Advice for the New Poor, Part IX (Final)

[DuctapeFatwa]

She says she's too tired to wait for the bus. Sarah doesn't think she has a fever, Luz Maria says she just needs to rest. You finally finish laying the carpet for the office park in the satellite county where it took you a couple of days to notice what was different. Chucho figured it out. No buses.

The county had a referendum, opted out of the MetroWideRide, security concerns, property values, just better for everybody, the fast food restaurants leased their own buses, they bring the workers in, take them out, some businesses went in together on a bus, most just contracted out for their cleaners and coffee servers, entry level clerical, pay the agency $12 an hour, agency pays the worker $6, worth the difference to the companies, fewer problems that way, they do all the background, credit checks,psychological testing. Chucho shakes his head, what a country, gotta pass a credit check to mop floors now.

Cat's name gets called on the second Indigent Care pink ticket day. Mono. Rest. Luz Maria graciously says nothing. Cat won't be going anywhere until next semester, anyway. You are a monster, you are glad your daughter has mono.

One by one, your ties to Them fall away. The chicken plant jumps on the "records update" bandwagon, and has to cut back a shift, so many "invalid addresses," start checking social security numbers, says Eusebio, and they'll have to close the whole plant down.

There won't be any more showers. The bus station has changed it's shower-locker use policy, now you have to have a ticket, and to get a ticket, you have to have ID.

Juan tries to make you one, like he saw in a movie once, a bucket and string tied to a tree. Another lesson in humility, a well-timed one, too.

The last time you saw Jason, he was in his Beemer, Game-Boy-anesthetized kids in the back, fresh from soccer, passenger seat full of balls, smelly little shoes, I'm soccer dad today, he yelled, come swim this weekend, watch the game by the pool.

Today he is crouched on the sidewalk, a few blocks from the shelter Angela said stay away from, vomiting, bad batch of something, he just needs to get back on his feet, has some ideas for a new start-up, problem is, investors, these days, Michele took the kids back to her dad's hardware store, guess I'm like you now, wife makes more money than me. He used to tease you about Sarah's salary, she deserves it, you told him, woman can code without a monitor. Once you watched her make Windows run on an XT. Now, Jason tells you that Michele never did get it, hardware store hell, wants more for his kids than that. Should you ask him if he'd like to come live in a hut and have a bucket shower? Instead, you take bus fare from the money you have in your pocket ($9.47) and give him the rest, for his start-up.

Randy looks relieved when you tell him not to worry, you don't want to go in, just thought that was him, Sarah, the kids are fine, you tell him, no need to go into details, fine has come to mean still alive, Randy is a smart guy, got the security guard job while he still had a car, while you were still drycleaning suits and going for interviews in office parks with people who had no intention of giving you a job, and no budget to give you one either, people who had themselves already very quietly let the au pair go. Security guards are everywhere now, supermarkets, discount pharmacies, everywhere the poor might try to pee. You know Don got on at Lockheed? just in time, too, bank was after his house, Randy shouldn've listened to him on that one, but can't complain, didn't need that much room anyway, just the 4 of us, not like we spend so much time there anyway, you know how that is, Carpet? well now that's something, working with Mexicans, I bet, yeah some of them do better than - scuse me - Sir! Excuse me, Sir, can I help you? No, sir, I'm, sorry, not for public use, customers only, have a good day, Sir.

Before, you might have thought it was rude to just walk away without saying good-bye to Randy, really, you had already said good-bye to everybody and everything from Before, don't know what got into you today, maybe the chicken plant closing, the thing with the bus station, an increasing awareness of how little now connects you to Them, not much left but buses, Indigent Care, Planned Parenthood for Sarah and Cat, steal things like aleve, sinus pills, toothbrushes, hanging on by a thread to a society to which you used to be bound with knots and whorls of thick rope, and you are surprised to find that lately, you seem to focus more on how to break that thread than re-attach the ropes.

A woman passes you, two dirty children in tow, all laden with plastic bags. The stores put chips on the shopping carts now, beep if you take them out of the parking lot, you don't hear the beep, but the security guard does.

The line is long at the check casher's. Will this be your last visit, you wonder? Probably not, people occasionally cut checks for the carpet jobs, whoa, chicken plant close down or somepm? the girl at the window is friendly, not much older than Cat, I ain't had nothin but crying chicken cutters today, she counts out bills into the young man's hand, flirting with her eyes. Where will they all go, you wonder, will Eusebio be bringing any of them out to the - you still don't have a name for it - place where the huts are. Why name a place that can be destroyed in an hour, in fact, you don't know if it will be there today. Suddenly, you are anxious, annoyed at the girl, hurry up, you think, give him your number if you want, just keep the line moving.

But tonight, at least, it is there, like a post-apocalyptic scene in a bad movie with a very low budget, smoke rising from the fires, the scrap brick oven, plastic tarps gold in the sunset, Sarah braiding Cat's hair, from one hut the soft sound of Luz Maria and Concepcion singing, reminding you how absent music has been from your life, except for their singing, Chucho is making a hammock for Cat, In the distance, Juan is trying to fit what looks like bagpipes, minus the bag, somewhere under the alleged future truck, Cat's friend, a tiny, strange little girl named Sierra, crawls out from under the truck, yells at Juan, throws the bagpipes at his feet, and climbing on the bumper, almost disappears under the hood, muffled shouts to Juan, hops down, pushes Juan into the driver's seat, still scolding. There is a horrible ripping sound, a small explosion, and the truck belches, coughs, and rolls out toward the road.

Another strand of thread has broken.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Here are links to all the previous parts, if you want them.

Part 1 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=582245

Part 2
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=582475

Part 3
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=582720

Part 4
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=583418

Part 5
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=585259

Part 6
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=586600

Part 7
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=587489

Part 8
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=588149

[Mairead]

1. That's stunning, in almost every meaning of the word.

DF, my language skills aren't good enough to express my appreciation for that. I can only say Thank You and hope you understand how much is unsayable.

We must turn the country around now.

[hedda_foil]

2. This is the postmodern version of The Grapes of Wrath, DF

And it rings truer than anything I've read in a long, long time.

I'm stunned by your power to put into words the rapid downward spiral we are all set to experience in the very near future absent a postmodern version of FDR.

[loudnclear]

3. Thanks for the links!!

Great work!

[Selwynn]

4. I put all of these together and formatted them into a word document

Thank you for taking the time to do something like this. I will probably be sending this out to a few people. If you'd like to be known as anything other than "DuctapeFatwa" PM me and let me know. :)

Again, thank you so much.
Sel

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. WHOA! Thanks!

DuctapeFatwa is fine.

Please send it wherever you like, make sure they know it is rougher than roughed, not spell-checked, detypoed, or even sprayed with Windex. ;)

[sam sarrha]

6. I became homeless after a minor back injury, I couldn't find a job..if i

did manage to get hired, I'd be layed off in 3 to 90 days.. the day before the insurance started. but a 30 day job was rare, usually a week at most. finally a friend was berating me about being lazy.. I told him to hire me and see what the workers comp people did... he complied suspicesiosly... 3 days later he came by and said he was sorry, that they really play hard ball. they called him up and said that he could hire me, but if he did they would cancel all 29 of his other employees policies and rewrite them. I didn't work for almost 8 years.. I moved to another state, after neglecting treatment so i could get 10 years without treatment, and got several good part time jobs. There i found a strange nomadic subculture of professional drivers that traveled with the seasons to different jobs and lived in old rundown trailers and shacks, for a % of their pay. I know have a job as a semi driver..pay adds up to $4.12 and hour.. out for 3 or 4 days every 4 weeks.. living in a stinking truck pissing in bottles to keep rolling..and waiting for hours or all night and half a day to get unloaded and only getting paid when the wheels are turning. i have to pay for all the errors, simple mistakes can cost you a $1000. but it is a job.. I have 5 years of college and an IQ of 164, I just do this cause it is a job with insurance for my wife who is very ill and meeds me at home to take care of her. but i got to run that sweatshop on wheels.... i consider myself lucky.

[Nobody]

10. This is why we need to fix the health care system

The only way the out of touch people in power will ever get a clue is if we hop on the reality TV bandwagon.

Survivor: Wal-Mart (A bunch of CEO level execs have their connections to the board room and their bank accounts severed and try to live on part time at $8 an hour for a year)

Who Wants to Find a Job: (A bunch of supply-side politicians have to compete to be the first one to be employed as a full time employee with benefits. The catch is, nothing can go on their resume except what an average American would have. Community College or a State College instead of Harvard or Yale, and a chronic injury or disease is added to their health records, possbly even a misdemeanor conviction. They also can't use their real names or backgrounds)

The idea is to let the overprivileged see what it really takes to get out of the trap. Let them see what an uphill battle it really is. Let them experience the hopelessness as doors are not only closed, but slammed in their faces.

[jiacinto]

7. So Cat didn't go into the program?

So how does it end? It seems so anticlimatic?

[sam sarrha]

8. Hey, that shit never ends................... it is just ignored.

[Mairead]

9. That's the problem, Carlos: it mostly doesn't end, except in early death

That's why we criticise your politics so much. You've evidently enjoyed a very privileged life, so privileged that you don't even realise it. From what you said in response to part one, your situation seems to be changing for the worse, and so you're beginning to get a little worried. But you still don't seem able--or perhaps willing--to make the connection between your politics and what's happening to you.

I can only hope for your sake that you make the connection soon.

[jiacinto]

11. My life is hardly one of "privilege"

I have debts from college and grad school to pay: an educational mortgage on my head.

[Mairead]

12. I more meant during childhood

Were you born in the US? I seem to remember a year or so ago someone mentioning that you're from South America, Venezuela was it? Or am I mis-remembering?

[jiacinto]

13. I am from the DC area

Anyway I have to go to work now. I will be back later tonight.

[Mairead]

26. Does that mean you were born and grew up in the DC area?

Did you have both parents at home? Did at least one of them have steady employment? Did you grow up in one place rather than move around all the time?

[jiacinto]

29. Lived in DC suburbs my whole life

But my parents were dead by the time I was 18.

[Mairead]

33. Carlos, you remind me of a woman I know

Z. had a hard life--she never knew her dad, her mum was a refugee shattered by WW2 who took to drink and died before Z. reached adulthood, and she grew up on the dole in the slum tenements. But she's smart, not missing any bits, and White. Now she's in her '40s, a biochemist with at least one grad degree and a top salary at a good company. But she can't acknowledge that she is or was privileged (she can be made to pay it lip service, as you do, but it's only words), or that she's come a stunningly long way from where she started. To her, 'privilege' is having a smashing face and figure, private schools, designer dresses, skiing at Gstaad, and a flat overlooking Central Park. It's not having a sturdy, healthy Slavic body, brains, the 'right' skin color, and a US birth certificate. She wants what she can never have, and she feels, on a sub-conscious level, that she was entitled to it. Everything she's got goes into worrying alternately about losing what she has and getting more. It makes her very wearing to be around. Her politics are like yours, too, I think: she feels she had to work for everything she got, so she aims to see that everyone else has to do the same.

[Nikia]

15. It could have ended positively for Cat

Poor, even homeless, children go to college. They are bright children with potential who get scholarships and loans. Far from taking the "hand out" for granted, they are usually much more happy about their college education than rich students whose parents paid full tuition for them. It is a myth that they cannot go to college, which often discourages promising students in elementary school. Many good colleges have sufficient endowments with scholarships that when combined with federal loans and grants can come close to covering if not cover tuition, room, and board (or faculty members sometimes take students in like in Cat's case). Then they are fed the line how going to college is abadoning their poor family. These just keep the poor down. Of course Cat is not guarenteed a good job after college, but she is much more likely to get a job that supports decent living than if she continues living on the street with her parents.

[Mairead]

16. "Poor, even homeless, children go to college"

Yes, sometimes. But usually not. Usually what happens is exactly what you'd expect to happen to someone discarded as being of no value to the wealthy elites.

[NicoleM]

17. Did you read the whole thing?

Of course Cat is not guarenteed a good job after college, but she is much more likely to get a job that supports decent living than if she continues living on the street with her parents.

Her parents were well-educated. They ended up homeless anyway. I could be wrong, but I think that was kind of the point of the whole thing--none of us is safe in the Bush economy, no matter how middle-class or well-educated we are.

[veggiemama]

18. Good question!

I am living proof that you can end up with a fabulous education and homeless! BA, MA, ABD, seven years teaching experience at the university level, upper-middle-class, extremely white-collar background, and a WASP to boot! Doesn't matter a tinker's damn if you lose your physical ability to work! Poverty is a great equalizer!

[JanMichael]

20. Jack London wrote essays about this sort of thing.

He starts as a young man with plenty of energy and strength, never fearing being broken, for how could a great Blonde Beast ever be defeated?

He also wrote "The People of the Abyss" which is what DF's essay reminds me of.

Needless to say most Americans have been very, very, lucky.

[Nikia]

22. Carlos and I are privileged in the same way

I shouldn't speak for, but I don't think that it is any secret why we were both disappointed that she didn't go into the program. Personally, I was not homeless, but was poor enough to get reduced lunches. I received close to a full financial aid package (scholarships and federal subsidized loans and grants) my first year of college and enough every year after that to pay for my portion with summer earnings at an expensive competitive liberal art college. I believe that Carlos has had the same experience. There were other students at my high school that could have followed my path but did not believe that they could actually have that opportunity and the school guidance counselor didn't exactly do anything to correct that misconception as he told them that not everyone can afford a four year school. It is not that I don't realize that this is harder for poorer students than rich students, but it is not as hard as many would lead people to believe. I think that it is harmful from day one of a child's education if no one believes that the child will go to college. That belief puts many unnecessary obstacles in the way of the goal of a college education.

[jiacinto]

24. Well

I attended college under hard circumstances. Both my parents were dead by the age of 18 and I had to work very had. It could have been worse, and I did have it better than a lot of people; but it wasn't easy either.

[Mairead]

27. "I did have it better than a lot of people"

That's all we're talking about when we tell you you're privileged, Carlos. It's sad that you've already lost both your parents, but it was a great privilege to have had 2 functioning parents through your childhood; many don't.

Your politics encourage you to concentrate on how hard you worked, not how privileged you were to even be in a position to do and profit from that work. People less-privileged than you also work hard, but their lack of privilege keeps their hard work from going toward their advancement. Instead, there are a thousand tiny little syphons--the lack of nearby stores, the lack of public transportation, the lack of universal healthcare, universal training, etc--that drain off their ability to change their situation. Who benefits? The wealthy elites pay less tax, and have a large pool of cheap labor, too. They benefit. It's all very serviceable to them.

J.K.Rowling was able to write the first Harry Potter book only because Scotland still has the dole for people who are unemployed. So instead of having to desperately try to find a job scrubbing floors to support her daughter and herself, she had the time to write. And of course it has benefitted the UK magnificently--the taxes she paid on that first book in its first year alone repaid every penny she got in benefit a thousand times over.

How many other talents that could benefit all of us magnificently are being suppressed by our system? The elites don't care--they've got theirs! If a million Rowlings, Beethovens, Salks, or Feynmans live short, brutalised lives instead of flowering and giving us their gifts, so what?

You're beginning to get nervous about your personal prospects. That's probably realistic. But if you don't evolve your politics, you're going to become deeply depressed as you struggle to figure out what you did to end up living in a cardboard box. Perhaps you'll resolve it as so many do: their successes are their own, but their failures come from the filthy n*gg*rs, k*kes, and sp*cs destroying our once-proud country. They are sad, ugly, dangerous people, because they'll sacrifice other people to maintain their false self-image, but there are a lot of them around.

Me, I'd read Deming's work on systems and quality. He made the case--and conclusively demonstrated it in Japan--that once a system is set up, whether an individual succeeds or fails is mostly down to the system itself, not the individual. So if you want a lot of successes, set up the system to produce them. Our system is set up to produce a lot of failures, and is being changed to produce more.

If you don't want to be one of those failures, help change the system.

[jiacinto]

30. I've reached a ceiling

I've wanted jobs that my friends got because they knew people. I know all about "privilege"--and I haven't had it.

[veggiemama]

31. Very well said!

But unfortunately, the same system that supported folks like Rowling is being completely undermined by Tony Blair and "New Labour", as is the socila democracy here in Ireland, where I now live, by Bertie Ahern. And it's no coincidence that both Bertie and Blair are Bush buddies.

[veggiemama]

14. What a piece of work!

I'm still reeling from the effects of reading this incredible piece of work. I've almost been there myself, except my daughter and I did not end up in a tribal community. But what you've written here rings so true--all of it, in spades!

Thank you, Ductape Fatwa, thank you so much!

[Panda1]

19. Profoundly moving

Thank you so much for sharing this with all of us. I was moved to tears of rage and fear.
We MUST take our country back. I'm scared.

DuctapeFatwa, I hope you are submitting this for public consumption someplace. It should be read by all who still feel "safe" living month to month as part of "Them" and believe it couldn't happen to us. Perhaps all of our "leaders" should be forced to read it.

[William Seger]

21. Devastating!

:kick:

This needs a permanent home somewhere.

[InkAddict]

23. My name will be Sarah

in a new life. Pray for me, because evidently King George has kidnapped Him and is holding Him for bloody ransom.

November 2004 will be too late for salvation from this "pleasant" Hell. Perhaps, ballad-like, I'll make my bed...

[Tinoire]

25. Terrific! I am as in awe of your writing here

as I am in awe of your passionate posts in I/P, GD and LBN.

Kudos to you my friend. I am going to collate and print this off tomorrow at work so I can read it all again!

Peace

[DUreader]

28. kick

[mcar]

32. This was so moving

and frightening and real in today's America. Thank you for it.