Reading the speech John Edwards gave at the University of Georgia School of Law’s inaugural Working in the Public Interest Law Conference on April 7 (no link, it’s in my alumni magazine) you’d think we’ve made no progress since James Agee’s and Walker Evans’ depiction of poverty in America, specifically the South:
I want to take some time today to talk with you about what I think is the great moral cause in America today, the 37 million who wake up in poverty every day…In a country of our wealth, and our prosperity, to have that many people who wake up worrying about feeding their children, clothing their children, having a decent place to live, if their children get sick being able to take them to the doctor and to get the health care that they need, this is wrong… And I think all of us have a joint responsibility to try to do something about it.
Said the multimillionaire. Edwards used the 37 million figure several times in his speech. I’m wondering where these people who can’t feed their children and can’t get health care are hiding. Government programs and emergency rooms take care of those needs. Being poor these days means, essentially, not being able to afford cable. It’s not like south Alabama in the 1930’s (see photo above; more here), though you’d never know it to hear John Edwards, multimillionaire, tell it.
