TBGO: Why Murkins Hate the Poor
Welcome! Ladies and Gennemuns, Boys and goils around the woild, to the WWH/CJE electronic soapbox. This is yer ol'perfesser, "Dr. Woody," John Konopak in Albuquerque NM with today's installment:
"Unclean! Unclean!"
The Gospels and lots of other sources acknowledge: The Poor are ALWAYS with us.
It's true, and never more so in a zero-sum economy such as the one in which the vast majority of citizens/consumers struggle to survive.
Not only are they always with us, but increasingly it seems they are also greatly hated.
One detects lots of consternation about this particular phenomenon. Why, why, why? cry the 'liberals' and the socially conscious? Why do we hate the poor?
Well, it's really not All that difficult.
Think leprosy, in the days of yore.
Nobody knew WHY someone contracted the condition, in which parts of the victim became all too obviously 'diseased' and then just fell off.
However much or little it was understood, they blamed the victim for his condition...
But NOBODY--other than saints and martyrs--wanted ANYTHING to do with them.
Unclean! Stay away! Stay Away@!
Like leprosy, a thousand years ago, in the Levant, being poor is the worst thing that can happen to any Murkin.
Like lepers, the poor most often have no control over what happened to 'em, no way to fix it, and nobody wanting, willing or able to help.
This ain' NO country for poor folk, folks...Murkins detest the poor, the same way that people detested and fled from lepers in earlier days. It might be contagious! Stay away! Stay Away! You really DON'T wanna get any of THAT on ya!
Poor people mostly STAY poor, unless they luck the fuck out on some lottery.
That's part of capitalism, along with structural unemployment, there's structural poverty.
And that's not an accident. Capitalism requires compliant workers. Workers with disemployment and poverty staring over their shoulders are a lot less likely to stray into unions, etc...
On top of that, of course, the Ownerz and Oligarchz have directed their pet, corporate media to make sure the Murkin people blame the poor for their poverty.
They have succeeded beyond imagining...
You've heard the drill; you know it by heart: The poor are to blame for their situations. They're lazy, or they fornicate, or they take drugs, or they're just naturally inferior in motivation and other good, american, social virtues..
OR as some gurus would have it: Maybe they didn't draw the GOOD ju-ju to 'em; instead, they complained and the BAD ju-ju got 'em.
But anyway, it was their own fault. Warn't nuthin the system coulda done...
You've heard and seen the same message THOUSANDS of times from every imaginable source: popular entertainments, advertisements, dramas, preachers, politicians, business leaders of every stripe: "They had choices, but they made bad ones!"
It's the underlying theme of the whole literature of self-help and so-called "positive thinking" scams. If you're not "successful," it's YOUR fault.
I wanna remind ya, hippies: The wealthy make "choices": Escargot or Foie Gras; the Benz of the Porsche. The poor make decisions: Rent or food, utilities or meds. There is a difference and it's not just semantic.
We can discuss it, later, when I see you at the beach.
1 comment:
Woody,
Despite all the verbiage, you never got around to supporting your claim that Americans hate the poor.
Considering the size of our entitlement programs, including Medicaid, food stamps housing and education, plus the numerous private organizations (with some taxpayer support) that provide food, shelter, clothing, job training, legal help and more to the poor, it seems you've fashioned your claim out of something other than the facts.
As for the causes of poverty, well, in fact, some people do bring down problems on their own heads. Substance abuse is a great example.
Others are unlucky. They lack effective parental guidance during their formative years. Of course kids can't control their parents, so the kids aren't to blame.
Plenty of kids have no interest in school. But many do take school seriously. Even within one school. Sure, you can argue that some schools are better than others, but there's a range of achievement even in good schools, which means it's tough to pin the deficiencies on the school itself.
Anyway, what would people change to make schools better? Would the millions of answers fall into any meaningful patterns from which solutions might spring?
I love this part:
Capitalism requires compliant workers. Workers with disemployment and poverty staring over their shoulders are a lot less likely to stray into unions, etc...
In other words, by your definition, workers are UNcompliant.
Something tells me the most compliant workers in the world can be found in North Korea.
Anyway, the value of Medicaid, housing subsidies, food stamps, public education, fire and police protection, job training, and much, much more from private sources makes a clear case that America is extraordinarily generous to the poor.
The problem comes in when people who are not Americans start cutting themselves in for some of that generosity. That's wrong. But the lure of all that free stuff is powerful.
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