Poverty and propaganda

[nadinbrzezinski]

Here is one that struck me as interesting. We went visiting Guanajuato, where of course there are some beggars.

My niece's comment...there is a lot of poverty in Mexico...(true)

So I pointed out to her that there are counties in the US that clearly compete with Mexican poverty. She argued to the ends of the earth that in the United States this could not be. First she lives a very protected life. Second, we rarely are exposed to it, and beware of the politico who speaks of this. His, or her carreer will be over in short order.

There are days I am tempted to travel to those specific counties in several southern states, or the Rez, and damn it...document it.

Did I mention Imperial County in California?

I dd practice taking documentary pictures of this Mexican poverty, alas they will live in my drive. Or they will until I can use them to compare and contrast...I feel the first step in dealing with it is to openly face it, and not hide our head in collective denial.

[ananda]

1. Your niece needs to see the poverty...

... and meet poor people in person.

Our mother used to take us into the homes of the poor and meet the people. It taught us about poverty that can be learned no other way.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. The American myth is fully ingrained.

I can't help it.

I have never stepped into the home of a poor person in the states, saw my share of it in Tijuana. I am far from denial, and the recent conversations at Occupy are exactly about that.

But she lives a very sheltered life...and there is, just not as bad.

My mom, I get it, she lives in Mexico and the image we project abroad does not include that. So found some photos from Tennessee. Ah lovely web. She truly did not realize it, and compare and contrast was easy.

But we truly go out of our way to deny we even have poor.

[Zalatix]

2. America's poor don't matter.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. It's not that, we go out of our way to make them

an invisible class.

[Brickbat]

5. Many politicians, in fact, talk about poverty at great length with no ill effects on their careers.

And I disagree -- people are often exposed to poverty in this country, but this country also makes it easy to ignore it.

[jwirr]

6. Nadin, what kind of social programs do the poor of Mexico have access to? Things like food stamps,

etc. One of the things about poverty in the US is that we cover it up with these programs as much as we can. There is poverty in every county in the USA it is just hidden. If we were to stand on a street corner begging in most counties we would be arrested.

An interesting thing I just read about is the poor laws in Scotland (and I think they applied to Ireland also) in the days of Cromwell. The Parliment issued a law that made it just fine to kidnap the poor for transportation to the West Indies and the Americas. Men, women and children. Anyone who could be forced to work for the plantation owners. So Newt is not suggesting anything that the world has not seen before. In the end the system was changed because it was so corrupt. The bottom line was not what was good for the people but how the rich could make money off of selling the poor.

[Zalatix]

8. My question is, why did the poor rarely ever rebel?

Being sent to slavery in the Americas was pretty close to worse-than-death.

[jwirr]

11. Yes, many did die because of a combination of harsh treatment and the tropical heat/disease. As to

rebelling I think that they did if they could but many of those taken were very young - even as young as 5 years old. The first ones sent were the prisoners that Cromwells troops captured (whole families) during the Civil War.

[Zalatix]

13. I guess the Bolshevik Revolution was an anomaly in history

where the poor and peasants overwhelmed the rich?

[jwirr]

14. Not totally, the French Revolution was pretty much the poor against the rich also.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Right now they cover them with the segura popular

Which covers all kinds of medical and food needs. I may be critical of the PAN in some ways, like their soft destruction of the division between the state and the church, but the segura as expanded greatly the safety net.

They are having the same exact problem actually that we do in the states. You may have the system in place, now people using it s a whole different story.

The lady that does my mom's hair,to give you a specific example, waited until she had a serious arm fracture to finally get it. There was no way she could afford the 35k pesos it would have run her otherwise. It ran her killing a tree and she got extremely good care.

Another specific example, right now the government is trying hard to support native populations with food and water in areas affected by climactic change, or by now you'd be seeing pictures of kids with bloated stomachs.

[jwirr]

12. That is good that they at least have something in place. Their population alone would make it hard

for it to work really well.

[joshcryer]

7. UNICEF, Safe Drinking Water:

United States: 100

Mexico: 88

Source: http://www.unicef.org/specialsession/about/sgreport-pdf/03_SafeDrinkingWater_D7341Insert_English.pdf

Access to Electricity: http://www.iea.org/weo/electricity.asp

31 million people in Latin America have no access.

I've lived in hell holes with roaches, forest roaches, that could just come in the cracks of my house in deep southern Alabama. But I had air conditioning, clean drinking water, and electricity. And it was subsidized.

I say this coming from a very poor background (bottom 1%, currently in the bottom 30% or something like that).

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. What I am saying is something else

Americans from higher social strata are barely aware this exists in the us. And there are a few counties that are just as bad, with no safe drinking water or electricity..

I mean we can count them with fingers of hands but they do exist.