You should add those to the comments. Because, yes, definitely.

But most of the time, North Americans think that class differences don't exist in North America, which I think is the point that Scalzi was making.

"You should add those to the comments. Because, yes, definitely."

No need; I just put a link back to here from there.

Good points, and the poor in America are a lot better off than the poor in many countries.

And yet I still can't get over the people who don't have enough perspective not to say "well, why didn't those silly people get in their cars and drive to a hotel somewhere else when they said to evacuate?"

At the same time as the assumption of a car is silly, so is the assumption that travel without one is impossible.

Well, being currently deployed, I can tell you that's a load of hogwash:)

It's not a case of better or worse. It's a case of utterly unrelated.

I think it serves no purpose to dismiss the poverty in this country by saying its worse in other countries. Poverty is bad no matter what nation you are poor in. I have lived in the poorest neighborhoods in New Orleans. I have known the people who have to shop at the corner store rather then the grocery store because they have no way of getting there, ultimately paying more for unhealthy food. Who buy chicken necks at .39 cents a pound to feed a houseful of extended family. Women who have prostituted themselves to put food in their children's mouths. Families evicted from tiny apartments that cost $175.00 a month because they have no jobs or skills to get them. Yes, it is easier to be poor in America, but is is never easy to be poor.

Who dismissed poverty in this country again?

that made me cry.

thanks for these posts, i added you.

it's funny, really.
i've often acheived levels of poverty undreamed of by most americans...
and i'm pretty well off by the standards of some other folk.
(mind you, it's not easy being poor and disabled in the states... but at least i'm NOT chained to a machine in a factory. it could always be worse.)

Well don't be silly. Who'd hire you to work in their factory.

>But you know what they say on the barstool, there's poor and there's poor. >Or an the economists put it, there's relative poverty, and then there is >absolute poverty.

I read this statement to be dismissive. I am sorry if I misread it, but I find that quite often when poverty is discussed it almost becomes like the "Old Welshman" Skit from Monty Python. "You call that poor?! We all 130 of my brothers and sisters lived in a shoe box!" "You call that poor? We would have killed for a shoe box! We lived 12 deep in a water puddle!"

While all of these things are inhumane and inexcusable and I agree that no-one should have to live under the conditions you have listed, my feeling was Scaliz's point was a comment on poverty in the US. And while its important that we remember that thousands of poor people died in the tsunami last winter, and millions more live in poverty still, the difference is Thailand does not claim to be the richest most powerful nation in the world. The US does and yet 100,000 citizens (1/4 of Orleans Parish's population) and uncounted dead are trapped in a city due to their own poverty, a poverty that middle class americans need to understand exists not just in so called "3rd world nations" but in their very own nation.

I have read your posts. I have found you very intelligent, far more eloquent then I, but I worry that we will lose sight of the fact that while conditions in those nations are deplorable, they are not 100% the United States responsibility to fix (though we as exploiters are responsible to a large extent). Where as the poverty at home, of our citizens is 100% our responsibility. This is not poverty in our backyard, this is poverty in the living-room.

Well, all I can say is that there IS relative poverty and absolute poverty. It's a term of art in economics, not something I made up.

I also believe that the US government is a major pillar of the world economic system as it stands, and everything from neo-liberalism as an ideology to simply installiing dictators in various underdeveloped nations play a huge role in global poverty. It's not a matter of the US not doing enough to "fix" global poverty, but of being the anchor of a system that perpetuates it. That's not going to change wih good thoughts and lectures about responsibility at all.

It'll most likely change when the people facing the conditions listed above can finally take no more.

Nick, absolutely. Good post.

While these conditions are indisputably horrible, and real, comparative language is really inappropriate when it comes from someone who has never known poverty of even the kind that people supposedly shouldn't be complaining about because their situation has never been *this* bad.

And who said anything should stop complaining about anything?

Sardonic today, are ya.

Man, just writing these things down in words can't even begin to describe what it's really like 'out there'. My shipmates get incensed when they get charged more than the locals for a beer. I just figure that it's only a fifty cent beer fer chrissakes...we can afford the extra fourty cents. I let them gouge me because I'm still exploiting them no matter how deep they gouge. I've slept in corrugated steel shacks and eaten strange meats with the locals. Not because they want my money, but because they want to know me. And vica versa. There is a lot I could say about this whole issue, but the only way to live with it is to go native as well as you can and not think about it. Because at the end of the day, the only person htere that you can really save is your whore. And sadly, she's part of the upper class because of her job skills. There is a lot I could say about all this because I've had to live off of food bank donations and vegetables I've stolen out of other peoples gardens. There is a lot I could say about $20.00 rolexes too. But I won't.

Let me just say that one of my favorite hoboes that I worked with when I was a social worker once told me that "there ain't a bum out here who doesn't have AT LEAST fifty dollars on him at any given moment. Unless they are on the dope..." That man never complained about his lot in life. And he was once a businessman.

No offense meant with the subject but I came from a country that is similar to what you describe in your first sentence. You can live like a king for the subsistence pay you get from the Navy or whatever, get underage whores for 10 bucks or less and look at the natives like they are all for sale. No wonder Americans are hated in other parts of the world even if they come bearing gifts or aid.

When poverty becomes a way of life for several generations it leads to total desperation that inevitably produces suicide bombers.

I know that in the military you are just doing your job, following orders, etc. Most are doing it in order to get a college education when you return home. So you see, there is no difference from the whores you deal with selling their services in order to survive and people "serving" Uncle Sam.

It was great pleasure to discover your LJ and read the comments as well. Great conversations. I hope you don't mind that I've added you to my friends list. If you do, just let me know and I'll delete, but I'll be disappointed.

Of course you can, and no need to ask permission.

Remarkable how much flak you get for pointing out how a huge chunk of the world lives.

There's this thing called "tone" which often seems to escape people like Nick.

You could prpbably add:

Being poor is having to walk 20 miles, every day, to the nearest supply of dirty water.

I went and looked at the supposed "being poor" list you linked to, I got to go "Yup been there" for alot of them but I know that thats not poor. Thank you for your dose of reality

UN hits back at US in report saying parts of America are as poor as Third World

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article311066.ece

Being poor is when your mom labels it a slumber party when you and your whole family have to sleep in sleeping bags on the floor because because you have no heat or beds to keep you warm in the house.

Don't the "poor of the industrial West" experience forcible labor, sexual slavery, health 'care' that kills you quicker, hunger, malnutrition, and fatally toxic housing? I thought they did.

Apparently I don't understand the supposed distinction between so-called "relative" and "absolute" poverty.

Funnie

Not nearly to the extent tht the poor of the developing world do. And indeed, when forced labor/sex slavery is discovered in pockets in the West, they're generally imports from the developing world.

You can put scare quotes around whatever terms you like, and refer to terms of art as "so-called" all you wish, but that still wouldn't make your ignorance as valuable as the knowledge of others.

I was wondering: where did you get these circumstances from? (Sorry, that sounds completely stupid.) I'm not trying to dispute their existance, I just wondered where you had found out about them. And I'm adding it to memories. :)

Oh, reading the papers and from having been a labor activist.

Do you know that for millions of people in this country born with a severe disability, they will have to find a way to live on $600 per month (with rare increases) for the rest of their lives?
That's nowhere near absolute poverty, but in the US, that's miserably poor, and about as low as you can go before you give up and live in your car. Of course, some of these folks are on the streets... I'm not talking about people who worked and became disabled (no stories about some guy at work who faked an injury, please), I'm talking about people who never had a chance. And we're also not just talking the children of drug-addicted welfare mothers either, as one person tried to tell me recently. If you were born with a severe disability like CP or downs syndrome or spina bifida, chances are that unless your parents were extremely wealthy before you were born, they will never become so. They are going to struggle hard to pay for your medical care. And the divorce rate for parents of children with a disability is far higher than the already-high US average. Most disabled children are raised by their mothers in a very difficult, financially stressed situation. And what do the severely disabled have to look forward to? Disability pays less than $600 per month to help these people live. If they have any ability to work whatsoever they can try to develop that through their state's vocational rehabilitation programs, but as a veteran of helping my daughter through programs in two states, I can tell you those were laughable at best. Just because these people have SOME disabilities does not mean they have NO abilities; many could work and lead happier lives if they had the resources and training they need to be successful. But inadequate equipment, too few staff members and no budget for adaptive computer technology means that my daughter and millions of others, face a life where they are not only poor and dependent, but are left feeling worthless too. These folks don't want a handout--they would be proud to work for their money. I hope this post doesn't make you feel bad, I hope it makes you ANGRY. I hope you imagine your child, your brother or sister in this situation. I hope you'll be moved to DO SOMETHING about this reality, whether it's to make a donation to the United Way, to volunteer to work with disabled kids, to mentor someone in the Voc Rehab program near you, or just to keep an open mind if you get an opportunity to employ someone with a disability. What I'm saying is that we should treat everyone with the respect they deserve as human beings and citizens of this country. In the US, it takes more than $600 a month to live, if you want to eat, too.

First I read Scalzi's post then I read this one. Have you ever heard the phrase "no matter how bad you have it, someone out there has it worse". I read both of these pages and felt my heart drop. Does it make me take pity on people? No, it simply reminds me to not forget where I came from. The way to live is, if you have, then give. I read responses to this post about how bad it is that he wrote about these things though never experiencing poverty. Who are you to judge? I have written many articles about things I have not personally experienced, but have deeply touched me. Whether the post is comparative or not doesn't matter. Poor, is poor, is poor. Whether you are barely making the light bill or having a flashlight up your butt after the diamond mine, the way you feel about your life makes the difference. Don't put these guys down for shedding light on a subject that needs exposure.
Next time one of you awareness bashers go to pay your internet bill, which you obviously have the money for, think about that guy or girl in your office that smells a little and never leaves for lunch. Who gets in trouble for making calls from work and works lots of extra hours.
Malina

Hey, I smell a little!

I've never been poor, but I've seen and gotten to know living as third-world poor. I suppose I should call this 'Seeing Poor.'

Seeing Poor is when the little girl playing in the street tells you she lives just down that way, and passing by three days later to see her whole family staying on a cardboard mat.

Seeing poor is when the street kid doesn't want you to spend five cents to buy him a banana, because he's had one meal that day, and he wants to wait until he needs it before he asks you.

Seeing poor is discovering the dollar you spent on notepads and pencils made it possible for a kid to stay in school a few more months.

Seeing poor is washing a woman bathe her baby in public, using a water bottle from the garbage that she's filled in a puddle because she has nowhere and nothing else.

Seeing poor is watching as the girl who's just gobbled three bananas in a row is surprised that she'll get another chance to eat that day.

Seeing poor is reading an article about malnutrition that says how people put soy sauce on rice when they can't afford a proper meal, and catching someone you know doing the same thing.

Seeing poor is learning how many people can't afford 'free' public schools.

Seeing poor is listening to your dad complain about growing up on powdered milk, and discovering people who think it's a miracle that they can get any at all.

Seeing poor is watching a woman living on the sidewalk set up a plastic bottle to collect the water dripping from someone else's air conditioner for drinking water, and counting herself lucky because she doesn't have to drink from the gutter like everyone else. Her children may get cancer in twenty years, but they won't die of dysentery next week.

Seeing poor is discovering that it's four times easier to buy a cigarette, and eight times easier to buy and individually wrapped Mento than a handful of peanuts or an egg.

Seeing poor is reasurring the woman who's just turned her husband into the cops for raping her daughter that she hasn't just condemned her children to death by starvation.

Seeing poor is when your parents come to visit and tip every waitress, cab driver and bellboy half a day's wage without thinking about it. And you don't correct them.

Seeing poor is learning why street kids really sniff glue. If they beg, find, or steal thirty cents that day, they can choose between buying breadrolls and stopping the hunger for a few hours, or a bottle of industrial adhesive from the hardware store that will stop them feeling hunger all day.

Seeing poor is telling the dentist at the free clinic that a toothbrush and water provides most of the benefits of regular brushing without toothpaste, and hearing that about half her patients will be able to afford a fifty-cent toothbrush every year.

Seeing poor is discovering that the government's managed to cut the price of AIDS medication down to a tenth of what it was, and still nobody can afford it.

Seeing poor is learning that people still die of rabies, untreated and alone in back rooms, and three hundred dollars saved six children's lives.

Seeing poor is learning how much a Japanese businessman is willing to pay for a virgin in some countries, and what happens to her after.

I'm not trying to take anything away from people who've had rented furniture, free school lunches, and bargain-bin shoes, but people I've seen and known and spoken with have lived the lives I've described, and very few of them have internet access to post for themselves.

I grew up poor in the UK, before my family made it into the middle class, and thence to Canada and then the US. No heat in the apartment, lunch frequently a buttered piece of bread, maybe with jam. No TV. No car. Father doing school alternate semesters because even with paid for education, the family had to eat. No complaints, but:

America is still probably the only nation on Earth where people living in "poverty" get medical treatment for obesity, own TVs and DVD players.

I'm also waiting for any of the outraged posters on this blog to write a check to a humanitarian charity or to the US Dept of Health and Human Services...or Education. Email me, I'll give you my address, forward the check for you, and report back here that your outrage isn't hypocrisy.

I'm not going to hold my breath.

In America, you don't get health care unless you are poor enough that you can't even afford shelter. Get a minimum wage job, that's about enough for rent, and maybe utilities, and some food, but no more than that. Yet at this point, unless you have minor children, you are making "too much money" to receive food or medical assistance. I have always worked, I have worked hard for 45 years, beginning at age 14, and will never have enough to retire on the pittance they are promising me for Social Security. I have never had any health insurance. I will never be able to replace my rotten, broken teeth. Meanwhile, I have a TV. I inherited it from my father. It still works. But I don't get cable, only use it to stream video from the internet. How do I afford internet? I live with all my grown children and grandchildren. My thirty year old daughter has Multiple Sclerosis, and severe asthma, and a small grant pays for her to do online college, (including the internet bill) while she is still not too disabled to do it, in the hopes she will continue to be able to work from home once her disease progresses to the point she can't physically attend a typical job. She has no health care, either, because she is only hospitalized two or three months per year, leaving her able to work for just above minimum wage to "support" herself and her daughter when not too ill. So she makes "too much money" for free health care. My other daughter and I moved in here to help take care of her, knowing the day will come when she is bedridden. But we do have a TV, and a cheap computer. No phone though. Wealthier people around here discard things like furniture, TVs and computers to buy newer ones, so even poor people can acquire them for little to no money. Poverty can take many forms.

I found this via Scalzi's blog, and that via filkertom. I see above that you don't need to be asked to be added to friends lists. I just like to let people know as a courtesy when I add them. So, I'm adding you.

Reading your post here, and reading Scalzi's "Being Poor," dredged up a whole slew of memories and reminded me again how fortunate I am to no longer live that way. And that I should do much more to help those who haven't been as fortunate.

Thank you.

Being poor is walking several miles to the local rice farmer to hull rice by hand in the morning. When coming home, your mother picks the pieces of rice that stuck to your clothes to cook for the family dinner.