Tavis Smiley: Vision for a New America: A Future without Poverty + Cornel West: You Don’t Play With Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dandelion Salad

www.c-spanvideo.org
Jan. 17, 2013

Image by Mr. Kris via Flickr

Tavis Smiley moderated a discussion focusing on poverty in the United States. Panelists discussed issues including the importance of education, prisons, welfare programs, the size of government, and the federal budget. The panelists generally criticized the administration for not focusing on poverty and Tavis Smiley called on President Obama to hold a “White House Conference on the Eradication of Poverty in America.”

Mr. Smiley’s annual forum was titled “Vision for a New America: A Future without Poverty.” It was held in the Lisner Auditorium of George Washington University.

Smiley, Tavis
Talk Show Host PBS

West, Cornel
Professor Union Theological Seminary

Kozol, Jonathan
Author

Chilton, Mariana
Director Drexel University School of Public Health-Center for Hunger-Free Communities

Gingrich, Newton “Newt” Leroy
U.S. Representative (Former) [R] Georgia

DeMoro, RoseAnn
Executive Director National Nurses United

Sachs, Jeffrey D.
Director Earth Institute at Columbia University

Fudge, Marcia
U.S. Representative [D] Ohio

Graham, John D.
Dean Indiana University-School of Public and Environmental Affairs

watch via http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/TavisSm

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Excerpt from the above program.

Cornel West Explains Why It Bothers Him That Obama Will Be Taking The Oath With MLK’s Bible

SpiritofLiberty1775

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As Obama Prepares for 2nd Term, Tavis Smiley Urges Him to Take Up MLK’s Fight Against Poverty

democracynow·Jan 17, 2013

DemocracyNow.org – Ahead of Monday’s public inauguration that will usher in President Obama’s second term, we turn to a call for him to put the more than 50 million Americans living in poverty at the top of his agenda. The issue has garnered attention in part because Obama will take the oath of office with his hand placed on two bibles — one owned by Abraham Lincoln, and the other by Martin Luther King Jr., known for his civil rights and anti-poverty activism. We’re joined by broadcaster and author Tavis Smiley, who has spent the past year crisscrossing the country with activist and Professor Cornel West to start a national conversation on the issue of poverty, calling on President Obama to organize a White House Conference on the Eradication of Poverty in America. Smiley will be in Washington, D.C., tonight moderating a nationally televised symposium, “Vision for a New America: A Future Without Poverty.”

Take Action:

http://www.tavistalks.com/visionforanewamerica/ (sign the letter)

from the archives:

Dr. Martin Luther King: Where Do We Go From Here + The Radicalization of Martin Luther King

Inequality and Poverty America Style–In Richness and in Health by Graham Peebles

Prison labor booms in US as low-cost inmates bring billions

Chris Hedges with Jeremiah Wright on Poverty in the U.S.

Tavis Smiley and Cornel West: We ended up with a Republican, a Rockefeller Republican in blackface, with Barack Obama

An Empire of Poverty: Race, Punishment, and Social Control by Andrew Gavin Marshall

Tavis Smiley: Remaking America: From Poverty To Prosperity, with Cornel West, Michael Moore

Half of U.S. poor by Fred Goldstein

The Gospel of the Penniless, Jobless, Marginalized and Despised by Chris Hedges

Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger (must-see)