Reply #206: Thanks for the essay... we are not alone

[handmade34]

• Poverty is the worst form of violence. Gandhi
• The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth. FDR
• It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty. Juvenal
• Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime. Aristotle
• Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. Frederick Douglass
• Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. Woody Allen
• What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness. George Bernard Shaw
• The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved. Mother Teresa
• Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more. Proverbs 31:6,7
• The problem with our beloved Country is that our necessities have become too luxurious and our luxuries too necessary. Small Farmer’s Journal


We are not alone, or at least we shouldn’t be or need to be. The power we have as people, together, is awesome. There is potentially great joy working together to help each other, to overcome. Bonds are formed, relationships strengthened.
So…. Can’t we find each other and help? Too Utopian, too different than what we are used to or from what we have been led to believe is the norm or too hard? What about co-ops and bartering and support for each other? I have said many times here and elsewhere is that Jesus’ only message was “Life is a Bitch, we just need to help each other out” We don’t need to listen and believe in all the hurrah, unregulated, free market, capitalistic, mumbo jumbo propaganda. I have also talked about here and elsewhere the awesome experience of being in the middle of a swarm of bees swirling, looking to find the right place to settle momentarily; that is what it is like to be with committed people working on a solution to a problem.
I have never used a coinstar, don’t understand the significance: It costs money. I grew up in poverty and have experienced being broke off and on all my life. Doesn’t seem to matter how hard I worked, or even how smart I worked, life happens and sometimes it was on my side and sometimes not. Doesn’t matter that I have a college degree and work experience. It doesn’t help that my parents were dirt poor and not even able to teach me wisely. I have a job and at some level I appreciate it, but I’m on the road 98% of the year and miss my family and have no sense of community. I get very angry, but I choose to do this job rather than be homeless. (edit for irony) I'm still homeless! but I have money to send home to the kids...
Being broke is emotionally and often physically exhausting. Being broke is embarrassing, humiliating and stigmatizing. It can also be freeing, but not often enough. It can mean stealing to make sure your kids have what they need. It is all of what people here have posted and more. It should never, ever mean disrespect for the poor or for ourselves.