Reply #130: I agree, bobbo.

[I Have A Dream]

Some people who are newly-poor feel that they don't bear any responsibility for becoming poor; they're victims of circumstances -- that they are somehow different because they were not poor at one time in their lives. However, many of these same people feel that people who have been poor for much, if not all, of their lives just don't have the character required to "make it" in America. They have no idea what it feels like to be so deep in the hole for so long that it seems absolutely hopeless.

Sometimes it only takes one person to put forth a little effort to help us for us to be able to find our way out of the labyrinth of poverty. For me, it was my guidance counselor in high school. If he hadn't done just a few little things that he did for me, I'd probably still be living in poverty. We as a society need to provide the tools that the poor need to extract themselves from poverty and to do so in a way that allows poverty-stricken individuals to maintain their dignity. (The poor are humiliated unnecessarily in so many ways. :()