that a lot of people think are freely handed out in some kind of glorious place where ALL the poor may go and be taken care of.
IT AINT TRUE!!! Most of those who are furthest down on the societal pole don't even get acknowledged by the charities or government programs, they live in camps, alleys, parks, and various other arrangements that equal ANYTHING in the third world. Many are young men who aren't eligible for any help beyond the usual once in a while meal, or the other well known survival concept of going to jail in order to stay alive, if they're lucky. When highly skilled people can't find work you can bet that those less eligible are simply being pushed aside, financially marginalized permanently. Third class citizens, they often take to crime, drug use, violence, and often suffer early death.
Many are attempting to tag the poor as being noble if they work but remain poor, but poverty doesn't hand out medals for trying, you are either making financial advances (saving for old age or a better education) or you are regressing, that's the way an inflationary economy punishes those who are not able to keep up. Being poor in a family of people who have been living in poverty for three or more generations means you live way beyond the norms of society, it's a world few ever penetrate if they aren't somehow connected to it. You may be working today but your work history is checkered, on and off, it's a vicious circle and once in your late thirties or forties it's pretty much a no brainer that you won't gain much ground in the future.
Jeremy Rifkin's book, The End of Work provides a view into a future where more and more humans will not be working, what then? Will we finally see that technology has been at the bottom of some of societies worst dilemmas? Even in the third world machines are taking jobs at an alarming rate, the ultimate proletariat, machines don't organize, don't get sick, don't ask for a humane workplace, BUT....They also don't buy anything either....
How can the American working class have no hope of moving up? It can be done and is done by people all over the world who were very poor,and many even working too,but they set themselve some sort of goal and decided to achieve it.
You mean each and every working class guy can move up the social ladder provided enough of efforts on his part? That's some sort of social revolution you are talking over there. Classless society (everybody is upper class) by sheer power of the personal efforts . A pyramid without base. A top without bottom. Rich without poor. Capitalists without wage labor. It's capitalistic communism of a sort. All we need - more of the personal efforts to achieve social nirvana.
The year circa 1985, USSR, one cannot become a millionaire legally yet tens of thousands of the Soviet citizens are just that - underground millionaires who managed to utilize "peculiarities" of the Soviet planned economy to create underground "businesses" allowing them to amass personal riches (it was punishable by death at the time, death penalty couldn't stop small % of people from amassing piles of cash). The point being that every hierarchical social system (no exceptions) allows for accumulation and upward movement of a few. Look at China, another example. So what? Is 0.000001% probability to move up is a sufficient pacifier to keep bottom 90% standing neck deep in sewage while fighting for a narrow window of "opportunity"?
Largely I agree with your statement, but again I'd like to reiterate the fallacy of the assertion that poverty is necessarily caused by some combination of substance-addition (drugs, alcohol, etc.), unplanned/unwanted/out-of-wedlock childbirth, or failure to obtain an education. There are plenty of educated, childless non-addicted people in America who are poor, and they are perhaps the targets of the most vitriolic disdain because they don't display any of the standard "faults" of poverty.
Poverty isn't CAUSED by the things you list, but your list includes the indulgences/mistakes common to the people who experience chronic deprivation. Poverty is generally understood at the scholarly level to be a very complex problem, not one that can be easily dissected by armchair sociologists or those radio heads that serve the upper classes need to portray the poor as lazy liars and "system cheaters".
The present economic system relies on having an army of unemployed to act as a motivator to any in the working class that may have thoughts about organizing, that includes those white collar workers who may have thought they were immune from the worst of managements labor strategies. That's one reason poverty is not looked upon as something unfavorable by the upper class. Obviously there are more reasons but they've been pointed out many times here on CD only to rile those with a different take on things.
The OECD study shows the Public social spending as a percentage of GDP - France is the definite outlier here, but the United States is not much different (spending as a % of GDP) from the other countries. So this basically says that the US uses the same percentage of GDP for social spending, such as unemployment and social assistance benefits. Now for fun, you should compare the GDP of the US to these other countries - Australia, France, etc and try to contrast the total $$ amount spent ...
Now look at PUBLIC spending as a percentage of GDP. Again, the US is basically neck and neck with other countries. In terms of public spending on welfare - mostly coming from individuals, religious organizations and corporate donations - the US does quite well. Multiply these percentages with the country's GDP and the US basically dwarfs the rest of the countries.
So, what was the question in the OP? Do Americans Hate Their Poor? From a purely monetary perspective ($$ donations/ assistance) - it appears that Americans neither love or hate their poor any more or less than the other countries.
Americans doing great work for the poor outside the US: How about the impact of the Clinton Initiative and the Gates Foundation? The work they have done (and continue to do) is just phenomenal - from eradicating deadly diseases in India and Africa to changing the face of education in the 3rd world countries .....
The best answer to this is that people are stuck up jerks. The poor are used as an example that they are living their lives right due to all of their efforts because people refuse to acknowledge that they probably had certain advantages or they were not that significant because our love individual achievement is a perverted WTF.
There's nothing in the US that matches the Indian caste system or the feudal legacy of class distinction in Europe, but there's definitely an attitude that says 'if you fail, its your fault'.
But I'm not sure the poor in the US are thought of particularly worse than they are in other countries- conflict between the haves and have nots has been a major global narrative for most of human history. Gee, someone should put that in a manifesto. While most histories of the rise of European nations are stories of the nobility, the royalty, and the wealthy, with the poor merely playing the role of unnamed peasants akin to slaves or bodies sent into the meat grinder at the whims of all powerful warlords, the United States has a unique identity in that its rise to power and influence in the 19th and early 20th century came as a result of being the destination for the world's tired, poor, huddled masses.
Yes, I'm not totally in love with state or Fed govt, but at least in my city, people of all economic classes
pretty much get along. We have houses $175K-$800K. We have subsidized housing. We have stores that sell used goods, we have over 150 businesses in my suburb of 50,000, so self-sufficient. We also have 51 parks, every home within half a mile of 1 or more parks. Very low crime? Not published.
But I've got close to 20 medical problems, and get little effective help from Docs & Big Pharma. Why shouldn't I & the 25% of Americans in chronic pain be allowed to use cannabis legally, at affordable prices, proven safe & effective for 124 conditions? Due to prohibition, an oz costs half as much as I get from social security & disability combined. Drug war=class warfare, which is similar to race warfare. The US imprisons at 5 times the rate of average country, due to drug laws. Some call them the new Jim Crow laws. I voted for Prez Gary Johnson. Libertarians believe all should have constitutional freedoms.
In Greece, rioters can retreat to university campus, where police aren't allowed. Not that I recommend rioting, but some sort of controls on crooked police & politicians would be great.
Location: where people are either too stupid to leave or too stuck to move
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everyone hates the poor anywhere, why do you think they treat them like trash? the rich hate them because they feel like its their fault they are poor and instills guilt in them having so much while the poor have nothing, that cause a consciousness to feel guilt/shame (ever flat out think about starving countries for longer than 5mins, it can be suffocating/overwhelming,at least for me) .. the middle class hate the poor because they remind them of what could be their fate if something goes wrong
I don't really hate the poor. 95% of the people I know only work the system and won't try to better themselves. I hate to see what I or others work for every day, freely given out to people that won't make sacrifices (don't buy one thing to buy another, save up for something and again do with out) to get the same. I see these people just playing at a life and smile at me for working and striving to do the best for my family. Yes I am jealous, I would like that life lets me stay home and just exist waiting on my next hand out.
My concern with your argument is that you compare yourselves to "peasants" and "surfs" and people who were told "let them at cake" by a true monarchy of "rulers." And you consider wealthier people to be "rulers." However, your generation VOTED in an election. You wanted the leader you have now in power for more than four years.
In the light of what you say, picking between a billionaire and a millionaire for president does prove that the rich rule our lives on all levels. We are allowed to pick between rich person A or a rich person B (who represent interests of even richer folks bankrolling their campaigns).
When was a person of average means (not speaking of a working class guy) elected to Congress last time, if ever? Would you vote for a bonafide machinist or a fast food worker running for Congress? Probably not. Byzantine election procedure (with all that behind scene action selecting marginal, qualification wise, but wealthy office runners) virtually guarantees that we will never have that choice to make. A simple act of voting is meaningless. Gore-Bush, Bush-Kerry, Obama-Romney, etc., etc. those choices imply that we are indeed peasants and serves who are allowed to participate in election clownage every 4 years. No matter who wins, it doesn't matter (from a peasant standpoint).
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. A pyramid without base. A top without bottom. Rich without poor. Capitalists without wage labor. It's capitalistic communism of a sort. All we need - more of the personal efforts to achieve social nirvana. 
OECD study
