As voting day arrives for the 2012 elections and we worry about outcomes and how they will affect our lives, the reality is, for many of us, that the choices we make will have only limited or marginal effects on our lives. There are many of our neighbors, though, who live in what has become an economic war zone. This zone exists in a kind of valley of despair where the unemployed scramble for low-paying jobs and those employed struggle to live on what they earn. For some, each day is a fight for survival. For others, a battle to …