Poverty in the USA is a scandal

[kılıç_mehmet]

Our being the wealthiest nation has more to do with the effect of particularly industrious or ingenuous individuals having a talent for amassing wealth unto themselves and how this effects the overall picture of wealth represented by statistics and averages. It doesn't make any one of us decent..lol. We don't seem to need an excuse for apathy, it's a feature, not a bug.

Well, what does the system in which you live perpetrate? Does it tell you to help the needy? Does it tell you to look after your kinsman?
It tells you to amass as much as wealth and goods as possible.
People are only concerned with themselves.

Poverty a scandal? Poverty and destitution is a tragic, but inevitable consequence of reality. We can't stamp it out.

Well, what is *poverty*, exactly? How do you define poverty?
One must define the exact lines of povery to combat poverty.

Too many Americans, inlcuding those in charge, think that poverty only exists because all poor people are just lazy.

Well, even if you work hard, if you're a toilet cleaner, the pay you're going to receive will not bring you above the poverty line, or worse, if you have a wife and children.
I don't think that Americans think that povery arises from laxity.
I belive however, that Americans have come to accept poverty...as the way things just are.

I think because of that, people see the poor as lazy and not willing to work

There are people who are born into poverty, and those who become poor throughout their lives(due to misfortunes, mostly). Even though, they both are poor, they live in poverty.

Additionally, people feel less empathy towards the poor for some reason or another.

Well, how much empathy do you have towards the poor, friend? Anyone can sympathize with a poor person. Especially if that one is born into poverty, like we sympathize with the people of...say Angola, Somalia and etc. But helping others is a different thing.
Of course, you're going to say that I'm generalizing, but there are people out there who are not even willing to help their parents, siblings or children during their time of financial need. Why should they really help a poor person they do not even know?
Much less if the system they are integrated in tells them to solely focus on individual, materialistic needs, by means of constant consumption of goods&services? They need money, and they do not feel the need to share that money with even their relatives.

rather than thinking that the system is broken and these people truly need help.

Well, everyone needs help, friend. Even the rich need help. The rich need help to stay rich, while the poor need help to be...well, not poor.
Who is going to help who?
You? Me?
Actually, it's the state, who should do this, but where does the state get his money from? You and me. If you and me are not willing to give up a portion of our earnings, things just won't work.

They have it in their heads that the poor don't deserve help.

Depends on what you call "help".

Or maybe a capitalist society would view the poor as the losers in a competition (in which there is always a loser) and leave it at that?

Well, if you don't enter a competition, you can't become a loser.
How does a person who was born into poverty, and has no education or trade, compete with a man of my education, and familial wealth?

If the system is a game then the presence of losers does not indicate that the system is broken, but that it is working as intended.

Indeed. But there is no such system in which competition doesn't exist.
If things like employment are scarce and quotas for employees are high, people will naturally compete with eachother for jobs.

If only it were that simple. The cunts of the upper 1% are out there deliberately outsourcing jobs and trying to drive more people into poverty where they can be kept in line by Draconian laws enforced by thug cops who are hired to protect the propertied classes.

I believe that you should look for the real root of the problem, rather than looking at what the problem has brought into existence.
Would you act differently if you were one of those cunts?
I believe that inside, everyone is a cunt. It's only a matter how well you supress that cunt that resides in your heart.