JASON MILLER: A Little Poverty Never Hurt Anybody

[Tace]

Ruthless Exploiters, Inc.

by Jason Miller -- World News Trust

"It is like paradise and hell. They throw our petitions in the dustbin. They have everything. We have nothing.… If we protest, they send soldiers. They sign agreements with us and then ignore us. We have graduates going hungry, without jobs. And they bring people from Lagos to work here.” --Eghare W.O. Ojhogar, chief of the Ugborodo community in Delta State (of Nigeria)

In describing the situation in Nigeria, Eghare presents us with a microcosm of a modern Inferno, Purgatorio, e Paradiso (about which there is little divine or comic). In the timeless struggle between the “haves and “have nots,” alarming numbers of “useless eaters” (“have nots”) are sliding from Purgatorio into the abyss of abject poverty’s Inferno.

And what heinous transgression did they commit that necessitated their banishment into the Inferno? They were born, of course. Most of those experiencing the misery of indigence had the misfortune to enter this world bearing a losing lottery ticket.

From their birth, the psyches of the poor and homeless in the “developed” nations and those of the impoverished in the “developing” nations are battered with the hopelessness and despair of their harsh realities. (Realities carefully created and perpetuated in a variety of ways by their “betters”).

After spending their formative years pitted against nearly overwhelming economic and social forces, the message many of them internalize probably reads something like this:

Sorry, washout. You are the wrong color, ethnicity, caste, social class, or nationality. Surviving to age 40 will be no small task for you. And if you manage to do so, your chances of significantly bettering your situation are quite slim. After all, the lottery winners invest a great deal in maintaining structural barriers to hold you down. But the good news is that you can add meaning to your miserable existence by working for slave wages (or simply withering and dying) to ensure that the tiny percentage of humanity enjoying economic Paradiso continues to do so and that the shrinking number of fortunates in Purgatorio experience a degree of comfort and security.

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http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=4032

[undergroundpanther]

1. Kick and It makes me wanna cry

I am one in America's inferno..just on the outer edge tho..I wish I was never born.I feel the grind of not having,the invalidation,the humiliation the scraping by the fear of not making it everyday it lays on me like lead bricks ,My dreams can never be,my hopes are not allowed,I will never make it.There are a billion more fortunates that will be privileged and chosen over me and It hurts.I hate it when pollyanna people say shitty little quips to me like rising tides lift all boats and cheesy new age crap Like I CHOSE my life situation and YOU can better yourself try HARDER,and have a happy attitude and everything will get better by MAGIC,despite having a disability makes EVERYTHING harder,when you are living below the poverty line,the successful little twits are so blinded by their fortune they Never get enough EMPATHY to give,to help to get their soft hands dirty and do what it takes to help they write checks to churches and charities and think that is what helps the poor.. Checks do not Financial EQUALITY AND social respect and human DIGNITY on a social level make... you, dumb ass self congratulating fortunate people..A little taste of poverty could do wonders in letting you see how we feel and teaching YOU to feel genuine empathy for us in a way that can help in real life, that is not on paper..