It used to be in America that it was easy to hate the poor because poverty was something that happened elsewhere, usually to someone with darker skin than you. This didn't stop the politicians from whipping up fear and hatred, but at least America was prosperous enough to make sure the fear was more theoretical than real, if you lived in the right neighborhood. But now, with the deliberate destruction of the American middle class, poverty is just not for people of color anymore. Your next door neighbor, right here in Suburb Beautiful, could lose his job, his pension, and his savings, and be plunged into poverty. Has that made Americans more compassionate to the poor? Not exactly. In fact, the more people see poverty, the more people hate the poor. And you are more likely to hate people poorer than you if you are a member of the working poor.
The Tampa Bay Times recently printed an article by political writer Alex MacGillis. He tackles the well worn subject of exactly why the working poor vote Republican supposedly against their own interests , which just happened yet again in Kentucky. Turns out that the working poor, the next to last quintile on the income ladder, resent the government aid that people in the lowest quintile get, because they feel they don't deserve it. Same song, different race. The fact that the poor now in America are much more likely now to be a neighbor or even a member of your own family has not changed white America's hatred in the least. If fact they are doubling down on it. Everyone now has a story about how Cousin Randy won't work because he's hooked on Oxy but still gets a government check. Or how the Joneses next door bought a steak with their food stamps. It doesn't matter if these stories are true or not, they spread like wildfire, much like the stories Reagan told about welfare queens. Everybody says that they don't mind people getting assistance if "they really need it" but everyone assumes that people getting assistance don't need it or don't deserve it. Its the same old story, except the hatred is directed toward your neighbor. Very sad. In a time when everyone in the bottom 90% is getting squeezed to the limit by the elites incompetence and greed, the working poor are trying to keep their self esteem by looking down on people less fortunate then them rather than showing compassion for them. I, and my fellow lefties, are forever hoping that people will join forces with their neighbor to fight against the common enemy that is destroying us all. And of course we are forever disappointed.
We are losing because we do not realize that the enemy is Original Sin. You might wonder how the scorned and hated poor people are reacting to their neighbor's cruelty. Well we know one thing: they are not voting. At all. It is obvious these people have been so browbeaten that they do not have the self esteem to fight for themselves. They do not believe that Jesus Christ, through his Passion, Death and Resurrection, gives hope, and most of all, DIGNITY to us all, no matter how poor we are. You do not hate your neighbor if you believe that Jesus loves them and gives then eternal life. Nor do you cave in to despair OR the scorn of a $9.00 an hour Wal-Mart clerk if you believe you are the recipient of Infinite Love. The choice is ours. We can all take solace in the Infinite Power of Jesus Christ and make a better life for all of us. Or we can believe we are on our own, and let Evil pick us off one by one. It is obvious that too many Americans are taking the wrong path. Soon, the people lucky enough to have a job will too, get picked off.
