"Safety Net" by Pulizer-Prize-winning political cartoonist, Tom Toles @ Washington Post.
I’m a patriot and I have declared war on the American poor. No American should be poor, period. America is too good for poverty. We’re better than China, India and all the rest who treat their people like parts easily replaced daily like dirty socks. I LOVE AMERICA, my family, my neighbors… I love everyone, in theory…I can also demonstrate TOUGH LOVE for the whole world by not giving in to the temptation to lower our American standard of living just to compete with the Third World. Let them fight for our scraps if they won’t raise their own standard for their people. Let them be the ones who keep giving up and giving in. Let them be the slaves but not Americans. We are the land of the free, home of the brave and that’s not a cliche if we truly are free. It’s a joke if we’re not. I’m brave enough to admit I’m a Hater. God how I detest poverty. Do the poor dress nice? Do they smell good? Do they talk about anything fun? Are they ever having fun? Admit you do too; own up; every American hates poor people and poverty. Even the American poor hate their own poverty, they hate themselves when they take a handout because America is too good for charity. We Americans are all too good for it, without exception.
By raising the stakes at home, we declare war on the poor everywhere. To hell with poverty and anyone who wants poverty to continue to exist here. To hell with anyone who thinks it’s part and parcel to American Capitalism. The only corporations who want Americans to be poor are the ones feeding off their sick and dessicated, walking corpses. Those corporations need to die out and quick. Yes, we need to send them to the hell they would make us remain in, the hell where America continues to suck majorly: the bizarro world of the broken system, insanity, failure, and obsolescence.
After years of sitting on the fence regarding health care, I’ve finally settled in favor of single payer healthcare to salvage our broken system (though it would be better, IMO, to scrap the system and start over, I’m being practical. This is a fairly quick fix.) In fact, I find now that due to the changing needs of the marketplace that favor flexibility and innovation, I’m in favor of a number of socialist improvements that would strengthen the American workforce.
The deciding factor was my realization that technological advancement and market demand for innovation will render jobs obsolete faster than Americans can adapt for some time to come (it may eventually level out but not for the foreseeable future). Innovation means regularly dispensing with the old. That equates to jobs and people. And I’m not talking about COBOL people trying to compete in our present marketplace, I’m talking about everything changing on a dime and suddenly they’re singing, “Brother, can you spare a dime?“. We’re in a technological boom comparable to the Industrial Revolution. This is our Technological Revolution. The market demands we respond quickly with highly specialized and skilled labor. If we don’t take care of our people, there will evolve a new poor, not just what strict authoritarians have traditionally considered as those who fail. Telling them to man up is tantamount to declaring, “Let them eat cake!” We’ve seen how well that went over. Share the cake Americans. There’s enough for everyone. If we don’t, America gets a major FAIL.
Conservative arguments against measures to ensure the general welfare always have a moral flavor. But their attitudes were traditionally against rewarding the lazy or stupid. They favor education but are strongly against free handouts. “Nobody gets a free lunch!” In theory, with Capitalism, the cream is supposed to rise to the top and the dregs to the bottom. That’s no longer the norm. The new paradigm is more like Russian Roulette. Some win, some lose, and it’s remarkably random. This new random poor will contain some of our smartest and best who were simply just unlucky if luck fell in favor of innovation in a different direction. We still need them sound of body and mind and stable enough to respond to new demands. We can’t afford to let anyone fail. Especially not Americans who can adapt and learn new skills and continue to make a contribution to the betterment of society.
As it stands, you go to school, do well, get a great job, do great on the job working for a great company but still, you may be quickly rendered obsolete if new technology emerges that matches public demand. We need a safety net to allow people time to learn and adapt, ESPECIALLY people from rural areas who have less access to jobs and higher education. We need solidarity across the board, coast to coast, rural to urban, across all sectors. As it stands, a safety net only exists for people who already have economic security going into the job force and throughout OR people who are already poor. What good are they to progress and innovation as they are, unskilled and uncouth? The “safety net” for the poor is not such that adequately lifts them from poverty so they can keep America on top. You know the saying, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach him to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime”. This is NO LONGER TRUE if it’s a one-time opportunity. That man or woman is going to need to learn to fish differently maybe two or three times in their life and they will need time to adapt. As for the poor, the poor don’t get the chance to learn to fish for the good jobs, no matter how smart or capable they are. If they don’t have the education, they are eliminated from fishing. They are useless. So I hate the poor. Let’s get rid of them by assimilating them into the comfort of the middle. There’s a reason there’s less crime and violence in the suburbs. If everyone had their basic needs met, we’d be restored to a more idyllic era on the social level. So long as some flourish at the expense of others, there will be violence and crime. Eliminate violence and crime by eliminating poverty. Go on and hate it if such violence of emotion may motivate you to action on behalf of the common good.
In the diversity of America, we have a significant class disparity. I’m not against the rich, just the poor! We are not so diverse, we are mostly moderately poor. Very few people are actually rich and even fewer own corporations. If the cream actually rose to the top, wouldn’t there be more rich people in America, assuming America is so “great”? Problem is, coming from money doesn’t make people smarter or better at their jobs. If we commit to classism, we’ll be less competitive. Classism is not a moral viewpoint, it’s based in greed, selfishness, and bigotry. The old fallback arguments about taxes being a theft of labor are just lazy thinking in our present world when no one is actually free from risk of the bullet of poverty that hits at random. Conservatives and libertarians need to catch up to the present now, before they become victims of their retrograde thinking. The poor are no longer just “junkies, welfare moms, and drunk, deadbeat dads”. They are potentially anyone at all at any time.
From poet, Kenneth Patchen’s “Journal of Albion Moonlight”:
“I hate the poor. Once again: I hate the poor. Oh yes, the kingdom of heaven – through the eye of the needle; but I have no use for their heaven, I could invent fifty better ones in a single day. I was born of the poor. I never had enough to eat. I never had decent clothes. I couldn’t stomach it. I said: I won’t be poor. I go hungry often enough now, but I am not ‘of the poor.’ I am richer than the richest banker. Because: I hate the poor out of my love for them. Until all men unite in hating the poor, there can be no new society. Stalin loves the poor – without them he could not exist. The revolutions of the future must be directed not against the rich but against the poor. To be poor means to be blind, demoralized, debased. The poor have been the slop-pails of capitalism, repositories for all the filth and brutality of a filthy, brutal world. Do not liberate the poor: destroy them – and with them all the jackal-Stalins that feast on their hideous, shrunken bodies. How the Church and the false revolutionaries draw together: love the poor – for they are humble. I say hate the poor for the humility which keeps their faces pressed into the mud. The poor are the product of cruel and false society. Lift them to the stars; tell them to walk proudly on this earth: the cathedrals and broad roads were made by the labor of their hands; it is the duty of all true revolutionists not only to restore these things into their hands but also – and this is the key – to put them into their heads. Empty stomachs, empty heads: fill both with good food. Don’t shove Peter the Great back into their throats.”
Get sick once without insurance and it can ruin your whole family’s ability to adapt for a long time to come. That hurts America’s pride. Morality aside, that’s not good for this country’s work force. Having a cowboy attitude for Lady Luck bestowing wealth at whim is stupid when you have to gamble with four to six years of expensive schooling beforehand. What a waste of money. What a waste of time. What a bore.
Our educational system needs updating as well. Education is too expensive and brief. Education must be ongoing. A college degree in our present system saddles our children with debt at the outset. What’s the purpose of that? Is the piece of paper really necessary? Is that an impressive reward if it’s a degree in some obsolete programming language? Who cares? Like that will win you a job in three years when your shiny cool fresh-out-of-college-job disappears. In the spirit of Web 2.o Socialism like Wikipedia, all classes should be broadcast online for free and Internet access to educational materials, lectures, and syllabus should be free to all. Some are already. It’s time to end the impediments to Americans who want to gain the skills necessary to compete on the international technological market. People who are sick or eating out of dumpsters are not going to be able to adapt and compete intellectually. Employers should not expect people to come with a degree. If they’re not going to offer on the job training, they should just offer an interview and competency test to demonstrate proficiency. Anything else is discrimination. Requiring people to pay for their right to compete for a job is discrimination based on class.
To think of a new model for the job marketplace, use the success of Wikipedia for an example. If Wikipedia came in editions that were only available for purchase, that would be like the old encyclopedias that have, like print in general, become increasingly obsolete. If people don’t like that edition of Wikipedia and it’s fixed in that state, unable to be corrected until the next version arrives on the market, that edition having failed could mean the failure of Wikipedia in toto and would mean the end of future Wikipedias. A more flexible and adaptive type of information matrix would take it’s place. Wikipedia is the success that it is today for the very reason that jobs are being rendered obsolete. Wikipedia’s success would mean that Encyclopedia Brittanica would fail. All those smart people at Brittanica lose their jobs. Are they out on the street? Or should they log on and help to continue to improve the new, adaptive Wikipedia or Linux or provide open-source software? Well, there’s no job and paycheck in doing so, however, it’s an activity that’s in the interest of the common good. It’s volunteerism that is nowadays, more or less taken for granted. It’s labor expended for one’s fellow humans with no pat on the back. You never get to see these gift laborers who share their wealth of knowledge and expertise for good. How can we ensure they don’t die of starvation or illness for continuing to improve a system that rendered their livelihood obsolete? With a new safety net provided in favor of innovation. Socialist Capitalism 2.o.
I honestly think that most corporations will be in favor of this improvement of the American workforce. They are presently looked at to provide benefits but if everyone has benefits, their competitive incentives will be of a different kind. Instead of people competing for the best job to get fringe benefits like comprehensive health care, now how about the best corporations offer Lasik surgery or physical therapy or a newly beautiful set of teeth? Or a company credit card? Sure, some have this already but in general, I think this type of improvement (eliminating the bottom) could lead to a shift in quality of life all the way to the top. America’s new “American Dream” will once again, inspire emulation rather than revulsion from the world for being fascist and outmoded. If our present tactic was working out we would be more competitive than we are. Don’t tell me Americans in general aren’t motivated by the finer things and that this method won’t make America a better place to live and work! That aside, the sad fact is, unless America provides a better package to working people, America will not compete with China or elsewhere. We’re going to have to address the fact that Americans are not motivated to excellence by the promise of their basic needs being covered if they do well. We’re motivated by our individual affinities. This will not change. From a moral and free-market standpoint, rewarding Americans with something they actually want, not just need, is win/win.
