Tavis Smiley

Poverty threatens our democracy, a democracy with a deficit dilemma that the poor are not responsible for, yet they pay the price.

There are nearly 150 million poor and near-poor people in America who are not responsible for the damage done by the Great Recession.

Nearly one-third of the American middle class - mostly families with children - have now fallen into poverty.

The magnitude of the Great Recession confirms that poverty is no longer a personal calamity; it is, rather, a societal crisis.

The time is now to once again reawaken American democracy. It is time for righteous indignation against the fleecing of America's poor, given the indifference toward the poor that has infected our social, political and economic discourse. In short, it's time to make poverty a priority.

Where there is no hope for the future, there is no power in the present.

-Tavis Smiley