Who Wins?

waronpoverty
Originally uploaded by revraikes.

I hate to seem like an ingrate. I have received a lot of assistance through philanthropic endeavors. I used to have a job as Director of a local teen center. I worked for Jefferson County in WA at the dump/hazardous waste station. I even received free schooling and credits to apply toward further education at a college of my choosing.

That being said, the operative phrase used to have a job translates to the fact that the teen center no longer exists (the dump supplied 1-day/month). And, the Bard College Clemente Program that gave me free books, some food and a new outlook on life can now only afford to give the current students half of the time (and almost none of the literature) they used to be able to offer.

These places are or were funded by many different sources, several local. However, it seems probable that the trickle down effect of cuts in Federal funding used to help our economically and socially disadvantaged has had a hand in the retraction of aid. If you think this is a purely personal gripe, I argue that this is just a microcosm of the greater picture of which we all share a part.

This comes to the fore of my mind because I have returned to the Clemente Program to give back to the community (which gave me so much, and continues to give) and because of the State of the Union Address that aired earlier tonight. To illustrate, the snippet that caught my ear:

• And let us continue to support the expanded trade and debt relief that are the best hope for lifting lives and eliminating poverty.

I posit that elimination, in the Bush-camp context, means the eradication of the poor.

It reminds me of another quote, from the Scrooge that Albert Finney played. He was entreated about the dying poor and replied, ...they had better do it and decrease the surplus population. This is the legacy of Carnegie, of the aptly named robber barons which the Democratic spokesman (Jim Webb) referenced in the rebuttal after the Union Address.

Take a close-up look at the picture in this post (by clicking on it). I snapped this in Seattle just this weekend.
This is the solution. We get the brush. And why are we in this state of mind, we the poor? Why do we have a ghetto mentality? We are dumb. We have no idea. Yes, that is partly our fault for not pursuing the ever elusive carrot called happiness, the American dream/myth. It's our failure, in a democracy where libraries roam free and are plentiful, that we do not seek the truth like a dog after a tantalizing leg.

Yet...we had a lot of help getting dumb and fractured. Freedom from education leaves each of us working 2-3 minimum-wage jobs, apiece (if we are lucky enough to get them). The rest of the world, too has been helped out of their prosperity, further casualties in the War on Poverty, to distribute the resources of the planet as our betters see fit.

Make no mistake, this very real war in which we are entrenched is one of the faster ways (than starvation of mind and promise) to kill off 3rd-world populations and take what is theirs.
Please, caretakers of the great unwashed masses, don't do us any more favors.