See what I’ve written earlier about degrees of sickness. And stop shouting.
Yeah, but if he called himself “poor”, he’d be an idiot.
No, I’m pretty sure it’s a log. scale. The differences are small. Also, neat trick getting running water and a tolet in that tent.
They’d have every right to.
Yeah, compared to some, I’m just swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck. Which has what the fuck to do with anything, exactly?
When somebody’s riding the moral highhorse as hard as you, it’s a little relevant if you turn out to be richer than the people you’re trying to rip a new one. I mean if some wealthy dipshit starts tearing into the lower classes because they aren’t starving like the Somalians he saw on t.v., he would need to be beaten and introduced to the concept of nationalized wealth. (IMHO.)
On the other hand if you actually can’t afford an apartment with running water, you can ride the pony of moral outrage until the apocalypse. But it’s a little hard to figure how having *seen * poor people earns you that.
You Americans are all alike. Always overstressing for the wrong occasions.
Since you didn’t get the definition of poverty everyone in that thread was using, I think I understand your reaction better. The thread was about how well one could get along at the official poverty level. I don’t recall anyone whining about being the poorest lil ole person in the whole world. If someone had, they would have indeed merited your scorn.
Don’t do sarcasm very well, do you? I knew exactly what that thread was about, which was why I opened a new thread to bitch about it, rather than hijack that one with my observations. I didn’t say anyone in particular was whining, did I?
Also don’t do sarcasm very well, do you? Matter of fact, I make much less than your US poverty level in a year. Does that give me a licence to post, Oh arbiter of my posting rights?
You just don’t get it, do you? I was not tearing into “the lower classes” (now there’s a telling slip), I was tearing into those who aren’t poor, but assume the mantle of poverty.
I have no problem with “nationalised wealth”, BTW - read the anarchism thread from a couple months back.
I won’t address whether this “you have to be one to make observations about it” fallacy is just the dumbest thing I’ve heard today.
I’m going to support MrDibble here and say that the thing he’s criticising are people that perceive being poor with no conception of how bad being poor could actually be.
There’s a broad gulf between the admittedly very stressful position of carefully, “trying to make ends meet,” and being actually impovrished.
The perfect example of this is (sorry to invoke an apparently absent poster) Even Sven. Even after her thread about inheriting $20,000, she was never lacking for calories to survive upon, basic clothing, the chance to use public transportation or a bike or even a cheap car, sanitation, or clean drinking water. If she had broken her arm or fallen deathly ill, she wouldn’t curl up into a ball and just hope she lived, she would go to the ER and receive adequate medical treatment for acute, life-threatening injuries. Despite the suggestions from many that she simply move to a cheaper part of the country, she refused to leave the second most expensive housing market in the nation because she didn’t want to leave her friends and community.
If someone is in the type of “true” proverty that Dibble is talking about, they wouldn’t hesitate for an instant simply to go somewhere where they could easily and drasticaly improve their material means.
Despite all of this, as MrDibble suggests, she wore the mantle of, “poverty.” Certainly, she wasn’t wealthy by any means and I’m confident that she experienced a great deal of very real stress in her life due to her financial situation. Certainly, improving the situaton of the lower-middle class should be something that the nation takes seriously, but it’s a mistake to think that such a situation is in anyway comparable to the poverty of the DR Congo or a similar nation.
I’m not absent, I’m living in Mbalmayo, Cameroon as a Peace Corps volunteer, and the Internet connections here arn’t so hot.
Can we just say that being poor sucks no matter where you are? I’ve seen a lot of poverty- and a lot of different kinds of poverty. Being poor in the first world isn’t the same as being poor in the third. Being a poor substiance farmer isn’t the same as being a poor urban slum dweller. The poverty in Africa is not the poverty in India. One thing about being poor in America is it cuts you off from the culture. It cuts you off from chances to be in public space, to interact with and meet people, and to have a rich life as part of your community. Our lives, on the whole, involve spending money and if you don’t have that money you miss out on a lot. It’s not like that in less consumer oriented cultures- there is still a lot of joy to be had from family and religion and a sense of home even if you do fill up on manioc because you can’t afford meat. Honestly a pit latrine and washing up from buckets pulled up from the well seems horribly bad, but after the first week they rate pretty low on the “misery” scale. Life is life no matter where you are.
Have I been “rich beyond comparion” in my poorer years? Yes and now. I had a very modern clean apartment that would boggle their minds. But when I tell my friends here that I probably won’t have kids because they are too hard to afford and my last apartment could fit in their living room, and they freak out that I am missing the most essential part of life. I had a bus to get on, but I didn’t have the much more convient ten cent motorcycle taxis that everyone here can afford. And when we get broke, both me and my buddies have “the week I ate only beans” stories to swap.
You get marriage proposals almost daily here- it’s the standard way to flirt. I’ve asked a few people if they’d go back to the US with me if we did get married. I think you’d be surprised at how many people said “no”. Poverty or richeness doesn’t mean a thing if you are cut off from your loved ones and your culture and the oppertunity to persue the life you’ve envisioned for yourself.
Well said. Thank you for sharing. And thank you for your service.
Can I ask a question? Is your affinity with the poor at all based on your spirituality? Not to say religion informs all altruism, but I am just wondering what your case may be…
Well then, allow me to channel Bob Newhart for a second and say, “stop it, just stop it!”
Everyone knows (and research proves beyond about $10,000) that money won’t buy happiness. Blame “American culture” fo being materialistic if you want, but if you’d rather have happiness that derives from religion and family, go to church and start spending time with your family. The Mormons are always recruiting and they’ll be happy to set you up with a family quick-snap as well if you’re looking for on of those. And again, sorry to knock California again, but I’ve talked to a lot of people that have lived both in So-Cal and other places around the United States and they found So-Cal to be a particularly image-obsesed and fashion conscious area. If you want friendly people that will permit you to participate in the community without the accompanyment of a Gucci handbag or $180 jeans, don’t try to get in with a bunch of pricks from So-Cal culture.
My dislike of the shallowness of certain Southern Californians (Dopers excepted, of course) is second to nobody’s, threemae, but I’d be interested in knowing why you think that “So-Cal culture” has anything to do with any of even sven’s posts.
AFAIK, during her time as a Doper she has lived in (1) Santa Cruz, (2) Oakland, and (3) Cameroon. The first two are not only in Northern California, but are notable for how antithetical they are to ways that typify image-conscious Southern Californians. The third location is, of course, not in California at all, and if you’d taken 15 seconds to search her posts before making your post #106 upthread, you would have seen her “Greetings from Cameroon” OP of July 9th, thus sparing yourself the embarrassment of referring to her as an “apparently absent poster”.
I grew up during the depression,we didn’t think of ourselves as poor;we had a roof over our head (it leaked in many places so there were a lot of buckets sitting around when it rained),Many days we just had potatoes and burnt flour gravey to eat. The government gave us some canned meat,dried apricots,flour,sugar,and rice. We wore clothes that didn’t always fit,but they covered our backsides. We had no electricity,we pumped our water,and used an out house,then in 1942 we got electricity. Our idea of being poor was like a story of the little match girl who went around looking in peoples windows envying the ones who had a lamp and a little kerosene stove for heat.We stuffed news papers in the cracks of the walls to keep out the wind.
My grandchildren think poverty is not having a room of their own with a TV, Computer,stereo, skis, car, cell phone, the brand name clothes,air conditioning,etc.
Monavis
Alright, fine, I’ll conceed the point of not having stalked even sven sufficiently to know that she:
a. Wasn’t off the boards.
b. Didn’t live in So-Cal, but in San Francisco and Santa Cruz, two of the most reasonable and fair housing markets in the nation.
c. Unlike those pricks in LA, the people in San Francisco hate materialism and yet they’re still to blame for fostering a culture of materialism where one simply cannot be content with adequate housing, running water, heating and cooling, healthcare, and nutrition that won’t seriously shorten one’s lifespan because they’re, “denied a chance to participate in the culture.”
My apologies.
The rest of my post still stands.
even sven, glad to hear that you are getting along well in Cameroon and that you seem to be enjoying your work.
I teach 6th grade in a low-income, high-immigrant area. The vast majority of these children live below the poverty line.
I teach them–well, I tell them; whether they absorb and learn it is another thing–that the poorest child in the room is richer than most of the rest of the world.
I hope they can understand that someday.
I am with you on this;it isn’t what you have that makes you really rich but the kind of person you are. Education in itself is riches, and I commend you for teaching as you do. Some one once told me the only way riches can be of value is in how much you can give away.
Good luck to you and your students!
Monavis