Progressive Ponderings: The Unmentionable Poor

by Joe Mayer

Two weeks before our local and national elections, none of the candidates, none of the political parties, none of the campaign literature, none of the misleading TV ads address the elephant in the room - the extreme and growing poverty created by a system that caters to wealth. The free-market system that grinds humans into begging stages of suppression has succeeded in making the poor a non-issue. The victims are mentioned as objects of scorn, leeches on a glorified for-profit system, as deserving of hate.

We’ve developed an economic system that produces poverty similar to the old feudal system, in some ways worse than slavery where at least minimal food and shelter were provided. Our cultural system detaches itself from concern for the suffering other. Our religious systems justify our hatred.

How else could a “government of the people” subsidize the outsourcing of jobs and then blame the unemployed, the underemployed, and the physical and mentally handicapped for gaming the system? How else could we call out these vulnerable citizens for “entitlements” when the real subsidies are given to corporations? How else could we advocate trade agreements that deny human migration but encourage profiteers to search out the cheapest source of labor? How else could the “uncensored” media operate unless owned by the endorsers of all of the above?

The poor have their usefulness: Unemployment provides an abundance of “volunteers to fight wars of imperialism designed to keep the world’s poor from gaining power and owning their own natural resources. Patriotic American exceptionalism makes one proud to soldier against the mythology of the evil other.

We have an extensive food and housing program for the poor: It goes by the praise-worthy name of “criminal justice system.” Through it we provide shelter for the world’s largest proportion of imprisoned citizens. Now, private, for-profit corporations are given tax incentives to take poverty out of sight and out of mind.

To break the hope of the young in our schools, especially in the poor and minority areas, schools are denied necessary funds. Education and teachers become the whipping boys of antigovernment; anti-community programs that might instill hope and opportunity for our young are condemned. Public education is being privatized. Like the conscripted, like the prisoners, our students are being given over to the profiteers where no one but stockholders can influence education.

We live in a disposable society where our waste piles so high it blocks the view of the disposable people. These poor, these free-loaders, these aliens, these homos, the elderly, the ill, the mentally deficient, these bothering youth all stand in the way of making a buck. The free market has all the answers.

Should we expect any different outcome when our political and economic systems practice their sorcery in a moral vacuum of their own creation? The atmosphere is so polluted that any candidate showing genuine concern for the poor and advocating for social justice is treated with ridicule and intellectual malevolence.

I’ve been told, “you must accept `realism.’ The golden rule doesn’t apply to societies or government or corporations or political organizations.” How right they are. Sadly, how right they are.

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