The truth about poverty

[nadine_mn]

If you are or have been poor, or compassionate then this will be a review for you and I apologize. For those of you new to the issues of poverty here are some myths busted:

Required disclaimer:
My definition of poverty comes from experience and there are many levels: working poor, so poor you don't have a pot to piss in and dirt poor. I have been homeless as a kid, I have lived w/out basic luxuries like a refrigerator, I have received welfare and donated foods, I have dumpster dived and not for sport, I have tried to figure out how to make $10 feed me for a month, I have been poor in small towns (less than 3000 ppl) and the inner city, and now I find myself in the middle class and still living paycheck to paycheck.

Poverty is a complicated issue and this rant barely scratches the surface so please feel free to add.

Myth #1
Poor people are lazy and uneducated and dumb.

I don't know how to address this w/out cussing but I will try. It is true that the more education you have the greater your income potential. But you can be educated and stupid, and smart and not have a GED - it depends on what you mean by dumb. The survival skills and savvy of a single parent trying to make it on minimum wage rival that of any CEO, IMHO.

The reality is this - education opportunities are not equal, our public schools are not equal and unfortunately children whose parents cannot afford to send them to charter or private schools are at the mercy of the public school system. And taxpayers who complain about paying for schools when they don't have children in school perpetuate this cycle. We all benefit from educated children not just the parents of them.
There are also lowered expectations for children who are poor - they are told that college is unattainable and that should learn a trade. Sadly, the rising cost of tuition is making college more and more unattainable for all.

And let's just be realistic about this lazy crap - have you ever worked a minimum wage job? I have washed dishes, cashiered, waited tables, etc and now I have worked in cozy offices. Let me tell you the god's honest truth - I would rather get less pay and sit in air-conditioned comfort. If my choice was less pay, more hours but in an office vs more pay, less hours on a factory line...ummm well guess what I am picking. I don't ever want to have to work that hard again, I am sorry if it makes me lazy but at least I am honest.

Myth #2
Poor people and homeless people chose to be that way.

Poverty, like shit, happens. It can happen to the best and to the worst of us. You can be born into it and you can have it thrust upon you. When I lived up in Northern Minnesota, the majority of people worked up in the taconite mines. My grandpa worked there and made good money - not rich, but we never wanted for anything. When the mine closed - hundreds of families were impacted. Fortunately my grandpa was able to retire, but for many other families they lost everything because there was no other work that paid the same. Families literally went from middle-class to homeless in the blink of an eye, this happens all over the country in various forms - serious illness makes someone unable to work, factories close, a spouse is killed or injured in a senseless war, divorce divides a home, domestic violence forces a woman (or man) to leave - all it takes it one major event to put you on the street.

Have you been to a homeless shelter? I have, and I will tell you right now I would rather take my chances on the street. Luckily I am female and there are more places for me to stay. There have been efforts to make them safer, one of them in Mpls has metal detectors and security - nothing says "home" like a constant reminder of potential violence. And in small towns, there are no homeless shelters because of the mistaken belief that homelessness doesn't happen in small towns, suburbs or rural areas.

Of course people say ...well stay with family. Well a lot of times family is the reason you are homeless, or people don't have family. So where do you go? How can you work? I love it when people say take a bus - really? I mean have you been outside metropolitan areas? Public transportation is a luxury small towns, rural areas, and some suburbs don't have.


Myth #3
Most of the poor are minorities.

I am at a loss. Because this is an issue so complicated, so cyclical, so entrenched in our society that I cannot begin to explain it without pissing people off. People are not poor because of their race, but race is a HUGE factor. One word: Katrina. This is the most clear example of how race and economics are enmeshed. Society, gov't and MSM treat minorities differently. (Yes that is the biggest understatement of the year, but I am trying to keep my ranting in check).

I am part Hispanic, part Caucasian, I went to elementary school in a predominantly Black school in Louisiana while living with my uncle and his wife who is from Thailand. From the ages 5-8 (when we lived there) my racial identity was ??? I was too dark-skinned to be white, too light-skinned to be Black, all my friends in school were Black, and my playmates at home were Asian. Then I moved back to all-white northern Minnesota and was in a huge culture shock. I was told in high school that a Latina (not the word used by the teacher) could never go to college or law school. Do you know what that does to a child's soul to be told that because of their skin color or ethnic background they can never be what they want to be?

White privilege exists people - as does male privilege and hetero privilege. It affects opportunities, expectations, pay levels, - everything. You cannot talk about poverty or race without the other.


Finally I want to address what people fail to acknowledge:
Learned helplessness.

There are those that have it in them to fight the odds and then there are those who are tired of fighting.

If all you see around you is no way out, it makes you not want to even try.

I worked w/ a victim of elder abuse - "Maria". She moved in w/ her adult daughter because "Maria" had health issues. "Maria" owned her own home, and rented it out to her daughter's ex-husband. While Maria stayed w/ her daughter, Maria paid all the rent because her daughter was an evil bitch...err because her daughter manipulated Maria and her illness. Ex-husband/ex-son-in-law never paid rent, Maria fell behind on the mortgage, got sick of the abusive daughter and wanted to move back to her home. She evicted the ex-husband/ex-son-in-law. The night before he had to leave...surprise...fire in Maria's house. The fire damage meant that Maria had no water or electricity. She could not get a loan until she proved she had home owner's insurance, she couldn't get home owner's insurance until she paid her back taxes. Because the asshole never paid Maria, and all Maria's money went to her daughter, the home insurance lapsed and Maria couldn't afford to pay property taxes. Maria was 68, had diabetes and was alone w/ her 2 cats and a home w/ no power and water. Maria kicked ass and got on her feet again. But many people would not have the personal resiliency to bounce back.

So you numb yourself - through alcohol, food, sex, drugs whatever to make it through every day. When every fricking day is such an uphill battle just to live, much less "rise above", and you have no support, no resources, and there are holier-than-thou people judging what you put in your shopping cart, blaming you, mocking you, and oppressing you...well why try anymore.

Do people take advantage of "the system" - hell yes. Are they the majority? Hell no.


Who are you to judge - how dare you look down on others and say that poor people shouldn't have children and your tax money should not go to them, but only to a select few who meet your criteria of what is a "good" poor person. How dare you say if I am on welfare I can only eat what YOU say I can - "no chips for you"..."put back that Ho Ho"..., yes guidelines are one thing - no alcohol or cigarettes, but keep your fucking hands off my frosted flakes.

We cannot start picking and choosing who we think are worthy - are you insane? Who has that kind of time? I sure as hell don't. We all benefit from a healthy and educated society but it takes support and trust to get us there.

[Solly Mack]

1. Thank you

[Redstone]

2. It's a goddamn shame that people need to have those things explained to them.

But they do. And you explained them very well.

Excellent post. Absolutely first-class.

Redstone

[Viva_La_Revolution]

55. ditto

first class indeed! :applause:

[readmoreoften]

181. It sure is.

The ironic thing is they do the same things themselves for the same reason: eat ho-hos from depression, give up because the fight is too hard.

[stravu9]

3. very true!

That's why I like John Edwards!

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

4. Are you talking to someone here on DU?

Because I have seen all of your talking points posted by DU'ers.

And your points are spot-on.

[nadine_mn]

8. Not all DUers agree w/ me and I will leave it at that

[Quantess]

19. Ain't that the truth.

I think this is a very well written OP, and it's high time this gets a spotlight on DU.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. The poor are always with us

the measure of a society is in how they treat the poor.

[Hydra]

6. "welfare queens"

We are educating our friends quite well on how little safety net there is. My disabled relative gets $250 + $150 food stamps. I have to supply the rest, and my workplace is nepotistic- if you are in the inner circle, you can make a good income. I've been working to get "in" for 8 years now.

All of our friends can't believe that my relative gets so little from the gov't...and we have to fight tooth and nail for it.


also:

"If you work hard, you'll never be poor"

Thanks to Bushenomics, most people will get to find out how wrong that assumption is.

[Greyhound]

132. The great Raygun myth. One of his non-existent scapegoats that convinced the sheep

it is OK to be a selfish, inconsiderate bastards.

"I've got mine, fuck you."

[kdmorris]

7. You know what sickens me the most

That is one of the truest things I've ever read and yet I KNOW there are going to be people that show up on this thread to DEFEND the very societal practices that keep people mired in poverty for generations. And, after going round and round with one of them last night, I just don't have the ability to do it again today.

So, kicked and recommended, but I am not going to fight the trolls that show up today. Really... I won't.

[nadine_mn]

9. I wish it were just trolls or repukes

because they are easier to ignore.

But there are some lucky liberals who have never known what it is to want - and they believe that poverty is a choice, that people have kids to "make money" off of welfare, that poverty could never happen to them.

My wonderful husband came from a middle class, Irish-Catholic home in Iowa. He never went w/out a balanced meal, he went to Catholic schools, he always had a roof over his head, never ever worried about money.

Then he met and married me - I introduced him to the joys of second-hand shops, of being the minority white guy in ethnic areas, of having electricity shut-offs, the list goes on and on ... and he is a more vibrant, loving and giving person because of it.

Because he never wanted for anything (his parents paid for everything) his money handling skills were lacking (the concept of money not being there just never really hit him until it wasn't there), and I (thinking anyone had to be better than me) handed everything over to him. We got in over our head quick. I could be a millionaire and still live hand to mouth because I never learned to save (never had anything to save). So we have made many financial mistakes that have threatened to put us on the street.

His parents blame me - because of my background and my race. Forget that I am more educated, I grew up poor so I will always be bringing him down. His eyes were open to the complexities that he never knew existed, his parents are Democrats but they don't "get it" and we argue with them all the time.

[kdmorris]

11. You know, that touches on ANOTHER thing

We are just like India in our separation of the classes. I grew up at the lower end of middle class. My father was in the military and we had 4 children in my family, so it wasn't always easy. But I never went hungry (my mom did) and I always had new clothes (bought at K-mart, but they were still new).

So, when I was in that class, it was acceptable that I would date a person of the middle class. It would not have been acceptable if I had dated or married anyone in the "rich" class (for those in the military, that's the officer's kids).

Once I left my ex-husband and descended rapidly into poverty, I would have been looked down on (and was) when dating a middle class person (he wasn't middle class, but his parent were upper middle class). They treated me like I was after their stuff because I was poor and single and had three children.

What right do people have to judge you on your poverty (or lack of it) level? People who are rich (like Paris Hilton) are assumed to have some sort of intrinsic value to society, even though they never DO anything to help society. But the rest of us are considered less valuable, even though we actually do things.

I'm sorry your in-laws treat you like that. They shouldn't, obviously!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

45. There are a lot of yuppie Democrats who think that the Democratic Party is

ONLY about issues that might affect them, such as abortion rights or Social Security or being "pro-business" and "for a strong defense." They want to believe that their prosperity is theirs by right or due entirely to their own efforts. They don't realize that there are people just as educated, just as hard-working as they, who are living on the streets. They don't realize how hard poor people work, sometimes at two or three jobs. Until the economic injustices bite THEM in the ass, they believe all the myths that we're fed.

Twenty-five years of right-wing domination of the media haven't helped matters.

[Jackpine Radical]

81. Typical DLCers

Democrats of the Leisure Class.

[fascisthunter]

124. ........

:thumbsup:

[readmoreoften]

182. And the party is only shifting to the Right.

And the economic divide will widen. We're going back to the turn of the century, but with a level of media and military/police control that disrupts the possibility of social unrest.

[truedelphi]

136. Everything you say resonates with me

My mom grew up in Northern MN and although not rich by a long shot, her family had a bread winner and a garden and never went hungry during the Depression.

My dad lived in Chicago and was middle class until his father walked out on the family when dad was 13. Hi s mother had to support the three kids without help.

I spent my childhood listening to their economic arguments. His was that it was hard to survive during the Depression.

My mom's view was that there hadn't been a Depression! Unless you wanted to victimize yourself by believing tht it existed!

[UALRBSofL]

10. What A Great Post ! ! !

Well, that was a refreshing post. It was factual, specific to the issues, and a nice change from most of the threads that take on a theme of us against them. :)

[hermetic]

12. My first ever K&R

I am now living in and with people in poverty.

Very eloquently put.

There is a lot of discriminatation.

Thank you.

[CTyankee]

13. My observation in a building with young adults attending Adult Ed.

This is in New Haven, CT. I worked for 2 years in the office of Literacy Volunteers which was located in New Haven's Adult Education building. The young adults whowere attending classes to complete their high school diplomas or to get their GEDs were culturally and economically disadvantaged. One of their most prevalent problems was learning how to interact with each other without resorting to anger and even violence. I saw this phenomenon on countless occasions, from brief but quite loud flareups to Code Red lockdowns with armed police in the building. We had a metal detector at the entrance with a large cop standing by. The parking lot was patrolled by another cop.

I now wonder if learning problem solving and anger management might serve young people in these situations well in the preparation for their lives. It is IMO a very serious problem facing these young people...

[nadine_mn]

14. Ok I had to laugh because what you said hit home

My dispute resolution skills as a kid and teenager consisted of "oh yea? come say that to my face!" followed by fisticuffs.

Today - despite a college and law school education which taught me how to sound smart (not necessarily act smart), when I lose my temper or get frustrated at work, guess what my first gut reaction is to conflict?

I have been so pissed off at a boss (or 2 or 3) that I have just quit and said fuck it to a job (or 2 or 3) before. I am not proud of it, but you raise a valid point - you have to learn problem solving skills.

[Hydra]

18. Patience always serves you well

I've learned how to wait from my experiences down here at the bottom. Waiting for the next paycheck, the next chance to afford medicine, the next opportunity...

It simply isn't worth getting angry at most people. It's a waste of energy, and they don't understand you better when you vent on them. Far better ways to spend the energy.

[Redstone]

24. Another anecdote from New Haven: A company there who was a customer of mine was owned

by a guy who REALLY believed in "giving back to the community." One of the programs they were involved with was aimed at training poor city kids to be machinists.

This guy was telling me that one of the things the people running the program found out was that many city kids had to be taught how to have a job in addition to teaching them machine operation - because many of the kids had essentially never known anyone who had a job while they were growing up.

That says something really shitty about our society.

(PS: I am not insulting poor people here, nor am I saying that inner-city poor people are too lazy to work, or anything like that. I'm just telling you what it's like.)

Redstone

[Gormy Cuss]

26. It's called "job readiness training"

It's not needed for many of the kids and adults transitioning from welfare but for some they do need to learn how to obtain and keep a job because they haven't had good role models.

Emphasis on some of those transitioning from welfare, not many and not all.

[Redstone]

27. Yup. Not the kids' fault, nor necessarily their parents' fault, either.

Just a crummy situation.

Redstone

[lumberjack_jeff]

35. Absolutely.

It's not easy to train some kids. You not only have to teach them the job, but also how to work.

[nadine_mn]

40. It goes to life skills - balancing a checkbook, creating a budget

we are supposed to know how to do all this...but really where do you learn it?

[reggie the dog]

101. I learned that in high school

but of course I was lucky to be part of the working class minoirty in a middle class suburb where the public schools groomed us for the universities.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. When I lived in New Haven in the 1970s (yes, the 1970s)

the unemployment rate was already high. After I got a car, I was shocked to drive out north of the Yale campus and see grown men hanging out on street corners on weekdays, especially in the African-American neighborhoods.

The local leftist newspaper explained it this way: New Haven was an industrial city in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when most of the European immigrants (Italian, Irish, Jewish, Greek, mostly) arrived. Many went to work in the factories, but eventually others started businesses that became institutions in the city.

The African-Americans didn't arrive in large numbers until after World War II. They had been there only 15 years or so when the factories began closing down. By that time, many of the European-Americans had moved up the social scale out of the working class, and most of the remaining white factory workers were absorbed by their relatives' businesses. ("Hey, can you give Cousin Joe a job?" That sort of thing.)

Few African-Americans had established businesses by then, and the white business owners found excuses not to hire them, so the black factory workers were out of luck unless they could find a job in maintenance or food service at Yale.

That was 30 years ago, so that means that a couple of generations may have grown up not knowing anyone with a job.

[CTyankee]

97. The service workers union at Yale University has been trying to unionize

Yale New Haven Hospital and they have encountered bullying from the hospital administrators, even fraud in the process to have workers vote on whether to unionize. A new cancer center being built on Legion Ave. became the fulcrum of this conflict, when people in the Legion Ave. neighborhood became outraged at the Yale Bigfoot planting itself right in their midst, creating pollution problems for an already asthmatic community, parking and noise issues and no real guarantee that the hospital would hire the local people. When the union joined forces withthe neighborhood activists, the mayor stepped in to oversee and help the process along. A negotiator who had worked in Soweto on South African reconciliation volunteered her services. It looked like they had come to an agreement and then the hospital egregiously tried to screw the union again. I don't know what has happened since; I keep hoping it will be resolved...

[CTyankee]

95. Several years back, when welfare reform was enacted, Shaw's opened a

supermarket in New Haven's inner city. I was really surprised to see it written up in the New York Times. It was evidently one of the rarest events: a supermarket right in the midst of a ghetto (but on a main thoroughfare of the city). The idea was to hire the mothers who were being moved off the welfare rolls, to give them decent paying job opportunities near where they lived. I was eager to shop there because I wanted to support that effort and it was convenient for me to stop there on my way home from work. Then one day there was a shooting incident right in its parking lot. It scared me away and I rarely go back (now it's really out of the way for me anyway). It wasn't sad for me; I had choices. But the poor souls in that neighborhood can't go grocery shopping without bullets flying past their heads...

[Jackpine Radical]

79. I've seen the MMPI profiles of about a million people similar to this.

(Well, more than 2,000 anyway.) The pattern is low assertiveness (or dominance) and high overcontrolled hostility. They lack the skills to negotiate effectively with each other. It's common to abusive spouses and their abused partners.

Anger management would be great, assuming it contains assertive training.

[CTyankee]

98. I don't think anyone modeled negotiation skills for these young people.

All they saw was probably adults acting this way and the adults acted that way because their parents did the same...it's a problem.

It's hard enough for parents who are teaching these skills and who are not burdened by poverty, daily incidences of violence and hopelessness in their lives. "Good" kids aren't born that way and some of them can have horrendous issues with controlling their anger. All the worse when you are in a situation that is slowly destroying the souls of our poorest people...

[varelse]

15. Thank you

For the much-needed reality check.

Well said :)

[Warpy]

16. Learned helplessness = depression

and you're right that when enough doors have slammed in your face, you just give up knocking.

If anything is to blame for multigenerational welfare families, it's that knowledge that yes, the world is stacked against you and no, there's no way past it unless you are an exceptional individual. You give up, you accept what little you can get, and you sit around waiting to die.

No one would ever choose this. The cruelest myth of all is the "life choices" myth. Nobody chooses to get too sick to work. Nobody chooses to have their retirement in a company they know is a criminal front that is robbing them. Nobody chooses to have their job offshored. Families don't choose to be abandoned by one breadwinning spouse. Nobody chooses to have everything they owned destroyed in a fire, flood, storm, or earthquake.

Yeah, been there, done that, including the shelter. Now I'm in a position to pay back and I do so because I have to. I know what it's like. I know nobody chose it and nobody ever would.

[kineneb]

34. I am sooo there

long term poverty-learned helplessness but also learned hopelessness

Hubby-
job loss > job contracted out and probably offshored
serious illness > disability caused by kidney failure
bankruptcy...

We count ourselves fortunate that the house is mostly paid off and the car is paid off. Otherwise, living on $1200/month would be very dicey.

I have little hope for my future: either I can qualify for SSI mental health disability and get my medicines covered by Medicaid, or I can only earn $600/month to not have a share-of-cost for my medical care. Either way, I am stuck. I am on the patient assistance program for the two medicines I need, but that cannot be depended on in the long run.

If I were not depressed before this (which I was), the system would make me so.

[unapatriciated]

48. That is it in a nutshell for most poor or disabled

Our social programs are designed to keep the poor and disabled on the bottom instead of giving them a hand up. We take most of the much needed assistance away if they take one step forward. Resulting in them falling back even further into poverty.

[madamesilverspurs]

71. I'll go you even further:

In many instances, the restrictions are like someone is standing with both feet on your throat - if you manage to twist around and gasp in some much needed air, you find yourself accused of breathing.

Too much effort of the "helping" system is spent on serving itself; applicants are expected to complete reams of paperwork, and the slightest error of punctuation can delay or cancel the process. If their computers screw up or shut down for a while, oh well, no skin off their noses. And errors (which are legion) on the part of system workers are always ALWAYS blamed on the applicant; if you find yourself suddenly doing without something that has been provided, you have no way of replacing it elsewhere, you deal with the added stress of that loss and its negative impact on your life, and if and when it's restored it's without apology.

A few weeks back, I was visiting a friend who has MS. She showed me a large manila envelope that she'd just received from social services. It contained her annual renewal application, over 15 pages for her to complete (including correcting their errors, they give you a separate sheet for that -- you do their job for them, they get paid). They were good enough to enclose a stamped, addressed envelope so that she could mail the paperwork back - a standard business envelope; in other words, if she hoped to mail the stuff back to them, she had to buy a big brown envelope (because they always want copies of bills and statements, in addition to their own forms) and pay the postage. Nice.

[kdmorris]

148. Nice of them to let her mail it

I had to go to the actual building once a year, heart in my throat, in full panic attack that I might have done something wrong on one of those forms in the "book". If THEY misspell your child's name (who the hell ever heard of the name Getchen??? They left the "r" out of Gretchen), YOU have to go back all over again and prove that she's your child. You have to figure out where THEY screwed up and it is most unforgiving if you don't fix their mistake. And if you forget your utility bill or another important document that proves where you live(driver's license didn't work), interview over...come back next week. And they didn't provide child care, so I had to worry about keeping two kids happy while freaking out that I might not get home in time to meet my Kindergartener's school bus.

Until the last two months, I never missed a month of anything (I was sanctioned as part of the Welfare Reform Act because I was not working or looking for a job 20 hours a week, because I was going to school for 40 hours a week). Luckily, they only took MY part of the money and food stamps, so I got 3/4 of what I had gotten before.

Oh, yeah, those were the days. I really wish I could go back and do it all over again, since it was so much more fun when someone else was paying for my kids, instead of working all the time like I do now. :sarcasm:

[wellstone dem]

17. Thank you

You have brought tears to my eyes. Keep fighting for these people who struggle so much and are looked down on because of their struggle.

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. There is a most wonderful irony, a most wonderful poetic justice

about the reality of the situation between the rich and the poor (at least generically speaking - one can only generalise, naturally) that the World and its minions can never seem to get get their heads around, and yet it cries out in the Gospels and indeed most of scripture, again and again.

On Judgment Day, Nadine and kdmorris, it won't be simply a matter of redressing the injustices perpetrated by the more heartless among the rich or comfortably off, but rather, people will be seen in their true light. And it will become transparently clear that, all along, it was mostly they, the poor, oppressed and vilified, who lived lives of extraordinary dignity and honour; who were examples of true religion - as many young missionaries have been moved, even awe-struck to discover. So, take heart, when you hear the cheap lies of the truly cheap people about people who may be materially poor, but are rich in honour, decency and faith - which latter may not be formal in nature, as Christ's description of the Last Judgment between the sheep and the goats makes clear.

[lastliberalintexas]

85. Your post exemplifies my problem with religion

Although I tend to be of a live and let live mentality, I still can't stand organized religion. What IF that "judgment day" never comes? What IF you and other believers are wrong, and this earthly life is all we have? What IF we insisted the injustices be righted right here and now rather than in some otherworldy promised paradise for which there is no evidence of its existence?

Mainstream religion teaches its followers that the injustices of this world will be righted one day, so no harm no foul. And I have a huge problem with that.

Religion is what keeps the poor man from murdering the rich.- Napolean Bonaparte

[Joe Chi Minh]

135. Well, there is unfortunately a very heavy truth in what you say. It is one

thing after all to "turn the other cheek" - and another thing to countenance other's people's being immemorially battered all over with holy (ironic) resignation. It was certainly not Christ's way. Fortunately, the Roman Catholic Church has also always had men and women on the ground in the poorest places, taking a lot of the flack themselves, organising the people politically and fighting for their rights alongside them.

[Joe Chi Minh]

144. Read this (Kevin Rudd is a good Catholic spalpeen!):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=334504&mesg_id=334504

[Joe Chi Minh]

145. Kevin Rudd, the Aussie PM is a good Catholic spalpeen! Read this:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/shame-on-us-rudd-pleads-for-homeless/2008/01/27/1201368945676.html

[reggie the dog]

103. too bad

religion is not true. You can delude yourself into thinking judgement day is real, but in reality the poor die poor and the wealthy die wealthy without ever being judged.

[Joe Chi Minh]

134. Well, at least it's intersting to discover that an atheist feels the same certainty as I do,

in the other direction. Who'd a thunk? A hot-line to a source of all knowledge, 'cep it's unspecified. oh, it's YOU! Sorry. I should have realised. Back in your kennel, Bonzo.

[reggie the dog]

159. the worst part of organized religion

is that the heirarchy tried to convince the flock, the meek if you want, that judgement day would come and that because of that what happened on earth, the poor ususally being the people living a holy life etc. while the "un holy" usually had wealth and power etc. would not matter.

what happens here on earth does matter. We cannot wait for judgment day. It never comes.

[Joe Chi Minh]

168. Well, it will come. And you only see part of the problem, over-riding

as I believe it to be - since physical survival trumps all other concerns, at least in relation to others.

The left does not even acknowledge divine grace, still less its necessity for any thoroughgoing and permanent improvement of man's lot here on earth. Hence, the inevitable fall, even of such wonderful reformed societies as Mao's China, and El Salvador under the Sandinistas. The right has always pointed out this endemic instability of Communism, due to man's fallen nature. Unfortunately, the same principle of instability applies to themselves in spades, and for the same reason, as clearly witnessed by the rise of the neo-Vandals, most notably in the UK and the US. "This people worships me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." After all, it is clear from Christ's own description of the Last Judgment, the sole description of it in the whole of scripture, that we cannot have the love of God in us, when we fail to love and reverence him in our brothers and sisters. St John echoes that too in his own very direct fashion.

The old right, on the other hand, did acknowledge, at least with their lips, and many with their heart as well (despite the distortions of worldly ambitions), the existence and the imperative need for us of divine grace, in order for our nature to be edified and sanctified. Now, however, the right are plain savages, with no saving graces at all. More feral even than New Labour, though for how long it is difficult to say. They couldn't after all fail to show a little more discretion in their ravaging of our society, for the present at least. Though personally enjoying positions of power in the party, the Cabinet, etc, a few of the old Tory-grandee types left Thatcher's Vandal horde in disgust. They were the old type of monied parliamentarians, who didn't actually need their career in politics as a means of self-enrichment, nor were they driven by the fathomless avarice of those among the former who would have been rich enough, themselves, to pursue their political careers in a relatively disinterested and philanthropic spirit, had they possessed souls (in the metaphoric sense). I'm to the left of Karl, Fidel and Hugo, but what I'd give to see those old Tories back in charge of the country. The former Tory PM, Harold McMillan, nailed it when he said that privatising the national utilities was akin to selling the family silver.

[reggie the dog]

170. I agree with the comment about

selling off the family silver. I also understand that the welfare state in France is highly influenced by peoples idea that greed is bad and that charity is good (this comes from their Catholic roots after all). I also can see the good that Martin Luther King used his religious beliefs for. You know the whole liberation theology premis. I just think it is too bad that judgement day does not exist. I think that folks like you and me would get into paradise and that folks like W. would not, but I just do not see the day ever coming.

PS. Blair was just in France and he said he would be part of the UMP (right wing party) over here. If that is New Labour who in the hell sticks up for the workers, the poor, the meek in the UK??? the SNP????

If it comforts you to believe that the assholes in the world will be judged by a supreme power then that does not bother me, I just cannot share your beliefs. Sorry if I insulted you before. I have to realize that everyone is free to comfort themselvs however they want. I smoke cannabis to comfort myself so who am I to judge how you comfort yourself.

[Joe Chi Minh]

175. Feel abolutely free. Nothing and certainly no person will shake my

confidence. I've enjoyed your "take" on the matter, but simply don't share it.

But it doesn't bother me in the way that you seem to be bothered by my certainty of a Day of Judgment. "Fundie", "hot-line to God"... all such putative insults are water off a duck's back to me. But, if I'm not careful, I shall end up "protesting too much like you...!

As for our political situation in the UK, I cannot imagine it looking bleaker, short of the creation of militia by the Government, etc. Even where the political understanding exists, the passion isn't there. Just a few self-serving activists on left and right. I think you Americans are very fortunate, being more like the Continental Europeans.

[Joe Chi Minh]

177. Your thoughts/wishes have a very ancient and honourable precedent. Here are

some readings for today from the Prayer of the Church, as the Hours are now called:

Before Noon Jer 22:3
Practise honesty and integrity; rescue the man who has been wronged from the hands of his oppressor; do not exploit the stranger, the orphan, the widow; do no violence; shed no innocent blood.

Midday Deut 15: 7-8
Is there a poor man among you? Do not harden your heart or close your hand against that poor brother of yours, but be open-handed with him and lend him enough for his needs.

Afternoon Prov 22: 22-23
Do not rob the poor, because he is poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the Lord will plead their cause and despoil of life those who despoil them.

[reggie the dog]

179. If only

Gordon Brown, George Bush and Nicolas Sarkozy would even know about those passages, seeing as they all talk about their Christian faith.

[Joe Chi Minh]

183. Of the three, unsurprisingly, I suppose, given the natures of the respective

countries they govern, I prefer Sarkozy. It's not saying much at all, I know, and I wouldn't want it to be misconstrued as praise, however faint. But speaking as I've found, a couple of things he was reported on the TV news to have said concerning l'Affair Jerome Le Grand favourably surprised me. Though I expect it may be partly due to his having an instinct for the public's mood.

He apparently said that he didn't want to judge those involved when "they were down"; and that the directors of SocGen could lose their jobs.

[reggie the dog]

184. he is protecting a house of cards

If this socgen thing is investigated too much the people will discover the BS house of cards that finance is. Sarkozy does not want to judge them because he hopes they will find new investors to make up the seven billion Euros before there is a run on banks here in France or a complete economic collapse. Our economy is in the shitter in France, not as bad as the USA yet, but we are in a bad way over here. Sarkozy gave fifteen billion euros to the wealthiest one percent of France just days after getting elected. He said it would jumpstart the economy. It has been eight months, the economy is worse off and the goverment has no money to pay for raises for goverment workers or pensioners, or to fund our schools.

[truedelphi]

138. By the end of his life, Tolstoy had no use for

Any part of Russia's upper society. He hung out with the serfs, and valued them, their labor and the wisdom that it taught them.

I read a neat quote lately, sorry I can't remember the author "Those in the world judge you by your material goods, those in the world of the spirit judge by what is in your heart."

[Joe Chi Minh]

143. Yes, Tolstoy must have been a wonderful person. An interesting quote, too. It's right on the nail.

[Joe Chi Minh]

172. The great Scottish theologian and teacher, William Barclay, expressed it

most clearly and beautifully, in the following words: "The Beatitudes are not pious hopes of what shall be, they are congratulations on what is."

[Hidden Stillness]

21. Brilliant Post; a Couple of Points

Brilliant post; very accurate. Two quick points: first, most poor people/people on welfare, etc., are white women with children; "poverty is a feminist issue," as they used to say during the '70s. Second, kind of on the "learned helplessness point, but along with it. A few months ago, there was a British study, (reported on PBS NewsHour), about why poor people have so much trouble contacting resources, getting out of poverty, etc., found a very interesting, complicated thing: poor people are so cut off from the "stream" of things, and feel so alone, that they generally do not turn to agencies for help, or never know that they can. They feel agencies as being hostile to them, not set up for their benefit, do not know the procedures for anything, and feel afraid and extremely uncomfortable in an office setting, being questioned or asking questions about any program. They feel alien to a degree that, for example, rich people used to calling their lawyers and asking what their options are, etc., never do and would not understand. Poor people are so cut off in their fearful misery, worrying about bills and all the rest, that they do not feel part of the system at all, and as often hide, (for fear of losing their children, home, etc.), as tell things. It was a very interesting study that showed why people "do not just contact help that is available," etc. They do not feel that this society is theirs, or that the people operating these programs, even ones clearly designed to help poor people, are anything but strangers on "the other side of things"; they do not experience them as friendly forces, there to help them. When you have no contact with a world or a way of doing things, (negotiating your way around Government or non-profit programs, for example), then you don't know where to begin, and are afraid of the unknown. Poor people feel as if they live in a different world from all the organized structure, abandoned.

[flashl]

22. Excellent post. nt

[closeupready]

23. Great post!

I'm gonna K&R, too. :hi:

[cutlassmama]

25. K&R. I wish I could recommend it 20 times!!!

[RainDog]

28. k&r

[lumberjack_jeff]

29. Even though this was directed at me

It's a very good post.

K&R

[nadine_mn]

33. Actually it wasn't directed at you

it was from something I read earlier in a completely different thread.

[kdmorris]

36. I think it was directed more at the guy we were all

talking to, not at you.

[dysfunctional press]

30. "how dare you look down on others and say that poor people shouldn't have children..."

people shouldn't choose to have children UNLESS they can afford to raise them.

there, i've said it.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

31. And now that you've said it

you should ask yourself whose sentiments you are echoing.

That is a very ugly statement that you make.

[Warpy]

37. It is an ugly statement

because it supposes all people are able to see at least 18 years into the future.

Disgusting. Nobody knows what will happen in life and much of it is totally involuntary.

[dysfunctional press]

43. why do they need to see 18 years into the future?

having a child costs money from day 1.
people who choose to have children that they can't afford to raise are extremely self-centered- they don't care about the welfare of the child, but rather only their own desire to have one.

[Warpy]

49. Nobody expects to be pushed down and held down forever

unless they're multigenerational welfare families, living on the rez, or in Michigan.

Having children is a leap of faith in a better future. Even people who are well off can't foresee illness, divorce, disaster, desertion, or offshoring, all of which will make them too poor to continue raising a child well for 18 years. Having children, even the poorest children, is supplying this country with its next generation of citizens, voters and workers.

Your statement was shortsighted and cruel for suggesting otherwise, that having children is a silly hobby of self indulgent women.

[dysfunctional press]

73. sometimes the truth is cruel.

but it doesn't make it any less true.

[Warpy]

92. Platitudes allow comfortable people to be dismissive

of the pain of others without feeling a need to do anything about it.

[dysfunctional press]

115. that wouldn't include me, as i'm not "comfortable"...

i'm disabled on a fixed income.

[CTyankee]

100. I had my first child when I was way too young and ignorant about the real world.

Yet I did okay. Why? Because I had a safety net under me economically and with my "cultural capital" of being white, middle class, college educated. I started out ahead of the game. I can't really regret it because I have 3 very wonderful grown kids now, but I certainly was no "poster child" for being responsible about becoming a parent so young. I was lucky.

[dysfunctional press]

112. you were lucky- but you had that safety net.

a lot of the people who choose to become pregnant don't- and a lot of them think that having a child is going to somehow magically solve the problems in their lives, rather than compounding them.

[CTyankee]

130. Two things. I had no idea that I had a safety net. And I really thought my

life would be enhanced by having a child. I was heedless, I guess you'd say. I learned how to be a mother "on the job" as it were. No experience except the way I was raised. Perhaps that was the key, I don't know. My parents had experienced the Depression and drilled lots of stuff in me about being self sufficient, but I really never had to be. I cruised through you might say...

[dysfunctional press]

142. one thing you say there is very key to a big part of the problem-

"And I really thought my life would be enhanced by having a child."

that's the situation that way too many children are born into.
and i should clarify some of the things i've posted here- first off- people don't have to be poor to not be able to afford a child, as another thread about the young couple who spend $2000 more per month than they make can atest to.
and second- just because someone is "poor', it doesn't necessarily mean that they can't afford to have a child- they probably shouldn't be having 5 or 6 of them, but plenty of people of less than modest means have successfully raised fantastic children, and i probably should have been more clear about that. overall, the maturity level of the potential parent(s) is much more important than their income.

i'm glad for you and your kids that you were able to make it work- it's a testament to your own abilities. you weren't just lucky.

[CTyankee]

146. Thank you for the kind words.

I like to think that my mother's good "mothering" gave me the skills to be a good mother to my daughters who are wonderful mothers, one with 3 girls, the other with a boy who has a sensory disability often mistaken for autism. Both are extremely competent in their skills and I am so proud. Part of my mother's good mothering had to do with her own coping and surviving skills during the Depression. The same with my father, who had absolutely nothing starting out.

It's interesting. My children's father was very privileged growing up. He went to Harvard, getting "gentlemen's C's" throughout and coasted thru life until finally it caught up with him. I had divorced him at that point because I was tired of having to depend on him. He was a person who had a lot going from him. He is now haunted by the IRS for back payment of taxes and is miserable and clinically depressed in his elder years.

I've learned something from this. Being culturally and economically advantaged doesn't mean much if you can't cope every day. I am disgusted with people like him, but I have sympathy for folks in the ghetto...

[reggie the dog]

108. here is some truth

you are either a greedy asshole, a troll, or both.

[dysfunctional press]

113. no truth there- neither is true.

but you're welcome to your merde-headed opinions...:hi:

[Name removed]

126. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dysfunctional press]

141. where did i EVER say that i don't want to pay taxes?

or even imply it?

and what's your penchant with name-calling? it's rather rude, and solidly against the rules.

obviously you feel that you are above the rules that apply to everyone else.

nice.

you must feel right at home in france...no wonder you turned tail and ran there.

[reggie the dog]

106. what values do you teach your children?

You seem to suggest that one cannot be poor and think about the welfare of their children?

Perhaps if the USA were not full of violence poor people would not need to worry about where thier kids grew up.

Perhaps there would be less violence if the social aid would not be so pitifully low.

Were health care a right the poor could have that for thier kids too.

Public schools should also be funded more heavily by the fed to offset differences in funding between poor and wealthy areas in an effort to ensure that the poor can be educated in quality schools.

Were you not so self centered you would support paying more of your money in taxes to help put reforms like these is place instead of bitching at poor people for having kids.

Your argument would even cut you off from the extreme right here in France. I have never heard anyone argue this point in France. It is clear you are not a leftist and do not believe in the welfare state. Why do you spend time posting on a blog related to the Democratic party?

[dysfunctional press]

111. you obviously understand very little about the united states and it's politics...

perhaps you'd be better off sticking to posting on blogs related to french politics.

you obviously don't know a thing about me or my beliefs-
"It is clear you are not a leftist and do not believe in the welfare state"

please point out what i typed that makes that "clear", because clearly, you are full of merde.

[Name removed]

125. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[CTyankee]

133. Calling someone on a thread a "putain" doesn't seem to be helpful in the discussion.

Perhaps the phrase you used is a French idiom, but using that one with that personal reference, well, "not so much" as our idiom would go. I truly don't know, my Italian is better than my French at this point...

[reggie the dog]

157. putain

just means "damn", it really means "whore" but when you say ah putain it means oh shit, or oh damn.

[CTyankee]

160. Ah yes, idiomatic usage, as I suspected...n/t

[reggie the dog]

171. seeing as this

is supposed to be a place for civil discussion you could have also called it idiotic use.....

[CTyankee]

173. Well, as a former ESOL tutor I am interested in idiomatic usage.

I had a small class of Chinese women who had excellent English language skills except for American English idioms (some had learned English from British teachers). It was quite a learning experience for all of us! They were highly educated, wives of academics who were visiting scholars and post docs at Yale, and they all watched "Sex and the City"! They had some interesting questions for me...

[dysfunctional press]

140. so rather than stay and fight for social justice in the country you grew up in and were educated by-

you turned tail and ran away to france, where you feel safe to criticize americans.

nice.

[reggie the dog]

156. either myself

or my wife would have to live in a foreign country, so I moved to France. There is still a social saftey net here, less violence, cheaper health care etc. I also criticize americans when I am in the USA.

[reggie the dog]

158. how much more clear can one be

You do not think people should have kids if they are poor. Basically you want poor families to die off. That pretty clearly shows that you are not on the left and do not believe in the welfare state. If you did you would be willing to pay taxes to help poor children. You would rather say that poor people should not have kids.

I am also an American. I was born in Chicago, grew up there, got a BA in history and sociology and a MA in history there, taught for a year in the ghetto of Chicago (where I had students turn into gangsters to pay for food for their families so that their mothers would no longer have to prostitue themselves).

[dysfunctional press]

162. i didn't say that people shouldn't have kids who are poor-

i said that people shouldn't have kids who can't afford them.

BIG difference.

go back to school and learn a little comprehension.

[reggie the dog]

169. I comprehend things

So what is the difference between being poor and having kids and not being able to afford kids???? I suppose the wealthy are the ones that cannot afford children.

Who cannot afford kids??? Anyone that gets public aid???? In that case I cannot afford my kid (I get public aid for my kid, but so do most middle class and poorer people here in France)

I also probably already have more formal education than you so please refrain from telling me to go back to school. I already have an MA and am not really interested in getting a PHD for the moment.

[dysfunctional press]

176. not very well, unfortunately...

there's another thread about a young couple in california who spend $2000.00 a month more than they make- they would be a perfect example of one type of people who aren't poor, and yet most likely can't afford to have a kid.

why is it that you keep asking me questions, and then answering them with your own incorrect musings, and then acting as if i had supplied the answer? it's extremely disingenuous. but then...living in france and all, perhaps you don't realize that.

[reggie the dog]

180. what does living in France have to do with anything?

I lived in the USA from 79 until 2003. I think I picked up on American social cues. Spending 2,000 a month more than they make in thier case is not an example of people that cannot afford children, it is an example of people who live beyond their means but who could otherwise afford the basics for their children. If you do not even make 2,000 a month you are poor and cannot "afford" kids in the sense that you suggest. I personally do not understand what is wrong with society helping people that cannot afford to raise their children on their own.

[nonconformist]

137. Because shit happens and things can change

You can be doing just fine when you decided to have children, or even fine for the first few years... then, tragedy strikes. Job loss, medical problems, you name it - some perhaps within your control, but most are not.

[dysfunctional press]

41. how is it ugly?

:shrug:

do you think that people who can't afford to raise children should choose to do so?

[Political Heretic]

53. That's not usually how it happens.

People often have children in situations where they can afford to, and then later have circumstances change.

Which is part of the reason why this mostly wing wing phraseology of "people who can't afford to have children shouldn't" is pretty slimy. Many people can afford to have children when they have them.

I also think we should address some of inequity that leaves far too many in situations where they can't afford to raise children, rather than simply tell them not to have children they can't afford.

I don't think having children should be the "right" of the privileged.

[kdmorris]

58. Besides which...

I've always wondered... WHO decides if you can afford them? Do you need to have their college tuition already paid for? Must you have a certain amount of money in the bank? What EXACTLY is meant by "when you can afford them"? Should you have already bought a house or can you have them when you are renting an apartment? If one parent has a steady job, working for $15 a hour (in 1987), is that enough? Should you have health insurance that will pay for the whole pregnancy, labor and delivery, or is health insurance that will pay 80% of it OK?

WHO gets to decide whether you can afford your children? Where do you apply for reproductive rights? And what happens if, at the moment of conception, you COULD afford to have them, and then, during the pregnancy, your husband loses his job and you are on bed rest? Are you then morally obligated to have an abortion? Or should you, a la "The Handmaid's Tale", do the right thing and give your baby up for adoption when she is born?

This whole "people who can't afford to have children shouldn't" started under the Reagan administration and continued under the nasty Republican congress under Clinton. I won't engage the person you responded to, but this sort of thinking is just another way of punishing the poor. And it's distressing to me to see this on DU, to see even a couple of our members spouting RW catch phrases and then, turning it around on you if you protest.

[Name removed]

109. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dysfunctional press]

72. no...it usually IS how it happens.

way too many people choose to have children when they cannot afford too.

and i am not saying that people should choose to abort unplanned kids- i am only talking about those people who make the conscious choice to become pregnant when they cannot afford to. it's an extremely selfish act.

[Extend a Hand]

94. maybe

people that have already have children *SHOULDN'T* choose to indulge in risky behaviors
like joining the military during a war

skiing or skydiving or moutain climbing or camping in the winter

or perhaps driving is to risky...

or perhaps parents of children shouldn't be allowed to divorce to ensure that children aren't left in poverty (it does cost more for two households to live than for one.

smoking or drinking are clearly out of the question as well

and people with genetic illnesses that might be passed along to a child...well we wouldn't want that burden on the state either.

who will be the arbitor of what is or isn't too selfish?

[AlphaCentauri]

153. Yep! Sex is a risk to the poor only

rich fellows can have all they want.

:sarcasm:

[Name removed]

110. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dysfunctional press]

118. you really ought to learn to post by the rules...

unless of course you feel that they somehow don't apply to you.

[Desertrose]

90. I think that if everyone worried less about getting "theirs"

and thought more about how we can help each other i this world, it wouldn't be about "being able to afford having a child".


To me it is an ugly statement because it shows the selfishness of the person who posted it.



In this country there is NO EXCUSE for any child (or adult) to go hungry, homeless or have no healthCARE.

We can afford a war killing uncounted souls, but we cannot afford to take care of our own? Why is that...I'd be curious about your answer.

[kdmorris]

38. Self Delete

I said I wasn't going to do it and I'm not. As ugly as this sentiment is to me, I will not get sucked into another discussion with someone who refuses to listen and already has their small little mind made up.

[kineneb]

39. for the poor, it is often not a choice

lack of access to medical care is a big problem... if you do not have money for food, how can you afford a condom? Or for women- the pill or other method all cost money. Sex, although not without hazard, is at least free.

[dysfunctional press]

42. i'm only speaking about those for whom it IS a choice.

nt.

[undergroundpanther]

52. Choice?

I would choose to not be poor.
Not be messed up and disabled.
To not suffer so much shit.
To be happy.


I have none of these. Happiness comes in short bursts and even than it is not enough to help me out of the grinding stress pstd and depression that life, for me is and has been.
Grow some empathy instead of yammering about choice from afar .Can you tell an act made in desperation,from a free willed"choice"?How about responding to a threat from a free willed choice? Until you get that choices are not always freely made, you are blowing hot air out of your ass,and sound like ayn rand a cultist, egotistical hypocrite from hell.


Please get out of your little self comforting beliefs you spout about poor people.And get to know some of us.. Sometimes the responsibilities of making more money is too much stress for a person and could leave them worse off emotionally. So are they are poor by choice? No they seek sanity and would much rather not get so stressed out over life VS a tiny raise in cash in exchange for too much stress.Does this mean a person chooses poverty? NO! It means they can't cope with more stress.

But I don't expect you to get all the subtleties of various situations poor people might face like that...with the crappy level of empathy you demonstrate with your "poverty is a choice" rhetoric.
Reality is a fucking cruel and capricious thing and misfortune can even make the well off, suddenly poor..

[dysfunctional press]

74. "poverty is a choice"?

please tell me where i said that.

because i didn't.

[knitter4democracy]

86. And who would that be?

Republicans have pandered to their base and taken away Medicaid paid abortions. Planned Parenthood has to charge for their services, and scraping the money together for the pill (can be $40 a month at PP, depending on which prescription actually works for you) or the condoms or whatever is damn difficult.

Now, if you're offering a national health care system, I'm all ears.

[nadine_mn]

44. Can you tell me the winning lottery numbers as well?

Because you are assuming that people can see well into the future and know they will never have an illness or job loss or tragedy that changes their lives.

Like I said in my OP, poverty happens - you can be born into or it can happen as a result of something beyond your control. Who teaches us about safe sex?

When I worked in a domestic violence shelter, a mother of 12 yr old twins, who also had a 5 yr daughter and another on the way, asked me to talk to her boys about safe sex. As a child advocate, it was within my role however I was very nervous, and I asked her if she wanted me to talk about condoms etc... she said yes because "clearly I don't know". This was a woman who was born into poverty, experienced a lifetime of family violence as a child and an adult, raising her children in a cycle of violence and poverty. She was in the shelter due to not having any family or financial resources. The skills and knowledge many of us take for granted are not a given.

All I can say is that nothing prepared me fro a 12 yr old boys, a banana, a condom and video from the library...I think I scarred them for years.

Finally let me say this - my mom was poor when she had me and I turned out just fine.

Britney Spears has a shitload of money and I am worried about her kids. Its more about finances when you have kids.

[dysfunctional press]

76. i'm not talking about people's future problems.

i'm talking about people who make the conscious choice to become pregnant, even though their current financial conditions don't allow for them to be able to afford to have/raise a child- it's an EXTREMELY selfish act- the people that do so are only thinking about their own desire to have a kid, and not about the welfare of the child.

[reggie the dog]

114. are you a Thatcherite???

GET THIS TROUGH YOUR HEAD. MANY PEOPLE ARE POOR ALL THROUGH THEIR CHILDBEARING YEARS. THEY WILL NOT SIMPLY GIVE UP ON THE HUAMN DREAM OF HAVING A FAMILY, KIDS AND GRANDKIDS, JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE POOR. THEY WILL JUST BE WILLING TO HUSTLE UP MONEY ANY WAY THEY CAN. I assume you are a fellow athiest, or at least not Christian, because of that whole story with the parents of Jesus begging to stay in a hotel to give birth to their baby, but being put in the manger because they did not have enough silver. You know, that book(I think a fiction because I do not belive in God) that tried to instill values into the world.....

[cgrindley]

61. You're right

people shouldn't have children if they cannot afford to raise them. It's basic responsibility to the rest of society.

[conscious evolution]

65. Basic human instincts

cannot be shut off like a light bulb.And their are fewer stronger natural instincts for living beings then to reproduce.
It is like asking people to quit breathing or make their heart stop beating.Can't be done.

[balantz]

91. That's an easy statement.

For human beings, like all animals, love happens, babies happen, life is made to go on as always. People of all income brackets have unplanned babies. How can you tell someone who is poor to "get rid of that burden on society"?

[reggie the dog]

116. NO NOT AT ALL

Why is their unemployment? Society is set up to have unemployment to keep wages low. There are not enough jobs for everyone because the people that have jobs work too many hours a week. They work those hours because wages are low. SOCIETY OWES THE POOR, AND EVERYONE FOR THAT MATTER, A JOB THAT PAYS ABOVE THE POVERTY LINE......

trolls, twats, Torries, Republicans

spew your class hate elsewhere.

[knitter4democracy]

84. And how are you going to enforce that, Big Brother?

Reproductive rights are fundamental. Poor families don't always stay poor, and poor kids sometime grow up to be our nation's greatest assets. Don't have the kids, and we lose a major resource for our nation in brainpower, workforce, and the future.

Or you can just sit back and be a bigot, hoping the government will figure out a way to strip poor women of their right to have kids but never get big enough to look into your own house. :eyes:

[reggie the dog]

104. fuck you

I am nearly 30 and I don't want to wait any more.

I even work full time for minimum wage here in France.
My wife is a teacher and earns a standard teacher's salary.

We are still poor enough to get goverment financial aid to raise our daughter. (Here being poor enough means that we can afford to buy an apartment, but not a house, and that our 2 cars, while bought new, are bottom of the range cars).


I doubt your ancestors would have ever had children if they had waited until they could afford them. Unless your ancestors were "royalty".

[killbotfactory]

105. WTF?

When my wife got pregnant, she became too sick to work, and our income got cut in half. Suddenly, we are having trouble making bills, and when she becomes obviously pregnant, I don't expect any employer to follow the law and disregard the pregnancy.

I guess we should abort, right?

Here's a clue: LIFE DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR PLANS. Shit happens. No one can avoid it no matter how highly you think of yourself, especially in our society where people are constantly being nickle and dimed from all angles and there is no job security and our healthcare system is designed to fleece people of money when they are at their most vulnerable.

[fascisthunter]

127. Why Not Just Say... "Poor People Should Just Die Off"

"Nope... you are not allowed to procreate. We know it's a human/biological imperative for survival of mankind, but we are gonna suggest you resist. You are not financially well off enough to have them. You must afford to be human first in order to be fully human."

Also, most times, having children isn't planned. Should poor people be forced to have abortions?

That's supporting a form of class warfare and a form of genocide in most communities. Having children is more than just a choice. I hope you rethink what you posted.

[AlphaCentauri]

152. Educated people tent to have less children, why sterilize the poor

I have seen in latin-america how governments sterilize uneducated poor people without their consent and have read about it here in the reservation done to Native American woman during the 60's. I believe that education is the problem. Many believe that college education or the quality of education a person gets should be a privilege for some not for all. To say that the poor should not have kids if they can afford them is just a cover up to the real problems and failures in our society.

[stillcool]

155. My mother died...

when I was a year old. My dad was a WWII veteran who 'was never the same' after the war. I ended up a foster-kid...(living off the dole, you might say) What do you think should happen in a case like that? Oh yeah, my mother was told that her pregnancy would 'hasten' her death, but at the time, social and religious pressures made the termination of her pregnancy unthinkable. I believe I should have been shot dead right then and there. How about you?

[Orwellian_Ghost]

32. Thank you

The simple truths you state go straight to the heart of the matter.

K&R

[unapatriciated]

47. Honest and from the heart

I have been there, poor with four children to raise. I can't tell you how many times complete strangers felt the need to ask me why did you have soooooooo many children if you can't support them. More than once I looked them straight in the eye and asked, which one should I take out back and shoot. Somehow it was my fault their father left or my son became ill. I should have know better than to have soooooooo many children. It always amazed me that in their mind I had insulted them and not the other way around. Too many think that poverty is somehow the fault of the poor or that they are not deserving of a few simple pleasures like "frosted flakes" but instead should be grateful to get government cheese.

Now if we can just convince the senate to scrap that tax rebate. They need to work on a stimulus program that benefits all and does not punish the poor or disabled.

[midnight]

50. Poverty is the worst prejudice that we have in this country.

Let's end it.

[undergroundpanther]

51. poverty,responsibility and power

The Technology of Profit
1. Make-Believe

Apart from the latent violence that constitutes the ultimate sanction of every society, the dominating power in the modern Western world is that of money. If the last four or five hundred years are anything to go by, it seems to be a fact of political economy that money accumulates in fewer and fewer hands. With only rare bumps and hiccups to hold up its ‘progress’ here and there, society has become increasingly unequal, and at the present time the profit motive seems not only unprecedentedly rampant, but to hold sway virtually unchallenged.

Such spectacular greed, such indifference to the poverty and suffering it inflicts between and within populations across the globe, cannot be established and maintained without a technology of social control. My concern is of course with the psychological aspects of this technology and my purpose here is to elaborate on some of the factors already identified in earlier pages as contributing to the mystification of our understanding of the way the social environment works.

The maintenance of economic power in the hands of a tiny minority of the world’s population is helped by the ability of the powerful to exploit our situation as isolated individuals locked within proximal worlds.

There is a ‘real world’ where the mechanics of power are manipulated to the profit of those who have learned – whether consciously or not – how to benefit from them. Though it touches on us often enough, and that most often painfully, the way the real world works is for the most part kept beyond the horizon of our ability to discern. Our preoccupations are with things closer to home: with our own economic survival and that of those close to us, with our status within the social groups we occupy locally, with everyday personal satisfactions and discomforts, with ambitions, dreams and wishes.

A characteristic of the real world is that the beings in it (including, of course, all of us) are embodied. They live and die; some thrive, some suffer. It does not suit the interests of unequal power that the hard realities of this world are too well understood by those – the vast majority – who profit from it least. For us there needs to be – and has been – created other forms of world, not real, where we may lead disembodied lives, detached from the possibility of laying living hands on the levers of power. It is a world of make-believe, where inside is indistinguishable from outside and where we may live more easily in our dreams than in our bodies.

http://www.davidsmail.freeuk.com/pubfra.htm







For what seems to me to have happened over the years is that a mechanistic and objectivist approach to people's distress that, while it didn't overtly blame them, dehumanized them, has been replaced by a 'humanist' and 'postmodernist' one that interiorizes the phenomena of distress and - often explicitly and nearly always tacitly - holds people responsible for them.

Even though the pendulum seems to have swung from an almost entirely exterior approach to an almost entirely interior one, the problem of responsibilty has not been solved: formerly we had people for whose condition nobody was responsible while now we have people whose condition is largely if not solely their own responsibility. The reason for this is to be found in what these two extreme positions have in common: a studied avoidance of the social dimension.

It is true that,...the social power-structure did indeed become visible for a moment, even to the extent of spawning 'radical psychology' movements. However, as far as the mainstream is concerned, the possibility that emotional distress is the upshot of the way we organize our society has never been seriously entertained and at the present time is if anything further than ever from any kind of official recognition. The imputation of responsibility is absolutely central to this state of affairs.
....
The most frequent everyday use is that of responsibility as blame: 'who is responsible?' is equivalent to 'who is to blame?'. This is the sense in which people suffering emotional distress usually understand 'responsibility', and I would maintain that for the most part they are not mistaken in their anticipation that this is how society also understands it in relation to 'psychological disorder'.

Once the concept of responsibility is invoked in this sphere it raises the question of who is to blame for my suffering - I, or someone else? The message of the therapeutic industry has been that the blame lies with the sufferer; it is of course not stated as crudely as this, but is implied in the notion that somehow the individual lacks the moral fibre to face up to his or her difficulties and mobilize the necessary internal resources to deal with them. Most sufferers feel this keenly without any overt prompting from those around them: a guilty sense of weakness and moral inadequacy is one of the most frequent and uncomfortable accompaniments of distress.
http://www.davidsmail.freeuk.com/pubfra.htm

[Swamp Rat]

54. Excellent post!

:kick:

[tomreedtoon]

56. Any advice for those who are giving up?

I have a friend I've been supporting through outright gifts, and by having her come in and help clean my rented duplex. She used to be a librarian at a local college, until it was discovered that she was taking prescribed medication for depression. The college fired her outright.

She spent the next two years trying to fight the firing in court. The court-assigned lawyer did little for her and she lost. During this time she tried to get other library jobs, but because of the lawsuit no one would hire her. After her case was overturned, no one would hire her (I suspect because, legal or not, the college told any potential employers that she was "trouble.")

She moved in with a guy much older than her, and has been trying to find other work. Medical problems with a botched surgery almost killed her, until a hospital finally agreed to take her case for charity. She can't drive because of a birth defect in her eyes, she can't work McJobs, and she's not exactly a young kid any more.

This last weekend, she was despondent, despite the meds that she's gotten through charity medical care. I had to try to cheer her up and tell her that, even though this country is in a recession/depression, and no one is hiring anyone for anything, that she should not simply "give up." I think I know what she meant by "give up."

She kind of hopes that a Democratic President might turn things around, and wishes it could be Edwards, but is afraid that Clinton would be Bush-Lite and wouldn't be able to fix the economy. And if a Republican is elected, I fear the worst for her.

All I can do is try to cheer her up somehow, and give her optimistic thoughts, but damn it, I'm at the end of my rope too. I'm not a psychiatrist and I can't afford to send her to one, and the charity ones don't seem to have anything to say to her. Is there anything you can say to her? How can she be convinced that she's not just a piece of shit that deserves to be flushed down the toilet?

[kdmorris]

57. I'm not going to lie to you

It's going to be hard to convince her she's not a piece of shit if she's convinced she is. Society teaches us that our value is ONLY in how much we work, how much we "give back" to society. And right now, society is telling her, through her not being able to get a job, that she is worthless.

The best you can do is try to convince her that it's her depression talking and try to give her hope for the future. But, if you do give her hope, and she's not able to find a job after a Dem becomes president, etc, she may have a major crash.

My husband just told me all the time how wonderful I was, how beautiful I was, how life was so much better because I was with him when I was feeling like she is. It didn't help me believe that I wasn't a piece of shit, but it sure did help to know that there was one person in the world who loved me and thought I was just wonderful, even though I KNEW I wasn't. However, without him telling me these things, without him hugging me and telling me how wonderful I was, I never would have been able to get the job I have now.

After working at this job for 10 years, I don't feel like a piece of shit anymore, because I've accomplished so much. But there are still times that I think "If they ever find out who I REALLY am, they will not like me anymore". But that starts into a completely different subject... "How Poverty Affects You for Life".

The only advice I can give you is to keep being there for her, keep telling her that she's NOT what she and everyone around her thinks she is. It may not help her feel less like shit, but it might just keep her from "giving up" if she knows that there's SOMEONE who would mourn her passing. (Back in the really bad days, before I met my husband, I didn't kill myself because of my kids. I knew I should be strong enough to give them up for adoption, but selfishly, they were the only thing that kept me alive.)

[Rosemary2205]

80. Society teaches us that our value is ONLY in how much we work

You just made me pick up the phone, call my mom and thank her over and over.

A long story. But you are darn right about society teaching us that our only value is paycheck related and supposedly bigger paychecks mean more value. I was so incredibly fortunate that my mom refused to let me believe it.

[reggie the dog]

120. I agree with you

something I love about the punk, metal, and the hip hop scenes before they were commercialized was their fuck society additude. If you can't find work you are a piece of shit. If you find low wage work you are a piece of shit etc.

Fuck it, I know folks who dont give a fuck, they are happy to pull in 10,000 to 20,000 a year in US dollars (legally or by selling grass) and do not give a damn for name brand clothing etc.

[tomreedtoon]

150. Thanks. I appreciate the candor.

I have a friend who counsels for the Veterans Administration. He won't even talk about his patients, aside from that every time Bush does something stupid, a lot of them get agitated.

This is a major problem, and it's good to know that my own minor league efforts may have some good effect. Thanks.

[kineneb]

83. what keeps me going

Volunteering. It is more flexible than work; you are not required to be there. There any number of groups desperate for volunteers.

I am the local Rotary Club's adviser for the local Interact and Rotaract clubs- they are, respectively, the high school and college-level Rotary groups. The "kids" have such energy and enthusiasm, and a little rubs off.

Your friend should apply for disability; with her health problems, she should qualify.

I have come to the conclusion there is nothing wrong with answering "What do you do?" with: "I have a disability, but I volunteer for XYZ group when I can."

[trashcanistanista]

102. I was just about to say it.

Joining a group and volunteering. Start with a local democratic club. There she will find a support group, get out and do things, rekindle passion and make life worth living. I personally work as few shifts as I can becasue I love my volunteer jobs much more.

[Echo In Light]

59. It's amazing how many view the less fortunate in this way

[cgrindley]

60. Lack of education indeed directly leads to poverty

check the census data. Poor people do not have good educations. The worse the education, the more significant the poverty. I suppose to some degree that it is a chicken vs. egg argument--but only if you either a) discount the gulf between high school and non high school grads or b) compare access to affordable college programs between those who live in urban environments and those who live in an essentially rural part of the country. In the urban environment, there are many excellent programs that people can use to combat a lack of education and a lack of money. More funds need to go to rural America, though.

[lastliberalintexas]

82. Yeah, that kid I went to high school with who

was working full time to support him and his siblings sure deserved to be poor. We lived in a relatively urban environment, so I guess it was all his fault for not looking into those "government programs" which would have provided shelter, food and support for him and his siblings while his absent parents failed to provide that support. Damn him for sleeping through some of his classes and eventually dropping out so that could work full time to keep his younger siblings in school. He should have just let them all go into foster care, be separated and have lord knows what happen to them in the system.


Good god almighty some of you people are clueless about the poor in this country.

[me b zola]

62. Thank you for saying what needed to be said

K&R :kick:

[shireen]

63. outstanding OP

I wish there was a wider audience for it, esp. for the clueless people who should read it.

Thank you. :hug:

[pattmarty]

64. One of the very best personal outlooks on "poverty" I have ever read.

I am a white male 61 yo now and grew up in the 50's & 60' in the (white)suburbs of Chicago. I am not blowing smoke up your ass when I say that was THE BEST PIECE so far that I have read on DU. I grew up as I call it in the lower middle class and still see myself as the same. My wife and I together made 65K that last year before we retired. We were able to buy our first house when my mother died and left a small amount (less than 100k split between myself & my sister) that I put down on a small (68K) house. After reading your piece I felt like I grew up rich. My father was a union man and I also am one (thank god) and that is the ONLY reason I could retire on a small income. thanks again for sharing, and I hope more people here and on other "liberal/progressive" sites begin to understand that the MAJORITY OF PEOPLE IN THE US don't make 100K a year and drive a new SUV.

[NashVegas]

66. Where Do People Go to Unlearn Helplessness? Ain't the Fed

I almost posted a counter-argument to Myths #1 and #2 until I got to "Learned Helplessness."

All of these things begin and end with family. Often when you hear of someone who has come from poverty to be successful, they attribute it to some family member who "always believed in" them.

Then you have families that only know how to tear each other down. For them, there's usually some teacher or empowering figure. And even then, some'll be train wrecks (think: Mike Tyson).

No one outside of politics ever says, "I'd like to thank FDR and LBJ for my success."

Maybe it's because I'm growing older and have finally seen what goes on in good (not necessarily wealthy) families, but I'm starting to understand some conservative arguments against government programs. I don't agree but I do understand them.

No amount of government assistance can make up for the self-worth and skills that come from being raised in a loving, emotionally-supportive home. If you never learn those skills anywhere, you'll never pass them onto your kids. It's hard for a parent to be emotionally supportive of their children, and teach the older kids to be that way with their younger siblings, when you're working full-time (let alone two jobs!) with no spouse to share the weight or you do and you're both working long hours and come home tired enough as it is, and have to get food on the table. You might not even have time for a sit-down family dinner at a regular time everyday as it is.

If you grew up in a crappy family, yourself, you don't have the time to motivate them to push their boundaries to excel and pick themselves up when they fall on their face, because no one ever taught you that's an important part to being successful.

One of the things we cite as justification for the progs is so that poor people don't have to swallow any pride to have their needs met. The older I get, the more that seems to be well-intentioned, but misguided. Swallowing pride and asking for help is a "life lesson" in taking a risk and trusting that other *people* - not a vague government entity - will assist you when you're down. I wouldn't want to do away with them, they are necessary for some, but I do understand the more well-intentioned arguments against.

You cannot unlearn helplessness without asking for help and receiving it.

There are a lot of assholes. Last year some frat boy rolled a sleeping homeless woman off a dock and into the Cumberland. Her body was found several days later. Her misfortune was not having people she could trust and turn to before it got that bad.

Meanwhile:

How dare you say if I am on welfare I can only eat what YOU say I can - "no chips for you"..."put back that Ho Ho"..., yes guidelines are one thing - no alcohol or cigarettes, but keep your fucking hands off my frosted flakes.

My response to your attitude there?

Here's your choice: you can have those Frosted Flakes now, or you can have health care. Take your pick.

[reggie the dog]

122. FDR

and his programs like the TVA and the CCC helped many many people.

Few people say that today because very few politicians give a damn about poor and working class people today, or for that matter, since the 1960's.

[Reverend_Smitty]

128. lol I'm sure those thousands of people in the Tennessee Valley never thanked FDR

for that whole wide-spread electricity thing. I guess they would have rather built and financed all those dams themselves.

I don't get it sometimes

[Gormy Cuss]

147. Here ya go. I'd like to thank LBJ for my success as an adult.

Without the Great Society program benefits I wouldn't have had a full belly and a roof over my head after my parents divorced. It would have been much harder to stay in school until graduation because we were way beyond broke even with AFDC. I would have faced the same choice as my parents: getting a low wage job as soon as I was legally able to do so. That would have cut me out of any real possibility of attending college even though I had the test scores and grades to get into most four year programs. With federal grants and loans I was able to do so. I've spent every year since paying taxes and supporting other family members without the need for charitable support.

Thank you, Lyndon Johnson.


No single program will address all of the issues of everyone in the low income community, but job training, education, and food programs over and above cash assistance have in the aggregate reduced both the amount of poverty in this country and the depth of it.

[juno jones]

67. Thank you Nadine

You spoke well in that thread you mention, and you certainly speak truth now. I am tired of being discounted. Yeah, I knew my profession wasn't going to make me rich and that's OK. What I ask is some friggin' dignity. Can we acknowledge that the working class/working poor have made major contributions to the economy, perhaps far beyond what the admired CEO ever does? Can we admit that in exchange for working for others, making others rich, making this economy vibrant, we should at least be compensated on some level for our time and 'bruises'. I am going to get thrown out when I can no longer work. I am a BIC employee. I have injuries sustained on my jobs that will never heal, that cause me pain and I can't get help for them because I have no insurance, and because of the stigma of being poor, I will never be given many of the medications some of you take for granted to get thru your days because 'I might abuse 'em'. The social security people insult me from time to time, letting me know about the whole $300 a month I will be entitled to when I am too old to work. Yeah, I'm mad, I'm livid right now. It's easier to throw us out than to change things. I want what many middle-class DU'ers take for granted. I would rather pay for a fleet of pink welfare cadillacs for someone scamming the system than pay another dollar to undefensible war and torture.


I want my dignity. I do not want your charity.

[justanaveragedude]

68. Let's be honest...

about the laziness issue. I have some very poor people in my life. Family and friends of family. While I am not prepared to say that all poor people are poor as a result of laziness and bad choices. I will say without an ounce of hesitation and remorse that the poor people in my life ARE POOR BECAUSE OF BAD CHOICES AND LAZINESS. My brother in law is the classic example. He lives in a small single wide (Paid for by my in-laws) with his wife and two kids. He perfectly able to work. I have tried to get him to work for my company. He will not because $10 an hour is not enough for him. Fine. Then go work somewhere else. He has no shame. He will readily admit, if the job is not paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 per hour, he would rather sit at home and collect his welfare, WIC, and food stamps. The problem is that he has no job skills. He is 31 years old and has never worked enough to develop any skills. He is living off our compassion and tax dollars because he is DUMB, LAZY, and HAS MADE BAD CHOICES. Oh yeah, in last couple of years he has put on about 50lbs so throw obese into that description as well.

Each "poor person" in my life has a similar story. So while no all poor people are lazy, dumb, etc. My life experience tells me that many are.

This post my not be nice, but like the OP said "at least I'm honest".

[Gormy Cuss]

87. Your life experience is anecdotal.

No one with a broader understanding of poverty issues would state that no poor people are lazy or working against their best interests, which I think is what most people mean by "dumb" in this context. The problem is when people take their experience with a handful of examples and assume that most of those in poverty are there for the same reasons.

Now back to your brother-in-law. If he is able to work and just choosing not to do so, he's committing welfare fraud and it's a shame someone in the family hasn't dropped a dime on him.

[Le Taz Hot]

69. Well, I've no intention of starting a flame war

but I see lots of flaws with your post. Just for the record, I've been poor most of my life as well and was also homeless as a child.

But you might want to re-read #3.

Your title:
Myth #3
Most of the poor are minorities.

Followed by a screed on white people and males and hetero: "White privilege exists people - as does male privilege and hetero privilege. It affects opportunities, expectations, pay levels, - everything."

Not only is it contradictory, I see it as racist. But, that's just my opinion. I'm sure I'm in the minority here, if you know what I mean. :shrug:

[L0oniX]

70. I agree. The people we feed every Saturday are mostly caucasian.

[jjr5]

75. So true, so obvious.

No one wants to be poor, or chooses the trials in their life. Any one who says otherwise is spinning lies and has nothing to say to which it is worth listening. Thank you so much for your post and for sharing your experiences dealing with poverty.

[balantz]

77. Thanks for educating those who may not know what's going on for many.

White male, middle aged single father here. Always worked as a laborer for low wages. Have injured my back on a few occassions since I was in my twenties and was lucky to get workman's comp. for a few months. Instead of fighting for disability I always ended up going back to work and never got past the stage of skilled laborer. Depression, alcohol and drugs pretty near took me down, I overcame those things finally, and just recently. Currently me and my child are just barely getting by. I have a situation where I work for our rent here where we live. This computer is not mine. I have a ten year blank in my resume for when I was working sporadically under the table, homeless, etc. I haven't been able to get decent work because of that blank space. I suppose I could find someone to help me lie on my resume? I don't know. There is no government retraining program available. Some may call me stupid for being in the situation I am in. Hey, I am what I am. Thank goodness I am sober and the depression has been seen through, and thank goodness I still have my child. I do fear for us though. So, poverty comes in all shapes and colors.

[toadzilla]

78. k&r!

[Greyhound]

88. K & R

[Desertrose]

89. K&R Excellent post! Thank you.

Its what I have been saying forever....

What the hell is wrong with a country that judges it's citizens by how much money they have or don't have.

(You did well holding your anger in check...not sure I would have done as well)

:) DR

[Yael]

93. Wow. What an excellent post.

K&R and Bookmarking.

[trashcanistanista]

96. Best post on poverty. Ever.

I think we are about to hit a tsunami of poverty in this country. It's subtle, slow in coming, but it is growing rapidly and will hit hard when the vast majority have to decide whether to eat or go without paying heating bills or healthcare. This will be a rude awakening for many and it will not be pretty. The fact that poverty is so widespread is the greatest shame of this country.

[GOPBasher]

99. Nadine, this is an excellent journal entry.

Thank you for sharing your story. You've had very tough experiences -- congrats to you for making it. :-) And you made excellent points.

I'm lucky that I have someone helping me out right now, or else my family and I would be homeless right now. I have a BS in Physics (graduated Magna Cum Laude) and a master's in education, but no one would hire me. Seriously, no one. I must be the worst interviewee in the world, I don't know. But anyway, I'm working in a factory right now (despite all the education), making $9.50/hr. There would be NO WAY IN HELL that I'd be able to support my family of four on that, except that I'm a lucky one: My mother-in-law is letting us live with her until something better comes for us. So, I'm escaping homelessness ONLY because I'm lucky enough to have someone bailing us out.

[teacher gal]

107. Great journal

you've got going here Nadine. Tremendous. I can't imagine all that you have been through. No one should judge another unless they've walked in their shoes. BTW, I'm a teacher and I have a post on about childhood poverty. What a shame that we live in the richest nation on earth (ha, for a select few) yet we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world.

So glad you have put this issue out there for people to consider. I believe poverty should be the no. 1 issue for our lawmakers and the presidential candidates.

Personally, I think John Edwards really cares about this issue.

[Flatulo]

117. Most of the time it is just shitty luck.

My best friend of many years went through two decades of having his various jobs bought out, sold out, and outsourced until he he is now working in a warehouse for about 20K per year.

A lot of people make lousy decisions (abusive mate, drugs or alcohol), but this guy has done everything right and still got fucked for it.

[kentuck]

119. When you are hungry...

and are sitting on the bench with a black man and a Mexican, race is not much of a discussion. Poverty is the great equalizer.

[Cleita]

121. You have eloquently framed the issue.

:thumbsup:

[fascisthunter]

123. So Well Said, and Thank You from the Bottom of my Heart

I wish you well in life and everybody you come across. That's how much I feel about what you said. You laid out the misconception on a reality I have come in contact with. Many I know have lived similar paths as you have. I experienced poverty not as much as you did or they did, but enough to make me realize that poverty itself isn't chosen. I see enough suffering of others... that should always be enough not to judge.

[McHatin]

129. I'm not sure I agree with this

Myth #3
Most of the poor are minorities.

This is not a "myth" in the sense that minorities, blacks specifically, are much poorer than the national average. I don't know why anyone would want to make this out to be a myth, considering that we need to recognize this disparity to work to fix it.

After Obama won in South Carolina, his supporters were saying "race doesn't matter". This is the message we need to get out, the one that Dr. King first envisioned.

To me, the myth that certain figures push today, much to the detriment of minorities, especially the black community, is that "minorites are poor because of racism". According to these people, racism is alive and well in America, in fact, it is worst than before the pre-Civil Rights era, just different now.

This myth has lead to policies that have done nothing to help lift minorities to the national average in terms of income equality. In fact, it ignores the real problem, which is that many blacks are poor and remain that way because of poverty and horrible school systems. Instead, some in the civil rights movement fan the flames of racism by using different forms of race-based discrimination to try to raise minorities to the same level as whites.

The thing is, this controversial system has done little to help minorities and lots to increase racial tensions. To really bring equality of results to black and other minorites, we should focus on fighting poverty in this country with more money going towards social programs, universal health care, and schooling. Do this, and you will see the gap close and also improve racial relations. How?

Well, people everywhere generalize, it is a logical thing to do in many instances. This leads to discriminatory practices, one example being how 19 year old boys have a much higher insurance payment than girls of the same age. This is because boys, as a group, are riskier drivers. This logic spills over to race as well, so that you will have discrimination from insurance companies, banks, etc. towards certain racial groups. The vast majority of this racial discrimination, however, is not based on racism, but pure logic. Is it still hurtful towards minorities? You bet, and I still think it is wrong, but so do I think it is wrong to discriminate against boys over girls in car insurance. However, car insurance companies do not do this because they are sexist, just as most people are not racist, they are using logical, albeit harmful discrimination. There is a lack of information about possible clients, so banks, lenders, etc. use generalizations. If we fight poverty and as a result raise the standard of living for minorities, these generalizations no longer exist and discrimination decreases.

[Greyhound]

131. In absolute numbers this is absolutely true. The overwhelming majority

of people living below the poverty line (another myth in itself) in America are white. You can look it up if you're interested, I believe it is about 80%.

Now, if you consider the number living in poverty as a % of the total number of people in a given demographic, then the various minorities do have a higher % than whites.

[NOLALady]

139. Welcom to DU.

"blacks are poor and remain that way because of poverty and horrible school systems"

In your opinion, what is the cause of their poverty and horrible school system?

[McHatin]

149. Thanks for the welcome

I would have to say that the institution of slavery followed by rampant racial discrimination and restriction of political rights is what caused the disparity to occur in the first place. It locked many blacks into poverty so that even after the Civil Rights era, when political rights were finally secured and racism was in retreat, many black communities continued to struggle, as any community in poverty does, since it is basically a never ending cycle without outside help.

I don't think that racism today is the main reason so large a part of the black community remain in poverty. It's for the same reason so many white people remain in poverty in certain parts of the country. The government is doing very little to help poor Americans.

[EFerrari]

151. I thought the Obama campaign was patently wrong to chant

"race doesn't matter". It matters a lot today in this country and will continue to matter.

One way that discrimination has been facilitated in this country is via denial. Like a family secret. You can't fix what you can't talk about.

Welcome to DU.

[McHatin]

163. It only matters

because certain civil rights groups want it to matter. Things such as the one-drop rule, first created to enforce racist theory, are now promoted by some black activists. Race does not actually (scientifically) exist, yet many minority groups today want to be identified first and foremost by the color of their skin, and are offended if you do not acknowledge a difference.

Race also matters when it comes to discriminatory practices, but I believe the large majority of these do not stem from feelings of racial superiority but rather from crude logic.

It's hard for me to believe that racism has all "gone underground" and that's why we do not see it anymore. To me, it simply means there is a lot less racism. Martin Luther King himself promoted a race neutral view, one that has been deviated from by subsequent civil rights leaders. I trust and respect Dr. King far more than many of today's black leaders. I think if he were here today he would be pushing for social programs to combat poverty and better schooling rather than promoting race as a personal trait.

In general, I think racial issues are an unfortunate distraction from the real problems of poverty.

[EFerrari]

164. I agree in general, and understand and agree that "race"

is a construct that does serve to distract from economic suppression, for one thing anyway.

However, "racism" never really went underground if you know how to look. In order to pass for people, bigots have long spoken in code and those among us who passively participate hang on to the fiction that we don't. For example, I grew up in a segregated suburb in Northern California. That would be "liberal and progressive and 'tolerant' Northern California", in the heart of Silicon Valley. It never occurred to me to even think about race until I was an adult. But, it was red zoning, not accident, that exclude people of color (any color) from my Sunnyvale neighborhood.

[Brewman_Jax]

165. Discrimination as logical?

So that's all right? Sounds like anecdotal garbage. :eyes:

[dajoki]

154. Thank you, excellent post, my story...

I have been saying something similar for quite some time. All it takes is an accident or some unforeseen circumstances to put a person/family into poverty. I speak from experience.

My wife and I both had great jobs, which now seem a lifetime ago. I made the mistake of having a serious accident at work which has left me disabled. OK, I got SSD and my wife still had her job, so not so bad, right? Well after a few years my wife's job closed, just like that, no warning, so she spent over three years working part time, low paying jobs, all the while bills piling up until she recently found a half-decent full time position. Then my youngest daughter got seriously ill and after a two month hospital stay she had to move back home with us, where she continues to recover. Now we are in a battle to keep our home, the mortgage company has started foreclosure and it is taking it's toll on all of us.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that it could happen to anyone, we used to be middle class and now we are poor, because of a bunch of unforeseen circumstances. And it really pisses me off because of the "myths" you talk about. People that have never had anything like this happen to them have no idea and no right to look down on you. Everyday is a battle to not give up.

[Leopolds Ghost]

161. Kick. Sadly, even on DU 1/3 to 1/2 of people voted to eliminate public housing

In New Orleans and elsewhere saying it was a "problem" that had to be
solved by reducing the number of people on the (public assistance) rolls.

Middle Class Dems are so hypocritical on this issue, Dems run every major
US city which is one of the plasces where the poor are being screwed over
and they (the "middle class" Dem backed) business interests) have been
DOING the screwing (as in New Orleans post-Katrina) for the past 15 years.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

166. Myth #4

The rich(actually the ultra welthy) are smarter and more deserving than everyone else.

They are born at 3rd base(actually 2 inches from home plate) and think they've hit a triple(inside the park HR).

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

174. How is that unfair? Poor people are born two inches from home plate too!

(Towards first base, but that's irrelevant so stop saying that!)

[Gormy Cuss]

178. I think in that analogy poor people are more akin to the bat boys

They can pick up and carry the weight for the ballplayers but they'll probably never get the chance to be at bat. They can dream it.

[Hidden Stillness]

167. A Few More Points, About Phony "Personality" Issue

To make a point here, and just to elaborate a little, dispelling the "lazy poor" attitude: the number 1 reason why people go into bankruptcy, is a medical emergency, with resultant huge, immediate bills. The number 2 reason is loss of a job/layoff, or divorce which results with a loss of an income. These two situations account for almost all personal bankruptcies; I think it is like 75% or so. Also, one-fourth, 25%, of all full-time minimum wage workers, 40 hours a week, are homeless; they do not earn enough money ALTHOUGH THEY WORK ALL THE TIME, to pay for a place to live, because the entire housing/rental market has been turned over to deregulated profiteering.

Also, when you are so poor that you have no car/vehicle, no new clothes for work, bad dental care and possible constant pain, multiple home repairs, plumbing, heat, etc., needing thousands of dollars worth of work you can't afford, then someone "helping" you with a "rebate," "tax cut" etc., of a couple of hundred dollars, solves absolutely nothing. You have all the same problems you had before, unsolved. It is extremely hard to overcome poverty, and huge numbers of resources are needed; many of them need to be free, as you would never be able to repay them, and putting on another debt only crushed you even further. Anybody who has ever had extended periods of unemployment lasting months--as I'm sure everyone has--knows how frighteningly quickly any savings you once had, go. Then you are really poor, and have nothing to fall back on.

As for the silly argument made by a few on this thread (just to jump around a little bit here), that poor people are "neurotic," "have no social skills," "no work skills," are not "intelligent," etc., just notice the cases of the rich white, (and worthless), males, Dan Quayle, George Bush, and Rush Limbaugh, and explain how they "deserved" their current lives (if anyone cares to). Dan Quayle was a college-educated (or, college-graduated, anyway) lawyer, who could not spell the word "potato," then blamed the teacher doing the spelling bee, for it. George Bush, (talk about the "exceptional rich" not being dependant, unlike the poor), has never done anything alone, and never had anything turn out as anything but a disaster, and yet gets bailed out every time. Rush Limbaugh is a drug addict who had lawyers handle it all, until there is no law, and many, many times divorced. All were draft dodgers, as was Cheney, many times. (Cheney, of course, got drunk and shot somebody in the face, refused to cooperate with police, and was never going to report the crime, but then--poof!--it all went away.) If you think they have the charmed lives they have because of their "superior" personality traits or family backgrounds (the Bush family?!?), then you just do not pay attention at all. They have the unfair resources of rich people, and get bailed out where others suffer consequences.

There are many reasons for poverty, and some have to do with extreme rural remoteness, others with ignored, decaying cities; some with disability, others with an actual complete lack of jobs in an area. Most of the poor are women, and that still, never gets referred to. They never call it sexism, even when it is. By the way, for the one series of posts on this thread--I have known many people during my life, who were aware enough to thank Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson--and it they were really smart, Sargeant Shriver--for their ability to go on living a life, with any measure of comfort and health at all.