PIA ...poor in America

[undergroundpanther]

poorinusa

By Vi Ransel

9/1/07

It’s an ancient tradition derived
from the scapegoat of Leviticus
whereby the wrongs of others
are transferred to an innocent

who’s then sent out alone to die
symbolically bearing others’ sins,
absolving from greed, lust, pride and hate
the community that condemned him.

A corpse is laid out, sin eater employed
to eat bread and salt from its belly
thereby absorbing the corpse’s sins
for the wages of just a few pennies.

Relegated to the wrong side of the tracks
in housing fallen to disrepair
destitute even of hope
a place one stumbles only in error.

The poor clean the toilets, wait the tables,
kill the meat and mow the lawns,
raise the children of the “Upper” Class,
walk their pampered dogs and park their cars.

They assemble the latest electronics,
sew our blue jeans and our wedding gowns.
When we buy cheap Chinese goods at Wal-mart
they’re the “associates” who check us out.

The poor care for other people’s parents
left alone and sad in nursing homes.
They’re the receptionists in upscale spas,
the charming girls in nail salons.

They’re dishwashers who scrape half-full plates
left by those who can afford to go out to eat.
They stock store shelves and work in warehouses
where corporations ship and receive.

They empty bed pans and wipe up vomit.
They’re janitors and maintainence men.
And a lot of them help to build the jails
they’re disproportionately incarcerated in.

The people they serve hardly speak to them
though they provide indispensible services
because they’re living proof of a “lower” calss,
which makes most Americans nervous.

The fact that they exist at all is a slap
in the face of the American polity,
so they’re treated like a shameful excresence
on the ass of American society.

But like the ghetto homelands of South Africa,
America has embarrassing pockets of poverty.
And the economic apartheid we practice,
makes the poor exiles in their own country.

And when the poor are all used up, having been
consumed by predatory corporations,
they’re discarded like so much garbage
for being too old, too sick or disabled.

These castoffs through no fault of their own
are condemned by the corporate supremacists
who looted their pensions and 401Ks
to eke out a long and miserable existence.

It’s gone on so long it seems normal,
and corporate-owned media report it that way.
It’s as if poverty were invsible
and America’s conscience had been mislaid.

So the sin eaters continue to scramble
for scraps from the CORPSE-porations’ table,
bearing the burden of unpardonable sin,
our homegrown, American scapegoats.

And treating the poor as if this is their fault
hides the fact that it is America’s decision
to absolve the criminal perpetrator
and blame the sin-eating victim.

So you’ll never see a T-shirt that says
“Poor and Proud in the U.S.A.”
because in the United States of America
the P.I.A. are M.I.A.
Share and Enjoy:
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[flashl]

1. K&R

[annabanana]

2. shamefully true. . . k&r. . . . n/t

[knitter4democracy]

3. Very true.

K&R.

[G_j]

4. K&R

[bobbolink]

5. It reminds me of what Barbara Ehrenreich said at the end of her book, [u]Nickel and Dimed[/u]

"p.220 When poor single mothers had the option of remaining out of the labor force on welfare, the middle and upper middle class tended to view them with a certain impatience, if not disgust. the welfare poor were excoriated for their laziness, their persistence in reproducing in unfavorable circumstances, their presumed addictions, and above all for their "dependency. Here they were, content to live off "government handouts" instead of seeking "self-sufficiency," like everyone else, through a job. They needed to get their act together, learn how to wind an alarm clock, get out there and get to work. But now that government has largely withdrawn it's "handouts", now that the overwhelming majority of the poor are out there toiling in Wal-Mart or Wendy's --well, what are we to think of them? Dis approval and condescension no longer apply, so what outlook makes sense?

"Guilt, you maybe thinking warily. Isn't that what we're supposed to feel? But guilt doesn't go anywhere near far enough; the appropriate emotion is shame--same at our own dependency, in this case, on the underpaid labor of others. When someone works for less pay than she can live on--when for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently--then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The "working poor", as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropist of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.

p. 221 "Someday, of course, --and I will make no predictions as to exactly when--they are bound to tire of getting so little in return and to demand to be paid what they're worth. There'll be a lot of anger when that day comes, and strikes and disruption. But the sky will not fall, and we will all be better off for it in the end."