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Published on Sunday, March 1, 2009 by Extra!
The Recession and the ‘Deserving Poor’
Poverty finally on media radar—but only when it hits the middle class
As the economy crumbles, issues of poverty and economic need have begun to make more frequent appearances in the news media. From October through December 2008, for example, the three nightly TV news shows ran 20 stories—about one every four or five days—addressing poverty or related issues such as homelessness or food stamps. A previous FAIR study of nightly news coverage (Extra!, 9–10/07), by comparison, found an average of one poverty story on the evening news every three weeks.
More coverage, though, does not necessarily mean better coverage. And while swelling food-stamp rolls and unemployment lines may become media staples as the economic downturn worsens, the way poverty issues are portrayed remains constrained by political biases and stereotypes.
If there’s one commonality to the recent surge in coverage of economic need, it’s that the focus is on the newly poor—-with particular attention to those who can claim a middle-class background. In one typical segment, ABC World News (11/27/08) visited a food bank in Maryland where the director recalled a former donor of food who had fallen on hard times: “Now, she was getting food from us. And she was embarrassed.” Continued correspondent John Donvan:
Some reports even asserted that poverty was now an issue because its new victims weren’t really poor: “Healthcare a Budget-Buster for Families; Even County’s Middle Class Can’t Afford It” ran a typical headline in the Columbus Dispatch (1/15/09)—raising the question of what definition of “middle class” includes being “broke after paying for their basic needs, leaving no money for healthcare or insurance.”
It’s a contrast, says Stephen Pimpare, a Yeshiva University historian and author of A People’s History of Poverty in America, that
At times, news outlets strained to find this distinction. A front-page story on “The Growing Foreclosure Crisis” in the Washington Post (1/17/09) sported the subhead: “One oft-repeated assertion no longer holds true. Those in trouble are not, primarily, lower-income borrowers.” After describing buyers of million-dollar houses who now found themselves in foreclosure, the Post article reported, “The foreclosure crisis knows no class or income boundaries. Many borrowers ensnared in the evolving mortgage mess do not fit neatly into the stereotypes that surfaced by early 2007 when delinquency rates shot up.”
If these were stereotypes, though, they weren’t ones you would have gotten from reading the Washington Post. Over the previous two years, the Post had not run a single major story on the effects of the foreclosure crisis on low-income homeowners. It did, however, run an almost identical front-page story one year earlier (12/10/07) with the subhead, “‘People From All Walks’ Having Trouble Paying Mortgages,” as well as front-page articles on foreclosures of condo owners in suburban Silver Spring (4/8/07) and on the effects of foreclosures on pets (4/9/08).
Foreclosures and unemployment insurance were also more likely to receive coverage than, say, welfare (which is seen as the domain of the long-term poor) or the earned income tax credit (which affects low-wage workers, and so is less likely to come into play for those losing middle-class employment). When the NBC Nightly News (12/7/08) had CNBC personal finance expert Carmen Wong Ulrich on to discuss what the newly laid-off should do now, her first recommendation (after “hunker down and really live lean”) was to file for unemployment benefits as soon as possible, noting: “This is not part of a welfare program. We all pay for own our unemployment insurance, so you have to go and get it.” The implication: Unemployment insurance, which is paid out of payroll taxes, is somehow more legitimate than welfare or food stamps, though these are paid for, after all, by our tax money as well.
Some reporters, meanwhile, felt even nearing 50 million poor Americans was no cause for pessimism: When Princeton economist Paul Krugman said that the prospect of an additional 10 million going below the poverty line was “nightmarish,” NBC’s Maria Bartiromo (12/1/08) replied, “Perhaps nightmarish, but the optimists will say that, given we have been in recession for a year starting last December, perhaps we are closer to the end and could emerge soon from it.” (“I love the attempt at optimism,” chimed in anchor Brian Williams.)
Of course, whether we emerge from recession—and whether the poverty figures can be kept from rising, let alone reduced from where they’ve stood for the better part of three decades—will depend on government policy. Yet almost without exception, media tales of deprivation have steered clear of any mention of policy decisions. When new figures came out in December that one out of 10 Americans were now receiving food stamps, the CBS Evening News devoted a long segment to it (12/23/08), with anchor Harry Smith proclaiming, “A record number of people are now being forced to do something they once considered unthinkable.” After profiling a New Hampshire hospital maintenance worker (and Air Force veteran) who had applied for food stamps for the first time—the report didn’t say why—correspondent Byron Pitts closed with this exchange:
Not on Meet the Press, apparently: The program went on for another 40 minutes without the subject of poverty being addressed again.
One rare exception to the taboo on discussing either government policy or existing poverty was a New York Times editorial (11/27/08) that noted, “Largely missing from the discussion about the faltering economy is the recession’s impact on the 37 million Americans who are already living at or below the poverty line—and the millions more who will inevitably join their ranks as the downturn worsens.” These figures, it said, were of even more concern given the nation’s frayed safety net:
What should be done, according to the Times? After that single sentence urging Congress to boost food stamps and “modernize” unemployment benefits, the editorial spent its final three paragraphs urging a better definition of poverty to replace the now four-decade-old “poverty line.” Concluded the Times: “If there was ever a time for more precise measurements, it is now.”
Contrast this editorial—which ran on Thanksgiving Day, the traditional time of year for media attention to hunger and poverty—with the five separate editorials the Times ran in the preceding and following weeks (11/2/08, 11/11/08, 11/24/08, 12/7/08, 12/9/08) urging immediate government action to reform mortgage and foreclosure practices. “It wouldn’t take much,” wrote the Times (11/11/08), to pay banks to rework failing mortgages: a mere $40 billion.
That pittance, it’s worth noting, is more than the entire annual U.S. expenditure on food stamps—and well more than the extra $24 billion a year that Joel Berg, a former Clinton USDA official and author of the book All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?, estimates it would take to eliminate hunger entirely.
It’s a distinction that Berg believes has its roots in the cultural divide that exists between largely middle-class journalists and their low-income neighbors. “Many journalists do have mortgages,” he says. “They understand from a visceral point of view what it could mean not to be able to get a loan. They have no personal understanding at all of what it might mean to take a bus to another bus to stand in a food stamp office all day.”
Pimpare agrees, noting that the main reason notions of the “undeserving poor” broke down during the Great Depression was that so many people saw their friends and neighbors becoming suddenly impoverished. “So much of large audience journalism is produced by people who are not working-class and tend not to know working-class, let alone poor people,” he says. “The subtext now is that this is something we need to pay attention to, because ‘good, decent people’ are being affected.”
More coverage, though, does not necessarily mean better coverage. And while swelling food-stamp rolls and unemployment lines may become media staples as the economic downturn worsens, the way poverty issues are portrayed remains constrained by political biases and stereotypes.
If there’s one commonality to the recent surge in coverage of economic need, it’s that the focus is on the newly poor—-with particular attention to those who can claim a middle-class background. In one typical segment, ABC World News (11/27/08) visited a food bank in Maryland where the director recalled a former donor of food who had fallen on hard times: “Now, she was getting food from us. And she was embarrassed.” Continued correspondent John Donvan:
Journalists, of course, are conditioned to look for unexpected contrasts—so-called “man bites dog” stories. Yet the incessant focus on recent arrivals to poverty ends up marginalizing the 37 million Americans who were officially poor before the economic crash. The Newark Star-Ledger (10/8/08), for example, cited a New Jersey county human services director who “said the requests for help have expanded in recent months beyond a core of lower-income residents in the Morristown and Dover areas. ‘These are truck drivers coming in who can’t find work. Senior citizens who have never before requested help but can’t get by. That’s not good.’” (The already existing low-income “core,” presumably, was of less concern.)He was a kitchen installer who now can’t find customers. She was a professional dog groomer who now works at Target. . . . This year, they took a serious tumble from the middle class after losing their home in a foreclosure. At least, food stamps would let them shop for groceries just as before, or so they thought.”
Some reports even asserted that poverty was now an issue because its new victims weren’t really poor: “Healthcare a Budget-Buster for Families; Even County’s Middle Class Can’t Afford It” ran a typical headline in the Columbus Dispatch (1/15/09)—raising the question of what definition of “middle class” includes being “broke after paying for their basic needs, leaving no money for healthcare or insurance.”
It’s a contrast, says Stephen Pimpare, a Yeshiva University historian and author of A People’s History of Poverty in America, that
Yet, he notes: “The people who are becoming newly poor from being laid off from businesses that are failing are not different than people who were laid off two years ago. The only thing that’s unusual about it is the scale.”taps into very old American notions of what distinguishes the deserving poor from the undeserving poor—trying to distinguish those people who are poor through no fault of their own, and therefore deserve our sympathy and our assistance, and all of those other people who are poor because they’re stupid, because they’re lazy, because they have too many babies.
At times, news outlets strained to find this distinction. A front-page story on “The Growing Foreclosure Crisis” in the Washington Post (1/17/09) sported the subhead: “One oft-repeated assertion no longer holds true. Those in trouble are not, primarily, lower-income borrowers.” After describing buyers of million-dollar houses who now found themselves in foreclosure, the Post article reported, “The foreclosure crisis knows no class or income boundaries. Many borrowers ensnared in the evolving mortgage mess do not fit neatly into the stereotypes that surfaced by early 2007 when delinquency rates shot up.”
If these were stereotypes, though, they weren’t ones you would have gotten from reading the Washington Post. Over the previous two years, the Post had not run a single major story on the effects of the foreclosure crisis on low-income homeowners. It did, however, run an almost identical front-page story one year earlier (12/10/07) with the subhead, “‘People From All Walks’ Having Trouble Paying Mortgages,” as well as front-page articles on foreclosures of condo owners in suburban Silver Spring (4/8/07) and on the effects of foreclosures on pets (4/9/08).
Foreclosures and unemployment insurance were also more likely to receive coverage than, say, welfare (which is seen as the domain of the long-term poor) or the earned income tax credit (which affects low-wage workers, and so is less likely to come into play for those losing middle-class employment). When the NBC Nightly News (12/7/08) had CNBC personal finance expert Carmen Wong Ulrich on to discuss what the newly laid-off should do now, her first recommendation (after “hunker down and really live lean”) was to file for unemployment benefits as soon as possible, noting: “This is not part of a welfare program. We all pay for own our unemployment insurance, so you have to go and get it.” The implication: Unemployment insurance, which is paid out of payroll taxes, is somehow more legitimate than welfare or food stamps, though these are paid for, after all, by our tax money as well.
Some reporters, meanwhile, felt even nearing 50 million poor Americans was no cause for pessimism: When Princeton economist Paul Krugman said that the prospect of an additional 10 million going below the poverty line was “nightmarish,” NBC’s Maria Bartiromo (12/1/08) replied, “Perhaps nightmarish, but the optimists will say that, given we have been in recession for a year starting last December, perhaps we are closer to the end and could emerge soon from it.” (“I love the attempt at optimism,” chimed in anchor Brian Williams.)
Of course, whether we emerge from recession—and whether the poverty figures can be kept from rising, let alone reduced from where they’ve stood for the better part of three decades—will depend on government policy. Yet almost without exception, media tales of deprivation have steered clear of any mention of policy decisions. When new figures came out in December that one out of 10 Americans were now receiving food stamps, the CBS Evening News devoted a long segment to it (12/23/08), with anchor Harry Smith proclaiming, “A record number of people are now being forced to do something they once considered unthinkable.” After profiling a New Hampshire hospital maintenance worker (and Air Force veteran) who had applied for food stamps for the first time—the report didn’t say why—correspondent Byron Pitts closed with this exchange:
There is, in fact, a firewall between discussions of poverty and of policy in much of the news media, one that is rarely breached. During a Meet the Press (NBC, 11/16/08) discussion of the then-proposed auto bailout, PBS host Tavis Smiley raised this issue, saying:PITTS: As for John O’Donnell, he’s still holding on to his faith.
O’DONNELL: Times will get better. I’m an American and I believe in God.
PITTS: Like so many Americans, that’s all he has left.
We had three presidential debates, let’s be honest about it, where the word poverty never came up, where the working poor and the very poor were never discussed in three presidential debates. I don’t think, Tom, that the working poor and the very poor in this country begrudge people who are better off. They understand, I think, that there are 3 million jobs tied into this auto industry. At the same time, where is the conversation about corporate mendacity? Where is the conversation about everyday people and how this government is responsible to those persons who are disadvantaged, disenfranchised?
Not on Meet the Press, apparently: The program went on for another 40 minutes without the subject of poverty being addressed again.
One rare exception to the taboo on discussing either government policy or existing poverty was a New York Times editorial (11/27/08) that noted, “Largely missing from the discussion about the faltering economy is the recession’s impact on the 37 million Americans who are already living at or below the poverty line—and the millions more who will inevitably join their ranks as the downturn worsens.” These figures, it said, were of even more concern given the nation’s frayed safety net:
Since the Reagan administration, the federal government has steadily reduced its role in curtailing poverty, or even in coordinating state and local efforts to help alleviate it. . . . The experience of being poor in America, never easy, will soon become even more difficult for more people—unless Congress boosts food stamps, modernizes the unemployment compensation system and takes other steps to strengthen the ability of the federal and state governments to help the millions who will need assistance.
What should be done, according to the Times? After that single sentence urging Congress to boost food stamps and “modernize” unemployment benefits, the editorial spent its final three paragraphs urging a better definition of poverty to replace the now four-decade-old “poverty line.” Concluded the Times: “If there was ever a time for more precise measurements, it is now.”
Contrast this editorial—which ran on Thanksgiving Day, the traditional time of year for media attention to hunger and poverty—with the five separate editorials the Times ran in the preceding and following weeks (11/2/08, 11/11/08, 11/24/08, 12/7/08, 12/9/08) urging immediate government action to reform mortgage and foreclosure practices. “It wouldn’t take much,” wrote the Times (11/11/08), to pay banks to rework failing mortgages: a mere $40 billion.
That pittance, it’s worth noting, is more than the entire annual U.S. expenditure on food stamps—and well more than the extra $24 billion a year that Joel Berg, a former Clinton USDA official and author of the book All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?, estimates it would take to eliminate hunger entirely.
It’s a distinction that Berg believes has its roots in the cultural divide that exists between largely middle-class journalists and their low-income neighbors. “Many journalists do have mortgages,” he says. “They understand from a visceral point of view what it could mean not to be able to get a loan. They have no personal understanding at all of what it might mean to take a bus to another bus to stand in a food stamp office all day.”
Pimpare agrees, noting that the main reason notions of the “undeserving poor” broke down during the Great Depression was that so many people saw their friends and neighbors becoming suddenly impoverished. “So much of large audience journalism is produced by people who are not working-class and tend not to know working-class, let alone poor people,” he says. “The subtext now is that this is something we need to pay attention to, because ‘good, decent people’ are being affected.”
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34 Comments so far
Show AllBring America Back !!!!....In the depression era, the US began the policy of stockpiling what was called Surplus Food. This food--powdered milk; pancake batter mix; cheesefood logs; flour; powdered eggs; juices, and crackers==was then distributed free to anybody coming to centralized places to receive it.
....Because our Nation is now in Depression, skyrocketing unemployment, and depletion of food kitchens, food banks, and independent church shelves, that Surplus Food should once again be released, and given to needy and hungry.
Don't debate it, Just Do It !!!!
Maybe some surplus peanuts would do it.
I hear there's a company down south ready to give some away.
Jesus said, "Give to him who begs from you." Pretty simple. What would an undeserving beggar be? If he's underserving, can we let him starve? The Christ-tards running the country are, like every Christ-tard everywhere, hypocrites.
one old atheist
I am a Christian and you are right! I never bought in to the prosperity preaching bullshit that started about 20 years ago. It drove me out of church. I say the real Christians aren't in the hypocritical, money loving faux christianity of the organized churches. You have every right to think the way you do and I sincerely believe that God will hold the Christian leaders that failed responsible, not you. Give 'em hell.
If your poor in America you fucked. The general attitude is your a lazy slacker.
‘These are truck drivers coming in who can’t find work. Senior citizens who have never before requested help but can’t get by. That’s not good.’” (The already existing low-income “core,” presumably, was of less concern.)"
That's a consequence of voting for gun-totin', bible-thumpin', beer drinkin', commie baiting, liberal hatin', minority hatin', enviro-bashing, plutocrat enabling, fearmongering, warmongering, Wall Street gambling Republican dictators and other conservatives.
The sad part is that many of them still do.
What angers more than anything else is the new social darwinism that says that the only reason for poverty is laziness, drink, or drugs. This is arrogant small-minded cruelty.
I am 72. I started working part-time before I was 16. Back in those days you could get a work permit at 15 and 1/2. Those were the days when tuition was low and jobs were plentiful. Although, as a female, I was always paid less than any male, I still managed to get a college degree by working and going part-time. By the time I was in my early 20s, my parents were ill and getting old. My sister and I helped support them for years. I always worked, paid my bills, and tried to save. I never took anything that I didn't pay for. I paid into social security for 46 years. The only reason that it's only 46 years is that I worked a part-time jobs for several years while I was looking for a full-time job.
I was outraged at comments like "poverty is a state of mind" or, when speaking about women, that "it was better for a woman to be a wife of a lawyer than a lawyer".
I worry now about what will happen to social security. I'm better off than many people in that it is about half my income. But still I need it.
Now, I feel like I'm not even considered to be a person by the power elite. What do they want? What are they telling people like me? That I should never have been born? that I should have been aborted? What
You are so right! I was making nearly $80,000 back in 1982. Now I live in a manufactured home with a pension of just over $35,000 a year. Even with this small income I bit the bullet, paid all my debts and the home as well. This is only because i have good health insurance. Otherwise, due to health problems, I would have been bankrupt. The "poverty is your own fault" crowd which adopts libertarian and "responsible" republican attitudes are just using that stuff as a dodge to salve their conscience (that is for those who still have one). As more and more of these high fkyers join us in the real world, we might be able to pressure the millionaires in congress to tax the millionaires that bribe them in order to give Americans a basic livelihood guarantee with health, shelter and food. However, for now we need to help each other and let the reptiles stew in their greed while their vaunted world economy crashes.
Just think how much more decent and efficient a guaranteed annual income would be.
"I am of the opinion, on the whole, that the manufacturing aristocracy which is growing up under our eyes is one of the harshest that ever existed in the world; but at the same time it is one of the most confined and least dangerous. Nevertheless, the friends of democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in this direction; for if ever a permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy again penetrates into the world, it may be predicted that this is the gate by which they will enter."
Alexis de Toqueville
And here we are. Over the years since de Toqueville wrote those prophetic words in his classic "Democracy in America," the cruelest and harshest manufacturing aristocracy that ever existed in the world, the American aristoi, has broken out of its confinement and spread like a plague over the earth. It's no accident that the US, the richest nation on the planet, also has twice the poverty rate as its nearest rival among the developed countries--unsurprisingly, the United Kingdom.
The real horror is that the vile philosophy and sadistic values of the insatiable pig people who rule the US Empire, has infected the minds of the American people sufficiently that they fail to demand the social democractic reforms that the peoples of other nations enjoy, and that dramatically enhance the common good in those countries. However, the ongoing structural collapse of the American-modeled global capitalist system provides an opening for love, which is the simplest way of describing the antithesis of the odious prevailing orthodoxy. The question is, are we willing to fight for love against avarice harder than the defenders of the status quo?
The status quo has lost it's inertia in this depression. However, they'll be back. If we can eliminate Corporate personhood and limited liability, the whole, cruel manufacturing and financial aristocracy will disappear. All our fiscal problems can be traced to the rewarding (giving the profit to) of productivity to the few. Productivity rewards must be shared if we are ever to have a just society. And I guarantee you that once limited liability is eliminated, the elite will be only too happy to share the wealth along with responsiblity.
I think part of the problem is what is sometimes called the 'Horatio Alger myth' which says that in America, anyone can get rich if they just work hard enough. That's why so many people of all income levels foam at the mouth when there are proposals to increase taxes or initiate government programs to assist the poor. Some people still cling to the idea that they may someday hit the big time simply through hard work and ambition so they blame poor people for their own misfortune. Those people obviously didn't do what they were supposed to and so they got what they deserved. Unfortunately, I don't think poverty can be addressed in any truly constructive way until the Horatio Alger myth is debunked once and for all.
I agree with you 100 percent. Until I hit the lotto jackpot, then you all can go to Hell. :-)
Depressing stories about the poor (like me) don't sell already dying newspapers, and most poor people (like me) don't buy newspapers, and the few who do are worthless to advertisers, seeing as how poor people don't buy stuff.
Plus, it makes it really, really hard to live in perpetual denial if one is confronted with things like facts and truth every time they check the daily sports stats and Citigroup bailout updates and Jen-Angeline-Brad gossip...
Maybe they should have everyone get off of their Reverse Cell Phone Searches and actually start caring about the people of America. The poor will rise!
Some excellent posts here.
It seems American culture may be awakening from its' materialistic elitist stupor. I really hope this present economic collapse will be sufficient to renew America. Some of the rich will never get the message which is why they will never get through "the eye of the needle". .
Our nation does not need socialism but a huge change in values. America must begin to focus on the spiritual dynamics of Democracy for the common good rather than worshiping the Rich and Famous, money and financial success.
Capitalism left alone will always be the enemy of Democracy. This is what the financial collapse is all about.
America just needs more Democracy!
As the recession deepens into a true depression, the middle class, especially those who relied on credit for the purchase of their homes, cars and toys will begin to feel the pinch as they are pressured to pay for what they can no longer afford. Understandably, they're going to feel betrayed by the system that created them. The only question now is, how deep will the depression cut? The Pentagon must think it's going to cut deeply, since they're preparing for "civil unrest" with their FEMA dentention centers, etc. The only upside to this new reality is that as the "new poor" have time to lament their condition, they may come to realize that they've been duped all along, and have been living an illusion..."The American Dream."
Beautifully said!!
Speaking of the 'Deserving Poor', AIG is getting another 30 billion on top of the 150 billion.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/01/aig-to-get-new-30-billion
_n_170898.html
This is good money after bad. This has to stop. I have life insurance with an AIG company, but bad businesses must go under. Screw all the investors, and equity holders, and insurance holders. They made bad deals, too bad. AIG is a black whole of finance.
No wonder Wall Street wanted Mr. Obama. He is a spendthrift for the rich and connected.
Now that You mention it. I was reluctant to post it
because there is only so much one can take. But
AIG Hawai'i is offering everybody that calls in for
an insurance quote a Twenty Dollar Gas Voucher
to be used at any 'Aloha' Gas Station. I don't know
whether the same deal is offered with other Gas
Stations or how many people are calling in for a
quote. Maybe that is some sort of Robin Hood
style wealth movement from the poor to the poor.
You get a $20 gift certificate from your own tax
money that your feds gave to AIG as bail out.
Very funny though.
Michael Parenti also has a great article on the economic meltdown.
Here is the URL: http://mltoday.com/capitalism-s-self-inflicted-apocalypse-544-2.html
thank you, friend MARCH for the Parenti article link
you might find this website also of interest:
with the article "KARL MARX WAS RIGHT".....
http://www.socialistpartyaustralia.org/archives/1500
Welfare, what a joke. The entire system is rigged against the little guy and the poor to stay that way so that there is an army of surplus workers ready to take on a job should the "market" demand it or to break a union with scab labour and to remind people that they can be replaced, or to put onself in harmsway to fight a war in a foreign land to serve the intersts of the ruling class. The entire political economy is also rigged to serve capital and the people who have it, the more you have the more the system rewards you, all at the expense of those below. If people even get close to organizing or fighting economic exploitation the so called press raises the specture of socialism ( but they don't mind socializing there debt and put it on all the "little" people) and everyone on your news show chuckles on how that doesn't work, as if they would actually know the difference between a socialist economy and fascist dictatorship or what totalitarianism is. That is the quality of the borgeoise educated classes who never even heard of a Leon Trotsky or Eugene Debbs. They don't even understand their own economic founders such as Adam Smith, who viewed government's responsibity as being there to ensure fair market competition between independent commodity producers ( an urealistic utopian fantasy in an industrialized world) no monopolies, everyone benefiting from their own labour and having the means to do so and not having to turn part of their labour to the ruling class as part of rent. Even surfs had more protection against the vagaries of life for they had tenure and a plot of land they could call their own and no one, not even the fuedal lord could take that away-no forclosure problem there! They were freed by a nacent merchant class who needed them in the factories and wage slavery was introduced. In accurate academic terms a conservative wanted to conserve the monarchy and a liberal believed in equality, fratenity and brotherhood, and this included economic equality as well. Today defenders of the capitalist class call themselves conservatives and liberals think they are what for the working class? progressives?-they can't even say working class, they can't even say middle working class as the article indicates. You want to talk about ignorance, but it is not ignorance it is self censureship and political cowardice. And oh guess what Karl Rove is a big hit on twitter where he can spew out his poisonous inaccurate soundbites all day long in less than 20 words (or whatever the word restriction is it is very very low) so nothing of substance can be stated or discussed and the lies which take a substansive answer to decontruct go unchallanged. It is the perfect venue for the criminal Karl Rove who appeared on ABC's This Week news show. How is that for audacity! I guess the ruling class is like the mafia once your in your in and nobody can touch you! I have resisted going over to twitter as I hate going to a newsite where they direct you to someplace else which they most likely have an interest in and want to generaate revenue not dialogue and am loath to do so but if there is a cyber war fighting for ideological space I would suggest everyone get over to twitter and fire back at Rove. He may be a criminal but he is not stupid and is not over their for the good of your health or mine, and he sure aint doin it because he has nothing else to do-like I said it is the perfect venue for him and his B.S soundbites and talking points, truth be dammed!
Cheers,
RR
the funny thing too, RR , is that as the "middle class" defined as the ever-rising prosperity in the "american way" ALLOWED itself to be blinded by the siren calls of "upper mobility" - to vote and support policies that are shortsighted - to enhance its own "never-ending rise" to be "also rich" as the "american dream" that is never satisfied ,
when in reality -- it was VOTING or supporting policies and arguments that was UNDERMINING it as a class -- the American "middle class" ITSELF allowed itself to look down upon the poor and "left behind" - as a way of justifying ITS support for the very things that NOW undermine the Middle Class.
it drank the poison of "upward mobility" without regard to who it LEFT behind -- the poor -- and attached itself to principles and beliefs that RESENT the "poor" for being poor -- without once thinking the POOR -- do NOT , as a class, WISH to be poor or be "left behind" but are simply the COLLATERAL DAMAGE of the very system that the MIDDLE CLASS IMAGINED it "ought to belong to" : the "ever rising upward mobility" no matter the collateral damage.
and how that was done is : the middle class - being in greater numbers and voting power and activity -- CHOSE to sacrifice those that are left behind by REFUSING to support the very policies and things and institutions:
greater public education funding, government payed through taxes health for ALL - regardless of station in life , etc...
until one day -- their own NEGLECT of the institutions that could have helped the poor - are no longer there to protect the middle class itself from the ravages of what the middle class had SUPPORTED, namely : policies that were designed to DENY justice for the poor - that would one day DENY justice TO the middle class.
that's why the American Middle Class is one homogeneous STUPID class.
in its quest for "upward mobility" it forgot that it was also KICKING AWAY the foundations and safety nets it would one day need - because it only saw these things as "welfare for the poor and undeserving , so why should I , a hardworking middle class american pay for THEM>?"
that's the result of CALLOUSNESS towards those that are of lesser economic or cultural station than oneself.
and I frankly -- do not feel pity for the american middle class.
they had it COMING. and the POOR certainly were not to blame.
This is a very timely and perceptive article in the way it points to "finally -- poverty is in the discussion AFTER IT HITS THE MIDDLE CLASS".......
because it has been the american "way" to pretend that either "poverty" does not exist in america or if it does -- it only visits the "poor because they deserve it".......
it is a reflection of an old reality or truth:
people will look DoWN upon others that are not "like us" (middle class and up looking down on the poor : "they were irresponsible, they are lazy, they are on welfare, they are this and that") UNTIL the waves of destruction -- such as POVERTY
arrives at THEIR OWN DOORS.
and then -- they could HARDLy believe it is happening to them.....
it is a kind of poetic justice, really.
YET -- in itself -- it is but a microcosm , domestically applied, of America's OWN HUBRIS and arrogance for decades as the "great power" that could PREACH to others, look down upon themn for being "UNLIKE US" --
while imposing its will ("the american way..if you don't do as we say -- you are just a LOSER" -- as in "the american MIDDLE CLASS way and if you are poor you are just a loser")
until one day -- faster than it could recognize coming from all fronts -- the seeds of what IT planted, including its "looking down on others" that it used to JUSTIFY domination and preaching to others , come back washing on its own shores...on its own doorsteps and right inside its own homes and wallets and sense of "righteousness".
it's the OLD tale -- both in this case of the "middle class america NOW talking about poverty because it has reached THEM" and in the case of US hubris and arrogance getting blowbacks (China is now telling the USA what to DO if the USA wants ANYthing from china, example only) ...the FLOWERING of the SEEDS of arrogance the USA itself had planted ....
just as the flowering of the seeds of the "middle class america" IGNORING the plight of those among americans that are poor "and not like US REAL americans"
are arriving at their own doors.
as the saying goes:
"it could never happen to US" -- until it does.
this is the result of the MYTH of "rugged american individualism" -- the glorification of a stupid concept of "individuality" that is after all, only relative, which is willing to pay the price of sacrificing OTHERS who are left as poor in order for ONE'S "individuality" to "prosper".
this is the result because it lacks the balancing force of WE - which ought to instantly remind everyone of THE POOR - and that it IS the responsibility , even obligation of those "above" to HELP those "below" -- if a society worthy of calling itself CIVILIZED talks about such things -- to balance against the "rugged individualism" that SUPPOSEDLY is the only reason the "middle class" will "one day" be RICH also!
it is STUPID.
it is like someone (middle class) - so confident in having "crossed the river" to safety in the other bank -- that he thinks those that are left behind in the other side but can't swim as strongly or because the river has suddenly grown in fury - DON"T deserve any help anymore...
but the "middle class" person that reached the "safe bank" doesn't realize there is ANOTHER even more furious river waiting that will swallow HIM as well as the poor --
because HE- the "middle class" declined to help the poor reach his safe bank and TOGETHER perhaps realize there is another bigger furious river to cross or coming over them and prepare together -- as ONE.
i don't think this is a lesson the american "middle class" will ever learn.
another irony about the american middle class that finds itself Poverized...(pardon the coined word) ...is that when things were IMAGINARILY telling the middle class "we are on upward mobility -- to hell with the poor"....
at the same time, as the "backbone" of the american economy , as it in general as a class looked down upon the poor and therefore programs to help the poor that would one day be what the impoverished middle class would SEEK , the middle class as the "representation of american wealth stability" was also the representation of "godliness" and "JESUS CHRIST"
who was POOR.
therefore -- where the middle class majority that called itself "CHRISTIAN" might as well-- through all its decades of looking DOWN on the poor ....
have been looking DOWN on JESUS CHRIST the POOR.
isn't it ironic?
Now let me tell You a short story about those who are really
hit by the bush-demolition-package. As a permanent resident
alien or legal immigrant that went through all the sometimes
costly stages of the immigration process, I was told that I would
never be able to receive any kind of public assistance. To apply
for naturalization was never an option for me under bush. That
would have been the same as applying for citizenship in Nazi
Germany in the early forties. No, I wanted to become an American
that doesn't have to fear to go places in the world.
Anyway, I waited too long. Bush's plan to ruin the domestic and
the global economy worked out well. I havn't eaten in three days
but I wanted to lose some wait in the first place. Only in a different
fashion. I am threatened by homelessness and am worried about
my two cats, because as I don't know where to go, that vibration
effects my cats. My despair makes them very nervous. The good
thing in this situation is my focus on what's really important in life,
food, clothes and shelter that is. Nothing fancy necessary. Nothing
fancy affordable. No jobs available while 32 Oz of Yogurt goes for
$ 7.00, orange juice 64 Oz $ 8.00 and butter beyond $ 5.00. 'Well,
Hawai'i was always more expensive' is the lapidary comment of the
people that live here.
The amazing thing is, that as much as I know who is responsible
for this mess, that much the larger part of the population must know
it, too. Yet, the very people who are responsible for this nightmare
are still running around, even get to lament on TV. That in my eyes
is the biggest shame of this country. Total bias of the judiciary towards
the perpetrators and an iron fist towards the little guy. Hopefully there
are enough people starving now to go out on the street and demand
justice. The money is there. If they can take away your property for
weed, they should confiscate the property of all those policymakers
that have done nothing to protect the country. Spending Billions after
Billions on 'National Security' while the nation sinks into a vortex of
insecurity through eight years of lousy and corrupt policies.
Tomorrow I will lose my internet/phone service. So that's it for now
Folks. Keep up the good work, I will participate spiritually from now on.
It's Just Karma
itsjustkarma......i am so sorry to read about your situation...i think i can understand where you're coming from..i just hope things get better for you and that we'll be reading your comments here again, soon.
it's clear that so many of us are hurting in so many ways -- whether personally or from witnessing it on others .
Big Mahalo (Thank You Very Much) for Your compassionate
post. The good news is, I still Am. Lost some feathers
but gained a lot spiritually. You are absolutely right
about the hurting part. Incomprehensible how many people
are really starving here in Hawai'i. As a counter punch
I started a 'community-booster', a get together of like
minded and like suffering folks that want to take their
fortune/well being back into their own hands and focus
on grass roots economics and family farming. The Big
Island offers year round harvest with various crops.
Let me know when You are around and I will take You to
the Lava Flow. It's free and shows us what life is really
about. itsjustkarmaATyahoo.com
Until then - Aloha and my best wishes for You too
It is already becoming evident that one(or two)-industry towns will suffer far more from the current depression than large multi-industry cities like Houston where I live.
When you travel through our country you will encounter numerous towns that were either devastated or died during the Big Depression of the 30's.
I am pretty certain that the current depression will eventually devastate numerous one(or two)-industry towns like the town in Michigan where Mr. Obama gave his ridiculous assurance that the building of RV's there will restart soon. More RV's needed? You are out of your cotton-picking mind Barak. Many of these towns will be forced to return to agriculture mainly which nowadays does not require a sizable population. In fact, the prospects for making a living by farming in the near future are dismal and nobody in Washington seems to notice.
Politicians like Obama and Jindal who both want to preserve U.S. capitalism as we know it should worry less about whether AIG can survive than about the not-so-shocking demise of the idiocy that economic cycles with their devastating consequences for the overwhelming majority of people in the whole world had stopped occurring forever. Unfortunately Mr. Obama is yet another lawyer-President who does not seem to have a clue. Clueless persons will inevitably fall victim to the laws of historic materialism.
I am very doubtful that Marxism with its overweening dependence on powerful central states which, contrary to Marx's prediction, will never die anyway is the answer. I wonder whether a modernized "Bakuninism" a.k.a. anarcho-syndicalism with its emphasis on anti-large-states and co-operations run by their workers is a better model for "change". It should be studied again at our Universities. Wanna bet? That will not happen. I am also doubtful that President Obama has studied the history of the non-violent brand of anarcho-syndicalism which, of course, is also never taught in law schools.
Having once been middle class, I am now poor. As my health deteriorated, I couldn't earn enough money to pay for health insurance! So after six years, I now have Medicare, and I'm about to have an operation that might allow me to walk without taking a handful of vicodin. However, in this economy, and since I live on $11,000 a year in Social Security, all the operation will allow me to do is go out and try to earn more money just to survive. You know all those seniors you see in Wal-Mart or mopping floors? I'll be competing with them and everyone else who needs a job. We have been completely screwed over by Congress, big business, and lobbyists for the last 25 years. So everything is falling apart at the same time. The financial system is tanking because of fraud. The average American is broke thanks to stagnant income and spiking energy costs--the price of energy is a result of market manipulation but Congress and the SEC have done nothing and will do nothing because they are too busy picking our pockets. The only hope is a revolution when things get really bad--and they will.
Hi Friend, Thanks for the Parenti article.
It appears that the middle and working classes really are waking up to the reality of their situation. Openness to social and political philosophies that were once deemed un-American across broad swathes of the demographic has increased.
In this political climate we should start debunking the many myths of modern day capitalism.
Here's one for starters. The myth of a wealth creating upper-class.
The central tenet of this myth is that the members of this class are the agents of innnovation, industry and wealth creation. The truth is quite the opposite. They are engaged in wealth appropriation. Wealth creation itself is disdained as old-fashioned or irrelevant. The buying of influence, the manipulation of legislation, or rampant gambling on markets, are the only skills needed, skills that the morally challenged possess in abundance.
Under their governance a 'grab-all-you-can-its-yours' ethos permeates society. Short term wealth acquisition rules supreme and long term sustained growth goes out the window. Avarice is elevated to the status of virtue.
Real wealth creation demands 'genius', hard work, long term planning, and most of all cooperation across all industrial sectors. This is not just beyond the ruling classes ability but runs against their desires, so much so that they will undermine democracy to fight it.
While the lower and middle class still believe that their welfare is tied to the activities of the highest echelons of society, then the status quo will remain, the world will give off none of it own light or realize any of its potential, but will incline ever more frequently, and ever more violently, into chaos.
regards, Guy
It has always been true that the majority of welfare applicants were working-to-middle class people who encountered a misfortune, set-back, etc. Most welfare "lifers" were people who did qualify for SSI and/or SSDI, but were unable to complete the unusually difficult application process.
With an adequate, non-punitive social safety net (i.e., welfare), some 80% of recipients were able to voluntarily quit welfare in under 5 years, becoming employed and moving on with their lives, repaying the aid they had received via their own taxes. We no longer provide aid and social supports to enable families to remain intact, and to get back on their feet. With each economic downturn, more fall into poverty. Under our post-welfare "reform" system, fewer are able to work their way back out of poverty.
It still amazes me that (apparently) most Americans fell for the nonsense about welfare being a "lifestyle choice" and a "disincentive" to work. There is nothing desirable or comfortable about trying to get by on subpoverty-level benefits. Deprivation of basic needs hellish. But at least welfare benefits could tide people over until they could get back on their feet. Many Americans don't have any concept of what it is like to be poor in the US; it is far worse than the media will report.