Don't Say the "M" Word!
The Poor Are Invisible!
Whoever enters here honors me; whoever doesn’t- pleases me.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Live Yet Pre-recorded- Episode CVI of:
Don’t Say the “M” Word!
A Silent Radio Hour: Live Yet Pre-Recorded:
“I understand people believe I'm just a statistic
I say to them I'm different”
10th grader, Antwon Rose
“De l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace!” [“Audacity, audacity, always audacity!”]
-Georges Danton
“The power of the powerless!”
-Vaclav Havel
NSPB: Welcome “our” most cherished listeners! I’m the New Show Producer Becka or NSPB! We remain here in what’s known as Reject Square that place where the poor and unfortunate; the cast-offs and throw-a-ways of America gather because, in the words of Judy Streeter of Anderson, Indiana: ‘The youth have nowhere to go! They have no hope! They have no desires to do anything!’
J: And you can now find a Reject Square practically in any town or city here in the United States of Hey World! The Good Ole USofA’s Finally Become That Third World Country Those, Silly Fun Loving Neo-Liberals Desire It To Be or USHWTGOUSAFBTTWCTSFLNLDITB! Boo-yah!
D: Neo-Liberal Jonathan?
J: Neo-liberalism’s a policy model of social studies and economics that transfers control of economic factors to the private sector from the public sector! It takes from the basic principles of neo-classical economics suggesting that governments must limit subsidies while making reforms to tax laws in order to expand the tax base, reduce deficit spending, limit protectionism and open markets up to trade! It also seeks to abolish fixed exchange rates, back deregulation, permit private property and privatize businesses run by the state.
RAT: And to what purpose Jonathan?
J: Neoliberalism supports fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, privatization and greatly reduced government spending.
RAT: Austerity Jonathan?
J: Austerity policies generally increase unemployment as government spending falls. Cutbacks in government spending reduce employment in the public and may also do so in the private sector. Additionally, tax increases can reduce consumption by cutting household disposable income. Some claim that reducing spending may result in a higher debt-to-GDP or Gross Domestic Product ratio because government expenditure itself is a component of GDP.
RAT: Does austerity help, Jonathan?
J: Nah! You see! In the aftermath of the Great Recession austerity measures in many countries were followed by rising unemployment and debt-to-GDP ratios despite reductions in budget deficits! When an economy’s operating at or near capacity, higher short-term deficit spending or stimulus can cause interest rates to rise, resulting in a reduction in private investment, which in turn reduces economic growth. However! Where there’s excess capacity, the stimulus can result in an increase in employment and output!
RAT: So we can call that a big no, Jonathan?
J: Maybe! One never knows when it comes to economics, especially Wall-Street! Slippery as an eel! Anyway! The meaning of the term also shifted to indicate a more radical laissez-faire capitalist pool of ideas! Most scholars began to associate the term with Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. This new meaning of neo-liberalism, popular among Spanish-speaking scholars, diffused into the English-language study of the economy. However, the term is rarely heard in the United States.
RAT: Why Jonathan?
J: Because this approach has most famously been connected to various economic policies introduced in the United Kingdom by Margaret Thatcher and in the United States by Ronald Reagan!
RAT: Bad hombres both of ‘em!
J: Damn straight there partner! Some academics and analysts attribute the resurgence of neo-liberal economic theories in the 1970s and 1980s to financialization and indicated that the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009’s ultimately a result of such an approach to the economy.
RAT: And why Jonathan?
J: Because it supports laissez-fare economics and the freedom of people against an overpowering government. Liberalism’s more of a political philosophy that holds liberty to a high standard. It defines all social, economic and political aspects of society, such as the role of government, toleration, freedom to act, etc. Conversely, neo-liberalism focuses more on the markets! Neo-liberalism supports deregulation ending protectionism and freeing up economic markets.
RAT: And what has this done, Jonathan?
J: The focus on economic efficiency can, critics say, hinder other factors. For example, by assessing the performance of a public transit system as being purely economically efficient, it may lead to workers’ rights being considered a hindrance to performance!
RAT: And more to this Jonathan?
J: There’s political opposition and criticism of neoliberalism. First, the concept of globalization’s seen as a negative because it can destroy sovereign nations of their own right to self-determination! Secondly, replacing government-owned corporations with private ones can reduce efficiency! Critics also say while neo-liberalism can increase productivity, it may not be sustainable because of the world’s limited physical, geological space!
“Real” living human beings: What TheSASMO?
RAT: Basically folks! There are only so many resources to go around! Only so many markets to claim! So much oil to fight over! So much air, water and land existing whereas one can live and raise a family! To the point! We live in a finite world which cannot sustain infinite growth which’s mathematically impossible!
J: In addition! Those opposed to neo-liberalism add that it’s anti-democratic! That it can lead to exploitation and social injustice! And get this one! It may and in fact will! Criminalize poverty which it has “intentionally” caused!
D: Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!
TheSASMO: To create a slave-class which has no rights and can be used by these Neo-liberal Ass-whips or AWs anyway they choose!
“Real” living human beings: AWS! AWS! AWS! Watch what the Ass-Wipes cause!
J&D&NSPB&RAT&TheSASMO: Reject Square!
“Real” living human beings: Unrighteously so!
NSPB: Speaking of which! Today and Wednesday “our” Reporter At Large or RAT Warren will be examining ‘The Poor Are Invisible’ and ‘Prejudice of Poverty: Why Americans Hate the Poor and Worship the Rich?’
D: Why would anyone hate the poor Becka?
NSPB: Well Drew! Let’s let Warren give us his Tell Of Tales of TOT concerning the poor and why poverty’s become so prevalent in America today! After which! We may understand?
J: Probably not!
NSPB: We shall see? RAT man Warren, please!
RAT: Thank you Becka, “our” New Show Producer or NSP! We will be drawing from the work of Steve Hochstadt writing for LA Progressive and Steven Singer of Gadfly on the Wall!
NSPB: Oh and by the way!
J&D&RAT: Yes Becka?
NSPB: We’ll “NOT” be using the “A” word or the name of its founder and CEO “JB” today or Wednesday! Jonathan please!
J: And we’re alive as we’re loud! Everybody with heart and enthusiasm!
J&D&NSPB&RAT&TheSASMO&“Real” living human beings: ‘You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch [Jeff Bezos!], You really are a heel! You’re as cuddly as a cactus, You’re as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch [Jeff Bezos!]. You’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel! You’re a monster, Mr. Grinch [Jeff Bezos!]. Your heart’s an empty hole! Your brain is full of spiders, You’ve got garlic in your soul, Mr. Grinch [Jeff Bezos!]. I wouldn't touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole! You’re a vile one, Mr. Grinch [Jeff Bezos!]. You have termites in your smile! You have all the tender sweetness Of a seasick crocodile, Mr. Grinch [Jeff Bezos!]. Given the choice between the two of you I’d take the seasick crocodile! You’re a foul one, Mr. Grinch [Jeff Bezos!]. You’re a nasty wasty skunk! Your heart is full of unwashed socks, Your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Grinch [Jeff Bezos!]. The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote: “Stink! Stank! Stunk!” You’re a rotter, Mr. Grinch [Jeff Bezos!]. You’re the king of sinful sots! Your heart’s a dead tomato splotched With moldy purple spots, Mr. Grinch [Jeff Bezos!]. Your soul is an appalling dump heap Overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable Mangled up in tangled up knots! You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch [Jeff Bezos!]. With a nauseous super “naus!” You’re a crooked dirty jockey, And you drive a crooked horse, Mr. Grinch [Jeff Bezos!]. You’re a three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich With arsenic sauce!’
TheSASMO:
TheAmazon!
NSPB: Thank TheBezos for inventing The Amazon children!
“Real” living human beings: Thank you Jeff Bezos!
J: Bad Bezos! Bad dog! Bad dog!
NSPB: Okay! We lied! RAT man Warren please!
The Poor Are Invisible!
RAT: Go shopping at the grocery store. Order a burger! A taco! Buy clothes at the department store! Do life! Do it well! Hey! There are no poor people anywhere to be seen!
D: One team! One dream! (Thinking about you Jorge)
RAT: Okay! But just a few as you drive by the homeless shelters in America where a few people might be smoking outside. Or someone in ragged clothes looking so “hobo” like shuffling about! Maybe someone asks you for a quarter!
D: And maybe? A cookie? (Again! Thinking about you Jorge)
RAT: Right! So there’s a few poor people but not many! Certainly not enough to screw-up your day!
“Real” living human beings: To the max!
RAT: The newspaper doesn’t reveal “these” poor people! There’s no poor person explaining how they get along on page 1! No reports on policies in Washington that take poor people seriously! Poor people never make it on ESPN!
D: Not even in the “top-ten” low-lights?
RAT: Hardly! Our culture and society pages? Never! Not even in the obituaries which cost money!
“Real” living human beings: Poor form daily newspapers!
RAT: Students at prestigious universities won’t see poor people in their classes! Most poor young Americans aged 19-22 and in the bottom 20% of incomes never make it to college! Those who are don’t show up at any of those famous private universities, where, for example, all our Supreme Court justices were educated and rape the hell outta everybody! Physically, emotionally and especially: ECONOMICALLY! Many of those schools enroll more students from the top 1% than from the bottom 60%!
“Real” living human beings: What TheSASMO’s happening?
More than 1 in every Americans lives below the poverty level, over 40 million Americans. The greeter at Walmart, the young woman taking your food order, the shopper looking for day-old bread- they might all be poor.
RAT: Hey Assholes! Wake the fork up! You’re been surrounded by poor people all day!
D: Even at TheAmaz…
J&NSPB&RAT&TheSASMO&“Real” living human beings: Don’t say the “A” word Drew!
D: Wouldn’t think of it! NOT!
TheAmazon!
RAT: More than 1 in every 8 Americans lives below the poverty line!
J: Kinda like the Mendoza Line or ML in MLB or Major League Baseball (GO LA DODGERS IN TODAY’S PLAY-OFF GAME)!
D: The Mendoza Line or ML?
J: The Mendoza Line’s an expression in baseball deriving from the name of shortstop Mario Mendoza whose poor batting average’s taken to define the threshold of incompetent hitting! The cutoff point’s 200! Therefore! When a position player’s batting average falls below that level, the player’s said to be ‘below the Mendoza Line’!
D: WOW!
RAT: No Drew! That’s Woe or W! You see! Here’s the threshold below which a player’s presence on a Major League Baseball team cannot be justified! The term’s used when someone’s so incompetent that he or she’ cannot compensate for this deficiency!
J: And this means, Warren?
RAT: That we have over 40 million Americans below the Mendoza Line or ML! The greeter at Walmart! The teenage boy or girl taking your food order! The single mother looking for day-old bread? All of ‘em: POOR!
“Real” living human beings: What TheSASMO’s happening?
RAT: We just don’t know they are poor. I suppose we don’t care and this’ why we don’t recognize them as being poor! We don’t know about their struggles to put food on the table for their families…
D: Even at TheAmaz…
J&NSPB&RAT&TheSASMO&“Real” living human beings: Don’t say the “A” word Drew!
D: Wouldn’t think of it! NOT!
TheAmazon!
RAT: Yes! Especially at TheAmazon! We don’t want to understand how poverty causes health problems! The horrid feeling when choosing between paying rent and getting health insurance! Between giving to treat to your children for doing well in school or having new clothes and shoes for the school year!
TheSASMO: Can we say that one bleeds into the other?
J: Clots while stopping the heart!
RAT: We don’t see them at the emergency room because we can schedule an appointment with a doctor and pay a quarter of what an uninsured person would be charged!
J: Leading to more poor people due to ball-busting medical debt!
RAT: We only see their neighborhoods through car windows and don’t have to think about how they got that way. And adding to their invisibility, the poor are more concentrated in rural America than in cities. One-quarter of rural American children live in poverty, somewhat more than the one-fifth of urban children.
D: And is this where TheAmaz…
J&NSPB&RAT&TheSASMO&“Real” living human beings: Don’t say the “A” word Drew!
D: Wouldn’t think of it! NOT!
TheAmazon!
D: Where warehouses are built making it more easy to exploit already poor cities and their people?
RAT: We should know better! Poverty has many causes. Some are personal choices, like drug use! Mostly though! Bad luck such as an accident!
J&D: Been there!
TheSASMO: Done that!
“Real” living human beings: Dido!
RAT: Listen up! The level of poverty in “our” nation’s a consequence of political choices! The United States has more poor people than all other countries with similar economies! And why?
“Real” living human beings: Why? Why? Why? Why RAT man Warren?
RAT: Because of decades of political choices! More than 1% of Americans, that’s over 4 million people, live on less than $1.90 a day.
D: Say it ain’t so TheSASMO!
TheSASMO: Sorry Drew! It’s so very horrendous!
RAT: Among the 10 countries with the highest per capita income in the world, the United States has by far the highest proportion of very poor people, more than twice as many!
D: Say it ain’t so TheSASMO!
TheSASMO: Sorry Drew! It’s so very repulsive!
RAT: Poverty’s an inherent part of the American Economic System or AES. Over the past 40 years the American economy has boomed but the number of people living in poverty has grown steadily with our population! The boom benefits the rich but not the poor!
D: Say it ain’t so TheSASMO!
TheSASMO: Sorry Drew! It’s so very atrocious!
RAT: In this period the incomes of the top 1% doubled while the incomes of the bottom fifth grew a total of 4%.
NSPB: Thank TheBe...
J&D&RAT&TheSASMO&“Real” living human beings: Don’t use the “B” word Becka!
NSPB: Wouldn’t think of it!
“Real” living human beings: Thank you!
Jeff Bezos!
J: Righteously!
RAT: Furthermore! Conservatives have made poverty into a cause for the liberal left where anyone can advocate for the poor! Wonderful! But as for those ass-sniffing dogs called conservatives in America? They’ve chosen to blame the poor for their plight, Portraying the poor as bought-and-paid for! Sick, lame and lazy freeloaders! Goof-offs who’ve never done an “honest” day’s work in “their” worthless lives!
NSPB: Thank TheBe...
J&D&RAT&TheSASMO&“Real” living human beings: Don’t use the “B” word Becka!
NSPB: Wouldn’t think of it!
“Real” living human beings: Thank you:
Jeff Bezos!
RAT: A Blast From the Past or BFP! Ronald Reagan picked out a single woman con artist as a “welfare queen” to illustrate his view of “EVERYONE” who was on welfare. FOX News regularly offers “evidence” that the poor live comfortably while on welfare. Paul Ryan compared the safety net to a ‘hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency’!
D: And this’ what TheAmaz…
J&NSPB&RAT&TheSASMO&“Real” living human beings: Don’t say the “A” word Drew!
D: Wouldn’t think of it! NOT!
TheAmazon!
D: Thinks of its workforce?
RAT: Americans who are conservative tend to blame the poor for being poor. More than half of Republicans believe that people are poor because of a lack of effort! That poverty’s more than twice as likely for blacks, native Americans and Hispanics, than for whites? Therefore! White Americans…
TheSASMO: That’s Caucasian to you RAT man Warren!
RAT: Thank you TheSASMO! Caucasians tend to greatly overestimate the connection between poverty and race which in fact feeds into the conservative tendency to blame poor people, who are assumed to be minorities, for their poverty!
D: Doesn’t TheAmaz…
J&NSPB&RAT&TheSASMO&“Real” living human beings: Don’t say the “A” word Drew!
D: Wouldn’t think of it! NOT!
TheAmazon!
D: Don’t they hire a lot of minorities!
TheSASMO: They do! It’s very easy to get people who aren’t expecting much anyway to take what they’re given! Even we poor “white” trash!
RAT: These attitudes explain Republican efforts to cut holes in the safety net for the neediest Americans. The Republican tax reform paid for huge cuts for the wealthy by reducing health care funds for the poor. Therefore! It’s so easy to ignore the poor! We pretend there aren’t very many of them! We fool ourselves into believing that they’ve gotten what they deserve! That they have nothing to do with us! That none of this’ true!
D: Does it get worse Warren? My eyes can’t take too many more tears!
RAT: Sorry Drew! Looks like you’re gonna have to cry me a river! Look! No child here in America! Here in this world! No child deserves to get poor medical care or to have to miss even a single meal any day. The poor do the jobs we don’t want and their low wages mean we can afford more of what we really don’t need!
TheSASMO: Stupid Ass Scratching Stuff or SASS provided by…?
TheAmazon!
NSPB: Revolting
J: repugnant
D: despicable!
NSPB: Thank TheBe...
J&D&RAT&TheSASMO&“Real” living human beings: Don’t use the “B” word Becka!
NSPB: Wouldn’t think of it!
“Real” living human beings: Thank you!
Jeff Bezos!
J: Righteously!
RAT: But here’s the God’s honest truth concerning the poor! They don’t live off of us! We live ON top of them.
J&D: Unrighteously so!
RAT: Truly!
NSPB: And where also truly outta time! In more than one way!
* * *
To our cherished listeners out there hopefully believing that “our” ‘A Live Silent Radio Hour’ which’s live yet pre-recorded formerly at The Spank the Monkey Café in the heart of downtown Seattle, Washington of the United States of Here’s Still Hoping for the Fifth Aeon to Finally Come and Save Us All Here or USHSHFAFCSUAH in: America which’s quickly Slipping Into Darkness or SID! Hopefully, we’ll be back next time! Who knows? Now listen! I’m Becka formerly known as Reject # 2 now known as the New Show Producer Becka or NSPB! I’m here in what’s known as “Reject Square” where we’re now broadcasting live yet pre-recorded and so many thanks once again to “our” cherished listeners who are anticipating another Episode or E of ‘A Live Silent Radio Hour’! We’re so sorry that you have to live through these nasty “happenings” taking place daily here in America! I mean to say! Really SORRY! But I wish to thank all of you for tuning in once more while again leaving Any Semblance of Rational Thought or ASRT at the door as for the sake of TheBezos: How in the hell can you listen to silent radio? Never understood that one but hey folks! We’re back! (Inspirational Pause!) And please cherished “LISTENERS” return once again next time to hopefully Find-Out-the-Facts or FOFs concerning the nature and cause of our Collective Delusion or CD as we Tell Our Tale or TOT of Misery or M here in a land known as America! Please stay safe and always watch out for those Frenzied, Extremely Agitated Regrettables or FEAR who see their own reflection in the Mirrored Sunglasses or MSs of those who would Un-Naturally or UN ridicule our Blessed Way of Life here on Silent Radio or SR! And please! Make sure to thank TheBezos! And so I’m pretty certain! And Good Night Irene! Whoever “she” is?
* * *
D: Jonathan?
J: Yes Drew?
D: Didn’t the Smiling Happy Mr. Jesus or SHMJ say that we’d always have poor people hanging around?
J: I think I’ll let TheSASMO take care of this one! He “is” a trained theologian by the way!
D: Yes! And so I’ve heard!
TheSASMO: In the gospel of Mark Jesus encountered a situation where, yes, he did use words to that extent: ‘While Jesus was in Bethany reclining at the table in the home of Simon the leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke open the jar and poured it on Jesus’ head. But some of those present expressed their indignation to one another: “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for over three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Leave her alone; why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful deed to Me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them whenever you want. But you will not always have Me. She has done what she could to anoint My body in advance of My burial. And truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached in all the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”’
D: So the Smiling Happy Mr. Jesus or SHMJ didn’t, like most people today, want poor people hanging around messing up “their” apparently comfortable lives?
TheSASMO: Not really Drew! Seems the Smiling Happy Mr. Jesus or SHMJ always seemed to have those types of poor people hanging about! You know! The poor! Women! That leper named Simon! The hurt! The Hungry! The outcast! Amazon.com warehouse workers! Unionist! Socialist! The crippled! The sick! You name ‘em! Children! They were there! And why?
D: Why SASMO? Why’d these poor people hang out with the Smiling Happy Mr. Jesus or SHMJ?
TheSASMO: He, I suppose, offered them hope? Still does! But there’s only so much the Smiling Happy Mr. Jesus or SHMJ can do! And what does that say to use today, Drew?
D: That maybe we could all be a little like the Smiling Happy Mr. Jesus or SHMJ and allow people in distress to become visible so we can help them!
TheSASMO: Can we help them Drew?
D: Can we TheSASMO?
TheSASMO: At minimum Drew! We might possibly cry for them! And in this action, we’re giving them visibility in “our” world! And in doing so we give them and all of us, everyone: HOPE!
J: Even those 1% rich bastards?
TheSASMO: Yes! Even those 1% rich bastards!
NSPB: Thank TheBe...
J&D&RAT&TheSASMO&“Real” living human beings: Don’t use the “B” word Becka!
NSPB: Wouldn’t think of it!
“Real” living human beings: Thank you!
Jeff Bezos!
TheSASMO: Indeed! Thank TheBezos!