The Poor?

By John Johnson

I don’t like the term “poor,” as used to describe people with little money and few possessions. Most so-called “poor” don’t like the term, either. After all, many are rich in values, families, communities, and beliefs. Despite what they lack, they feel they can live valuable lives. The word poor connotes that they have nothing, and can presume the situation to be hopeless.

But on a broader scale the term “poor” is bluntly descriptive of a class of people. Terms such as “disenfranchised … underprivileged … without means” don’t have the same sense of hard reality.

The War on the Poor is also a war on the working-class and large segments of the middle class. It’s fairly easy these days to sink from middle class to near poverty. Many have lost their jobs, maybe their homes, too, but don’t consider themselves poor. Just waiting for the next break. But in broad economic sense, they are poor.

I was looking into SSI, Supplemental Security Income. To qualify you can only have $2000 cash on hand, including bank accounts. The most you can be awarded is around $850 a month, maybe get less for the myriad of gottas. And that’s supposed to pay your rent, buy food, gas, and insurance. This feels more like a 1930’s rate, it’s crazy. And there are movements in Congress to cut these measly benefits even deeper.

Meanwhile, we budget a trillion dollars on two useless wars. As some said, it’s like blowing all you food budget on Twinkies and lard. While corporate execs, bankers, and other pay themselves up to a billion dollars a year. They are very busy people. Busy, all right, scheming how to steal even more money from the rest of us.

I wrote a blog and gave a talk at Occidental College about the past decade of historical events impacting this midterm election. I included the following thread of events.

Following the Presidential election of 2000, then-Circuit Court Judge John Roberts conferred privately with then-Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, and was somehow instrumental in circumventing the mandate of the Florida Supreme Court regarding the recount. This opened the door for the US Supreme Court to vacate the recount (which would have gone to Gore) and to declare GW Bush winner. Roberts was rewarded, in 2005, with the position of Supreme Court Justice. His Court went on to rule in the Citizens United Case of 2010, allowing corporations to give unlimited funds to elections without identifying themselves. Hundreds of millions of dollars were then funneled into most right wing Republican campaigns to buy vicious media ads, especially against more progressive Democrats, like Russ Feingold. And of course we heard little about this on the media who were raking in all this extra money.

Most of the media and Washington are wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporations. Their job description is to bleed as much money as they can from the rest of us, on a world wide scale, as well as to squash movements which challenge them. And with people having to spend all their time in basic survival mode, we have less time to go to meetings, demonstrations and less money to donate to resistance or reform efforts. Including Change-Links. Thus, we lack the energy to organize into movements to combat these injustices.

On top of all that, we have to deal with the massive national security state which gives itself the right to spy on all of us by any means.

President Obama’s administration has continued this spying. He even said he favored intrusive airport searches, (a complete violation of the 4th Amendment) which even experts say are useless. They can dose you with dangerously high x-rays, or grope your entire body, and if you protest, arrest you and fine you $10,000. This just a forerunner, getting folks used to it.

Beginning Jan. 1, the federal government’s Red Flags Rule mandates that auto dealers, banks, credit unions and other “creditors” and “financial institutions” take additional steps to prevent identity theft and fraud. Included in the list of so-called creditors is your family doctor.

A person applying for financing – or even paying cash for a car – is then checked against government watch lists of known or suspected terrorists or terrorist organizations. There have been many false positives so far.

So, you see, the “poor” are not the only target. Included, now are those who have been disenfranchised not simply for being African American or ex-felons, but because they voted in the wrong state at the wrong time. Working and middle class consumers with enough discretionary income to fly, or to buy a car, or do business with banks or visit a doctor, are equally subject to harassment, now, given increasingly draconian legislation.

So c’mon. Bend over, you’ll get used to it. You might even like it. We heard little about this on the media who were raking in all this extra money.

Most of the media and Washington are wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporations. Their job description is to bleed as much money as they can from the rest of us, on a world wide scale, as well as to squash movements which challenge them. And with people having to spend all their time in basic survival mode, we have less time to go to meetings, demonstrations and less money to donate to resistance or reform efforts. Including Change-Links. Thus, we lack the energy to organize into movements to combat these injustices.

On top of all that, we have to deal with the massive national security state which gives itself the right to spy on all of us by any means.

President Obama’s administration has continued this spying. He even said he favored intrusive airport searches, (a complete violation of the 4th Amendment) which even experts say are useless. They can dose you with dangerously high x-rays, or grope your entire body, and if you protest, arrest you and fine you $10,000. This just a forerunner, getting folks used to it.

Beginning Jan. 1, the federal government’s Red Flags Rule mandates that auto dealers, banks, credit unions and other “creditors” and “financial institutions” take additional steps to prevent identity theft and fraud. Included in the list of so-called creditors is your family doctor.

A person applying for financing – or even paying cash for a car – is then checked against government watch lists of known or suspected terrorists or terrorist organizations. There have been many false positives so far.

So, you see, the “poor” are not the only target. Included, now are those who have been disenfranchised not simply for being African American or ex-felons, but because they voted in the wrong state at the wrong time. Working and middle class consumers with enough discretionary income to fly, or to buy a car, or do business with banks or visit a doctor, are equally subject to harassment, now, given increasingly draconian legislation.

So c’mon. Bend over, you’ll get used to it. You might even like it.