[galveston]

Jesus words were not anything more that addressing a wrong attitude in a person who would subsequently betray him. Like so many who seek to help the poor they also seek to help themselves. The US is like Judas, his words drip with honey but self interest is what motivates him.

Yes I believe him but that doesn't stop us from trying since Jesus saying so doesn't make it mandatory for your nation to have large numbers of poor. We should not find reason to hide from our unwillingness to attack the big issues with vigour. Look at the resources you are willing to put into war and the Gulf cleanup, if you were to mobilise those resources to clean up poverty and you could start by addressing the issues in latin america which cause large numbers of people to migrate into you country and swell the numbers of poor there

Get real!

Over many decades, this country has spent HUGE sums of money fighting the "war on poverty". Guess what? Poverty is still winning.

We could have had as much results from using those dollars to build a really big bonfire.

[galveston]

Something else, Clete.

We don't get a lot of co-operation from foreign countries when we try to "help them" eliminate their poverty.

Now if you are talking about the PERSONAL POVERTY of the government officials, then that is a different matter. They will take all the money we are willing to send them.

We can't end poverty in our OWN country, as proved by years of evidence.

And now we should end poverty in Latin America?

What are you smokin'?

[paraclete]

Somethin' else, Clete.

We don't get a lot of co-operation from foreign countries when we try to "help them" eliminate their poverty.

Now if you are talking about the PERSONAL POVERTY of the government officials, then that is a different matter. They will take all the money we are willing to send them.

We can't end poverty in our OWN country, as proved by years of evidence.

And now we should end poverty in Latin America?

What are you smokin'?

It is very fashionable in your country to have wars, Lyndon Johnson initiated a war on poverty, no doubt to distract from his war in Vietnam and just like the war in Vietnam you lost that one too.

Poverty in latin america and poverty in your own country are tied and you are so vain you cannot see it. You think that giving aid, with a big rope around it is helping these people deal with poverty when all it is doing is subsidising your own inefficient industries. You are a victim of your own success, you invited the poor to come to swell your nation and provide cannon fodder for your industries and then you lament the fact that you have poor in your midst. Then you open your borders and let more poor in and further lament you have both poor and illegal immigrants in your midst. The question is what are you smokin'? In reality what you have is a poverty mentality, always striving for more and you will not be free of poverty until you change your thinking

[galveston]

You apparently do NOT understand human nature.

There will be those who, either because of inability or lack of initative, always be poor. We see in many times when someone wins the lottery. Their money disappears swiftly.

Others who get a windf