Manifesto for a Sane Economy:

Okay, in order to write a manifesto for a sane economy, we must agree that the economy we currently have is insane.

Whether you are Republican or Democrat, or Independent, or Progressive or Conservative, I think we can all agree that a 15% rate of poverty among Americans living in the wealthiest country in the history of the world is ‘abnormal’.

Houston, we have a problem...

Rather than focus on the nuts and bolts of this issue – the very familiar stats and graphs pointing to an historic wealth gap between the rich and the poor -- I’d like to focus on something I have experienced myself that I feel is one of the underlying causes of this situation; its pathology, if you will.The factor that again and again deters us from coming up with a rational and practical solution to the problem; and that causes many of us to spin out into a myriad  of basically irrational -- cultural, religious, political, racial  -- conjectures for an explanation of the problem.

Four years ago, I became homeless and destitute after taking care of a terminally ill parent for a number of years. I then had to rely on social services and for the first time in my life, I learned what is like to be poor in America.

Outside of the physical hardships that go along with being in a situation like this – mainly, how to secure housing without any financial resources – the thing that struck me most was the existential challenge brought on by society's attitudes towards people in temporary or permanent poverty. (Your particular circumstance doesn’t mater; everyone gets lumped into the same generic group: poor people.)

Where this becomes problematic and counter-productive to bringing people back into the economy, is when poor people, specifically, are singled out and blamed for being the central cause for the social pathology that creates this wealth gap and hardship for so many.

It is as if people in financial difficulty are either choosing to be that way (because they are too lazy to find work) or else they are chronically poor because they are too degenerate in their ways of living to overcome personal weaknesses and become productive members of society.

True as this may be in some cases, it is also true that there are lazy and degenerate people occupying all strata of  society. Some are taken care of for life by family trust funds, or other forms of private largesse, and others get by via social services. Most families of any size has one or more members who, for whatever reason, are incapable of ‘making it in this world’.

Fine. Do we shoot them?  Let them roam the streets like feral animals looking for scraps of food? Or do we simply ignore them so that they resort to criminal activities and become the ultimate drags on society -- expensive lifetime  incarcerated wards of the state. No, whether it’s in a family or a nation, we try to provide them with some form of a safety net.

Good.  So now we’ve gotten that out of the way: not all of the poor, nor all of the wealthy, are saintly or inveterate sinners.

But that’s not how you are made to feel when you are in financial difficulty. The first questions, or attitudes, that society puts upon you are: What did you do wrong? And/or, What is wrong with you?

A Hobson’s Choice if there ever was one.

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Say you are one of the many thousands of people in the last decade who lost their employment and incomes, and then their homes. You were okay financially one day, and then not okay the next. Is your changed situation due to some lack of work ethic, or bad lifestyle choices? In the overwhelming majority of cases: no.

But our society will make you feel that – in addition to all the rest of the tangible difficulties you need to overcome, you must also deal with the existential claims against your worthiness as a human being and citizen. It’s one weight too many and therefore becomes counter-productive to the shared goal of getting people back into improving society and strengthening the economy.

Now I understand and appreciate the need for people to have a strong work ethic, and the importance of cultivating that as a bedrock for maintaining a solid social fabric and viable national economy. But the work ethic was memorialized in an era when America was an agriculture-based economy. Damn right, you better be able to get up early and work hard to feed your family and make some money for essentials. 

But we are no longer that economy, nor can people be that autonomous and self- sufficient. Hell, you can’t even find a menial job these days without a computer that can connect you to countless resources that you depend on.

We are more inter-dependent now than at any time in history; we all depend on one another for our survival and economy.

Never the less, the old attitudes persist, and that’s understandable; peoples’ attitudes change slowly, it takes time.

But the point of my argument is that there is a proportion of our population – with enormous financial and political power -- who are knowingly and purposefully (and perhaps for their own amusement) exploiting these dated attitudes and negative projections about the poor for personal, economic and political gain. They pit the 'righteous' poor against those they characterize as unworthy and undeserving. I liken these ‘1%ers’ to the elites in ancient Roman times who derived great pleasure from watching their captive slaves fight against one another to death in gladiator pits. It was pathologically anti-social then, and still is.

Our world economy is not going to improve – be better for more – until these attitudes change and the rich and powerful stop proselytizing lies about one segment of the population at the expense of everyone.

Poverty IS Like a Tragic Accident or Terminal Illness

To tell you the truth, until it happened to me -- when I needed  housing assistance and food stamps -- I did not know very much about the plight of other people who had to deal with similar circumstances.

I think one of the reasons is simple human nature. Most of us think that poverty -- like a freak tragic accident  or sudden terminal illness -- can only happen to other people.

The more we live, the more we acknowledge that that's a foolish, wishful thinking kind of assumption. Especially in regards to experiencing poverty in today's America. If the trends continue the way they have been in this zero-sum  economy with a growing population of super-wealthy (winners) on one side, buttressed by a growing population of  people living in moderate to acute poverty (losers) on the other, then the prognosis for one's financial  health in the American economy is not only ominously bleak, but, frankly, scary. 


According to the Social Work Journal,  'By age 35 nearly one-third of the U.S. population will have experienced a year in poverty. By age 65 more than half of all Americans will have spent a year below the poverty line, and by age 85, two-thirds. Rather than an isolated event that occurs primarily among what has been labeled the “underclass,” the reality is that the majority of Americans will encounter poverty firsthand during adulthood..'


So here we are now in 2013 -- with ever-growing numbers of people needing  housing and food assistance -- and the Republican dominated Congress of these United Sates is proposing to cut $20 Billion from SNAP or Food Stamps over the next decade. 

Why?

To cut our deficit?

Oh, if only it were so.

The truth -- and this is where it gets classically Orwellian (or just plain creepy) --  is that not only is it the very same Republicans who are calling for cuts in SNAP that bear major responsibility for the monumental deficits they  rung up under Presidents Reagan and the last Bush, but they are also the ones who promote and legislate lavish (tax-payer paid for) subsidies to already wealthy American citizens.

Here is just one (small) example of how this works, related specifically to the 2013 Farm Bill.(For a more thorough listing and analysis of these kinds of subsidies for the wealthy go to Inequality.org.)

Our pick of the litter: subsidies to agri-businesses in the name of 'crop insurance'. The Crop Insurance Program was originally designed  in 1938 to insure that proven productive farmers having an off year -- due to weather, soil erosion, pest infestation, what have you --  would be reimbursed for their crop losses and thus be able to remain in business for the next and hopefully better season. Nice idea: generous and practical.

Over the years, lobbyists for large agri-businesses have changed the program from insurance for failed crops, to blanket subsidies for farmers' revenues.  Here's how  it works:  if the price of, say,  soybeans goes down and the farmers' revenues go down accordingly; instead of allowing the much lauded free-market to sort it out, the federal government comes in and says here, we will (using taxpayers' money) make up your lost revenue. But we won't call it a subsidy, we'll call it 'crop insurance'.

Wouldn't it be nice if the federal government provided blanket revenue subsides to every business so that no one ever had a bad year?

No. 

It wouldn't work for the reasons socialist programs can't work -- they subsidize arbitrarily, not based on genuine merit or real need. 

Now isn't it ironic (or Orwellian if you want to go with the darker angle) that the same politicians for whom socialism is a dirty word are, in effect, practicing it. Well, in today's political world, words no longer have  literal meanings, they have a meaning that suits the user, and if the user has wealth and power; well, hopefully you've read  1984 so I don't have to rehash what happens next.   

So let's take this back to SNAP or food stamps.I wish I could report a  high-minded reason for why Congress wants to increase funding for crop insurance at the same timed it proposes to cut food stamps. . But what it really boils down to in the petty tit-for-tat circus-like political arena we are currently living in is: If you, the Democrats, want to help out poor people who vote for you then we, the Republicans, will help out the wealthy who vote for us.

Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na....

Maybe Orwellian was given them too much credit; come to think of it stupid or idiotic seem more apropos.And if I've insulted any professional clowns I also apologize for that.

This is not tit-for-tat to those affected by this legislation. A person who is working and struggling to make ends meet (and help prop up this lopsided economy) and is receiving some nutritional support and food security in order to sustain them is not comparable to someone who is being guaranteed to never have a bad year in revenues -- regardless of what they produce, or don't.  

 Need? Merit?

I don't know what else to tell you other than to ask you to please check out and sign the petition I wrote to Reform the 2013 Farm Bill that I will then forward to Congress.

I'd also like to invite you to read an excerpt from my latest book/memoir: An Odyssey in the Great American Safety Net.

Thank you,
James Abro 
Founder:  Advocate for Economic Fairness!

The proportion in poverty in 1969 stood at 12.1%. By 2011 it had risen to 15.0%. A larger proportion of Americans lived in official absolute poverty in 2011 than 42 years earlier. - See more at: http://inequality.org/absolute-poverty-america/#sthash.h3A2Heaa.dpuf

The proportion in poverty in 1969 stood at 12.1%. By 2011 it had risen to 15.0%. A larger proportion of Americans lived in official absolute poverty in 2011 than 42 years earlier. - See more at: http://inequality.org/absolute-poverty-america/#sthash.h3A2Heaa.dpuf

The proportion in poverty in 1969 stood at 12.1%. By 2011 it had risen to 15.0%. A larger proportion of Americans lived in official absolute poverty in 2011 than 42 years earlier. - See more at: http://inequality.org/absolute-poverty-america/#sthash.h3A2Heaa.dpuf

The proportion in poverty in 1969 stood at 12.1%. By 2011 it had risen to 15.0%. A larger proportion of Americans lived in official absolute poverty in 2011 than 42 years earlier. - See more at: http://inequality.org/absolute-poverty-america/#sthash.h3A2Heaa.dpuf

The proportion in poverty in 1969 stood at 12.1%. By 2011 it had risen to 15.0%. A larger proportion of Americans lived in official absolute poverty in 2011 than 42 years earlier. - See more at: http://inequality.org/absolute-poverty-america/#sthash.h3A2Heaa.dpuf

The proportion in poverty in 1969 stood at 12.1%. By 2011 it had risen to 15.0%. A larger proportion of Americans lived in official absolute poverty in 2011 than 42 years earlier. - See more at: http://inequality.org/absolute-poverty-america/#sthash.h3A2Heaa.dpuf

Waiting for Godot? Hell no!

In 1953, Samuel Beckett, an Irishman living in Paris, published 'En attendant Godot', and then translated it himself into English,  'Waiting for Godot'.

It was produced in 1955 at a theater in Paris and since then has been performed non-stop at a theater locale somewhere in the world.  It's the only play about which that can be said.  In 1999,  it was named "the most significant play of the 20th century".

For those of you who are  not familiar with the play, it's essentially about two men --  call them rakes, hobos, bums, anchorites, idiot savants, hippies or punks  (if you want to modernize it) -- wandering about the stage not knowing where they are going and just as uncertain as to whether they should keep moving or 'wait for Godot' --whose presence is imminent but who never actually shows up.*[See a sample of the dialogue at the bottom of this blog.]

Of course a play like this -- labelled absurdist, existential, and even nonsensical-- is an enigma that has been subjected to a broad range of interpretations and explanations. Beckett himself said that he wasn't sure what it was about exactly, and that he might have written parts of it while in a 'trance'. 

I saw a production of the play, fittingly enough, on a barge docked along the Left Bank of the Seine River in Paris in 1976. It was a seminal experience in my life. I was 23 years old and had just graduated college. A few days after seeing the play,  while strolling around Paris feeling fancy free, as I was want to do,  I came across the cast of the play having lunch at an open-air table on a patch of grass alongside the floating barge. They appeared to be as flamboyantly rakish and raffish in real life as they had been on stage -- laughing and drinking, and, well, simply enjoying life (Joie de vivre!).

If there had been any corporate inclinations in my 20 year old future perspective on life, they were wiped out in that moment. That's how I wanted to live!

But, in addition to that, having seen the play, I feel, also entitles me to  my own opinion about what 'Waiting for Godot' means: I've always felt that Beckett was warning us against the human proclivity to look for authority figures to tell us what to do. The proclivity must be burned into our DNA because, except for this recent and brief (and still fragile) experiment with democracy, we humans have throughout history fought long and hard to be ruled by some particular authority figure, be it king, emperor, dictator, pope or cult leader.

It's understandable to want things to go right, and to want to put as little effort into it as possible -- after all, don't we elect people and pay them good money to do that for us? But is that realistic? I'd argue no, and I think Beckett might agree with me. 

I think that many liberals, progressives -- whatever they prefer to call themselves these days-- had a 'Waiting for Godot' attitude toward the election of Barak Obama.  They expected that just by the fact of electing him,  that the election in and of itself would change things.

I think it's time to heed Beckett's ever timely and significant warning against waiting for others to do for us what we know deep down we can only do for ourselves.

You can argue how effective, or not, Barak Obama has been as president, but his two terms in office have opened up an eight-year window of opportunity to push a progressive agenda forward without the interference of a reactionary conservative in the White House.

The question should not be about Obama's performance, but our own.  Are we doing enough to advocate  for economic fairness, affordable housing, living wages, banking and financial reforms? 

Pick a cause you feel something about and push for it. If not, don't blame 'Godot' for not showing up.

Please check out my Facebook group, Advocate for Economic Fairness! 

And, if you like, you can also watch this video of me talking about kindness and being homeless -- during which, I must admit, I did feel a little like one of Beckett's untethered waifs.

* Dialogue from Waiting for Godot: “Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for one the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come -- ”
 

How the Hell Have We as a Culture Become so Inauthentic

This does, of course, beg the question,''What do I mean by 'inauthentic'?'"

Being a story-teller, I prefer to answer the question this way. There was, once upon a time,  an infamous  gun-slinging Western cowboy who became so vexed with angst, so desperate, so fraught with anxiety, that he sought out the counsel of an American Indian healer, or Shaman.

The Shaman wanted to help him, deeply, but had to turn him away saying,  "Son, you have gotten so far away from who you really are that I don't think I can bring you back to your self."

Did you know that in the 19th Century our first 'psychologists' were know as 'alienists'? They defined themselves that way because they felt they were treating people who had become alien to themselves.

Okay, so to my point here: we are presently living in a culture that not only supports being inauthentic (or being alien to oneself) but promotes it.  Not to shoot at sitting ducks, but have you watched morning TV talk shows lately? It's a competition among the hosts as to who can be the  more superficial, inauthentic and unengaged in any real way with either the news they report or the guests they interview. Not actually being there is evidently more charming, interesting, and profitable, than being there with the people who have done something in order to get on the show. (Sorry, but I only recently learned how much money these a-list, a-holes earn.)

But in a larger sense, I feel, these kinds of goings on are a reflection of who we are and what we are becoming: alien to who we really are; and no longer fully  engaged in our own experiences.

Seeing that, as a result of recent experiences, I have become a defacto spokesperson for the neglected, downtrodden, homeless -- pick your epithet -- I would like to point out that we as a society  have our least authentic relationship to these people. We fear them, label them, ignore them, (alienate them), do anything but engage with them personally (authentically).      

Therefore we exist, culturally, in a 'Make Believe Ballroom', in which all the guests come to the party on equal terms and everyone gets their fair shake. Would be nice, if it were true. But we don't all come to the party in the same shape; though, with help, we can all learn to dance -- at least adequately.

So enough with the metaphors. We are living in a society that has become alien to itself as a people, as an organic entity  in which all persons depend on and nurture one another for the greater good of the whole.   

Pollyanna? Maybe. But ask yourself this: Do you feel more authentic when you feel connected to your fellow citizen, or when you feel alienated and separated?

It's a choice; and a choice that makes a big difference in the lives of many people living  in America who are feeling alienated from their own society and nation. 

It's not necessary; it's inauthentic.

(Please check out the petition below. Stop Sequestratian cuts to Housing Assistance.)

Petition

http://signon.org/sign/exempt-housing-assistance