The US has exported an economic model with the idea that everyone can organise themselves under that model

how horribly embarrassing when a united nations special rapporteur, banned from exercising her duties in the united states by the bush administration, finally gets to do her job and discovers that, under the capitalist rock, the rock at the centerpiece of the "shining city on the hill," are all sorts of creepy-crawlies...

Raquel Rolnik, the UN special rapporteur for the right to adequate housing, who has just completed a seven-city tour of America, said it was shameful that a country as wealthy as the US was not spending more money on lifting its citizens out of homelessness and substandard, overcrowded housing.

"The housing crisis is invisible for many in the US," she said. "I learned through this visit that real affordable housing and poverty is something that hasn't been dealt with as an issue. Even if we talk about the financial crisis and government stepping in in order to promote economic recovery, there is no such help for the homeless."

She added: "I think those who are suffering the most in this whole situation are the very poor, the low-income population. The burden is disproportionately on them and it's of course disproportionately on African-Americans, on Latinos and immigrant communities, and on Native Americans."

equally shameful is that the major media exposure on this story - no surprise, unfortunately - comes via the uk guardian...

and equally shocking - again, if not surprising - is this...

"One of the first meetings I had at the state department they clearly told me: here, adequate housing is not a human right," [Rolnik] said.

the mindset that has been assiduously fostered in the united states, through an endless stream of propaganda, is that if you're poor, it's your own goddam fault... by definition, you must be lazy and no damn good... and yet my country has taken this bogus philosophy and is pushing it down the throats of people around the world... it's people like rolnik, who is, after all only doing her job, that can blow the whistle on this patent bullshit...

rolnik's conclusion...

"The US has exported an economic model with the idea that everyone can organise themselves under that model. It's very important for the rest of the world to know who fits in to this model and who is excluded," she tells her audience.

damn straight...

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