Lifestyles of the poor and anonymous.

 

Poverty

            What does it mean to be living in poverty?

            What is the poverty line; that line that differentiates between living in poverty and just being poor?

            Well the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) for 2020 for a family of 2 is $17,240. For a family of 4 it’s $20,200.

            In 2000 there was a low of 31.5 million after a 7 year drop from a high of 39 million in 1993. In 1990 there were over 33 million below the poverty line. (Add another 20 million give or take a few above this line to those that are just “poor” in any given year.)

            As best I can determine from ALL of the various information available the number of people living in poverty had been dropping since 2014. There were approximately 46.6 million people living in poverty then. That run is over.

            For the last 30 years we’ve had at least 31 million people living in poverty on a yearly basis. 31,000,000. That’s the number of people living below the FPL. The number of people at the FPL in 2019 was just shy of 34 million.

These aren’t small numbers.

Crackers

            None of this really addresses the question that this started off with though. What does it mean to be living in poverty? Again we’re talking about poverty not about being poor (low income).

            I’ve been poor both as an adult and as a child but we always had food to eat. We were never impoverished. Not poor now though. Caught some breaks unlike so many others and made it to a comfortable retirement. (Union wages and benefits.)

            My first wife remembered growing up when the only food that they had in the house to eat was crackers. Her Dad growing up had to wear a dress to school for a time because that was all the clothes his parents had and his pants were worn completely out. They literally couldn’t afford to buy clothes.

That was poverty.

            Then there’s homeless poverty. Not just individuals either but entire families. There’s poverty that spans generations; one hopeless generation followed by another. Year in. Year out. No way out. There’s inner city poverty. There’s geographical poverty like what exists in the Appalachia region.

            Who are these people? Do you see them in your day to day life? Are they waiting on you? Are they serving your food? Are they working to bring your food to the table? Are they cleaning? Are they working the hard physical labor jobs at the bottom? Are they working in meat packing plants, driving cabs, cooking food, waiting tables, picking crops, cleaning rooms? Yes is the answer. All these and more. They also populate the medical field.

Poverty

            It doesn’t make any difference whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge. The numbers may go up a little or down a little but things stay the same for tens of millions living in poverty and tens of millions more that are poor. It’s little wonder that many or most of them don’t vote. Why should they participate in a process that makes no difference in their lives?

            I stayed away for the most part about the state of poverty in 2020. We have a few million additions to the ranks of the poor and desperate because of the pandemic. Millions who have had their lives destroyed for all practical purposes. How do they build back to subsistence living? What happens when there’s nothing left to lose?

Capitalism has failed

            Thirty million people living in poverty decade after decade is not a success story for the current oldest Constitutional democracy. It doesn’t speak well for our system of government or the two main parties.

            The rich, however, have done great under this system. They have done it on the backs of the poor and the shrinking middle class. The poor do the grunt work of society. They handle the ugly stuff, the work that others don’t want to stoop to do. They will accept desperation wages. They are what have been known as “essential workers” during the pandemic.

            What does it mean to be living in poverty during a pandemic?

They will die in greater numbers.

 

Amazing Grace [History/Politics]

        The hymn Amazing Grace was written in 1779 by John Newton, a former slave ship Captain. It is a powerful song.  These are lyrics from the song:  “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see.” Wretch. He was a man who sought forgiveness for his wretched actions of trafficking in human beings.

        There has been a lot of press lately about cities removing Confederate monuments from public property. That is, property owned and maintained by municipal governments, paid for with our tax dollars – the tax dollars of each and every one of us: black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American and every other ethnicity you can name.

        Should we erect statues to human traffickers who tortured their victims? Are there “good” traffickers and “bad” traffickers?

        How about traitors to our nation? I mean actual traitors. Real traitors. Not make believe traitors. Traitors who actually fought against our nation? Should we erect statues to honor them?

        Should we ignore evil and those who supported it?

        No, I don’t think that we should rewrite the history of our nation. I believe it’s way past time to remember it. Especially since white supremacy is on the rise yet again. We need to acknowledge what happened and what is happening. Attempts are being made to rewrite history by white washing it; to cover it up and gloss it over like it really wasn’t so bad after all.

        First of all, there weren’t “good” slave owners and “bad” slave owners; there were bad slave owners and horrific slave owners. Owners trafficked human beings with one another. These were men and women who believed they had the right to own human beings. Slaves were punished. They were raped. They were bred. They were slaughtered. Their families were broken up. Children were worked. Slaves were tortured. They had horrible living conditions. They were property. They weren’t free.

        I see people saying that we need to research the civil war and its cause again. No, we don’t. We really don’t. We don’t need to search anew to validate what has been known in this nation since the Civil War was fought.

        Men like General Lee and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. They owned human beings. They trafficked in human beings. Human. Beings. Just as we have traffickers today we had them then. There were tens of thousands directly involved in the human trafficking (slave) trade.

        I’m guessing that the overwhelming majority of people have never felt the lash of a whip. I was “accidentally” hit by one by my older brother when were kids. One hit. It felt like my leg was on fire. There was a red welt around my leg where it hit. Imagine being whipped with one until your skin was flayed open. Then think about having brine poured over all the open wounds. Slave owner Robert E. Lee did that. Does he really deserve the multiple statues erected to him? Why not just start erecting statues to serial killers because they’re a part of our history?

        One of the many points of contention is that these monuments and symbols of slavery are displayed at government buildings. If people want to display such items at in the private sector that is their right. They can keep their memories alive in their front yards with those black faced yard ornament greeters to celebrate the history of human traffickers along with their Confederate flags. You can call it what you want. I don’t call it patriotism and it isn’t the flag I served under.

        What of Confederate veterans of the Confederate States of America? They were entitled to a decent burial. Their graves should not be desecrated. Neither should their history be forgotten. But…they fought for the wrong side. They fought as traitors to our nation. They fought for slavery. They lost. They weren’t veterans of the United States of America. That’s the nation that they fought against.

        And after the traitors and human traffickers lost they continued to subjugate an entire race through segregation, into modern times. The KKK is still in existence though not as prevalent as it once was. Those that would enslave others still walk amongst us and in far greater numbers than we would like to imagine. They have their heroes. Heroes from the Civil War and up through today. Should government buildings have statues of Grand Dukes of the past of the KKK erected? They’re a part of the nation’s history too. They still threaten.

        How should we honor veterans of the United States of America that fought in the civil war? Does erecting statues to their enemies honor them? Not any more than erecting monuments to the generals and leaders of any other nation that we fought against would.

        Tear them down. Bulldoze them. Remove them to private property if you must. Instead, honor the veterans that fought for the United States of America and against slavery.

        I understand that there are veterans and even people of color who support signs of the Confederacy. That’s just the way it is in this country. People will go to great lengths to support, justify and rationalize their beliefs. That doesn’t mean that they’re right any more than the holocaust deniers or flat earth (seriously), the moon landing was a scam, the earth is only 6,000 years old, believers are right. (Throw in a host of other believers since the last election.) These people aren’t going to have their minds changed. They are true believers.

        There are also those that believe that since these monuments have been around so long it really doesn’t matter anymore; that people don’t care. That’s not just sad, it’s tragic. It just is. And it’s wrong. Lots of people do care; that’s why there has been such interest of late in removing them. We used to do things just because they were right and history is important; and now so are people like the mayor of New Orleans.

        Does it cost to tear them down? Yes. And that is too bad. This is usually where someone will present an either/or argument. Use the money to tear down a monument or feed children. Use the money to tear down a monument or take care of homeless veterans. This fallacy reduces government to only being about 2 things. Government and budgets are about thousands of things.

        I believe that Union veterans of the civil war said it best in 1903 when they successfully opposed a statue of Robert E. Lee being placed upon the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. From that time: John Stewart of Chambersburg argued, “But what is to be gained by putting this statue of Lee on Gettysburg battlefield? If you want historical accuracy as your excuse, then place upon this field a statue of Lee holding in his hand the banner under which he fought, bearing the legend: ‘We wage this war against a government conceived in liberty and dedicated to humanity.”