McCamy beatifies the poorMcCamy Taylor (1000+ posts) Mon Aug-29-11 10:05 PM
Original message
The Disease Called Being Poor in America
Just the facts, Ma’am
Since some of my readers want less drama and more facts, here are the facts. Class, open your books to chapter eight. Which book, you ask? The Social Determinants of Health edited by Wilkinson and Marmot. If you didn’t bring your copy, you can share. Or open your laptops and go to Google eBooks. You can read most of the chapter online.
First, a point of clarification. While poverty is a disease that has many associated ills, today we are talking about something worse than poverty. The topic today is wealth disparity. What is worse for your health than being poor? Being poor in an affluent country.
Yeah, 'cause it's a cryin' shame that anyone who works for it should have more than anyone else.
Yes, yes, I know it sounds unlikely. What about trickle down economics? The poor folks in a rich nation will surely notice the good health of their more affluent neighbors and they will attempt to follow their model by joining a health club and eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. They will have fresh sea food at least three times a week and drink a glass of red wine with dinner. They will move away from polluted areas near petrochemical refineries and find themselves a nice little enclave far from the city, preferably gated, because then they won’t have to worry about crime. When they feel their stress level rising, they will see a therapist. Or maybe they will try yoga or biofeedback. A trip to a spa can do wonderful things for the blood pressure. The poor will see that the rich have abandoned tobacco products and they will follow suit, because they want to be rich and successful, too.
Excercise can be done in your own home, it can even be free. I would venture to guess most people don't eat "fresh" seafood three times a month by my definition. Those petrochemical plants aren't terrible, I grew up next to paper mills and would argue that's worse. DVD giving instruction on yoga are available, cheap. Tobacco is damn near a luxury item anymore thanks to big government. Keep trying, McCamy.
That’s the way it ought to be. But it ain’t.
Yep, that evil freedom of choice monster raises it's head again.
Let’s consider one of the leading causes of death of young people, homicide. Turn to the graph on page 157. Notice how high homicide rates are in the states with the highest degree of wealth disparity and how low they are in places where money in distributed more equally. What’s that? You say these statistics indicate that the poor are killing the rich in order to get their money? Nice thought, but the evidence does not bear it out. Turn the page.
And what causes most of these homicides in poor areas? It's called turf wars. That isn't the fault of the rich.
A boy brought up in Harlem has less chance of living to 65 years old than a boy in Bangledesh. For men and women under the age of 65, relative risks in Harlem compared to the rest of the United States were highest for drug deaths, homicide, alcohol deaths and chirrosis—in that order.
Who goes out of their way to tell the Harlem boy that he shouldn't try to excel because he is being held down by the man. That's right, it's liberals. Ya give them hope, ya say? You do nothin' but steal it.
When there is a huge gap between the haves and the have-nots, it is the have-nots that die at an increased rate. And they die of medical problems that are directly related to the stress, depression and self loathing that comes from being poor in a land of plenty. When everyone in your country is hungry, you feel the hunger pangs, but you do not blame yourself for being hungry. You know that there is a larger problem, one that your society needs to address. If you and your kids go to bed hungry while the guy down the road throws uneaten steak to his dog, you feel like a failure. You know that the rich guy’s kids laugh at your kids for having torn up shoes. You know that in your town, you are called “Poor white trash†or “Welfare Queen†depending upon whether you are Black or white. When your kids ask for a computer so they can do their homework, your heart breaks a little inside even as you answer gruffly “We don’t need that kind of silliness.†And the children ---those kids that you love enough to throw yourself in the path of a moving car in order to save them----they look at you and think Mom is mad at me But you aren’t angry at the children. You are angry at yourself. Because you haven’t done enough for them.
Use to be that motivated folks to go out and try to provide for their kids. Of course, now those same people think government should take care of it,
When folks internalize their anger, they start looking for ways to ease the pain. Alcohol helps---temporarily. The same goes for drugs. Cigarettes can be your best friend if you feel friendless. And so what if you are cutting short your life by smoking? You are worthless. Worse than worthless. You are a drag on society, a parasite, an ugly blight that no one wants to see. When the anger gets to be too much to bear, you lash out at anyone who gets near---including your spouse and your kids. Eventually, all that stress leads to depression. You are tired all the time. You find it hard to get motivated. Yes, you could go back to school, but with what money? Yes, there are government grants, but they would probably just laugh at you. Those of you who have never seen the world through the deep grey tinted lenses of major depression can not understand how debilitating the disease is and how difficult it can be to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps when you can not even see your own bootstraps through the fog---
Anger? At what? That someone somewhere, that ya never seen has more than you? That's a special kind of anger, it's called stupid. As far as depression. It's amazing how many people sitting around are "depressed". I know there is such a thing as clinical depression, but there are a lot of cases wear the person needs to get their hands busy.
There's more, but it fails to be relevant, and the thread posts are just a bunch of
McCamy is special kind of DUmmie. He's the sort that stirs the hive and provides them examples on which to hang their victimhood cap. It's all about the class warfare with him. He likes to sound intelligent, though all he ever does is use other people's words.
