Talk show host Tavis Smiley, and former Princeton professor, Dr. Cornel West continue their fight for the poor with a new book titled The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto which the two men say is the next step in the journey that began with “The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience.” Cornell West and Tavis Smiley's latest venture: The Rich and the Rest of Us. Photo/CD Brown. "There are nearly 150 million poor and near poor people in America who are not responsible for the damage done by the Great Recession. Yet they pay the price. The poor did not create the deindustrialization of America, unmatched corporate profiteering and greed, more than a decade of foreign wars, and unregulated tax benefits for the wealthy. When the largest economic institutions in the world were brought to their collective knees, they went crawling to the government’s doorstep in search of salvation. The government obliged, allowing Wall Street to socialize its failure on the backs of Ma...