The following remarks were inspired by comments on my post about the Buffett-Gates merger, specifically regarding whether or not rich people are to blame for the state of the world.
While it is clear that in many places and under many circumstances, poverty on this planet is caused or exacerbated by greedy individuals who take advantage of others, the state of poor people is not always blameable on anyone or anything other than themselves. For example, while doing a favor for a friend recently, I ended up in a horrendous double-wide trailer occupied by some very slovenly individuals who were couch-potatoing it in front of the television while their "house" fell apart around them. It gave me the heebie-jeebies just being in the place. I am told that the husband, who looked quite able-bodied, doesn't work, while the wife holds down a fairly high-paying job, but you wouldn't know it from the condition of their home and property. Among other trash, rusted remains of cars riddled the outside, while dust and grime covered everything inside. The roof and ceiling were rotting, while the linoleum was missing on the majority of the kitchen-dining room floor. The TV, however, was a big, costly widescreen, hooked up to cable, of course.
I also visited another person not long ago who lived in a total wreck of a house complete with tarp on the roof. She had been approached by organizations and companies to fix the roof, using government money, but she "just couldn't get it together" to follow through.
In the past I have also spoken to homeless people, asking them why they don't take advantage of programs to help themselves. A number of them stated that they would rather live on the streets than "go to the hassle." I also made the mistake of allowing a homeless person to stay with me for a few days. Apparently, you can take the homeless person off the streets, but you can't take the street out of the homeless person. I gave this guy a beautiful wool coat someone had left at my home. That afternoon he came home with it absolutely filthy - he'd been dumpster diving in it.
In many parts of the U.S., with its extraordinary abundance, there is little excuse for living like these folks. It is obvious that laziness and lack of self-examination play a big role.
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8 comments:
This is an interesting observation. Like Erasmus, I have considered books more important than food and, to free up time for reading, cut back work hours to a minimum for rent. I then began dumpster-diving for food and this created some serious nutritional imbalances that were largely overcome by brain bliss yoga excercises (lots of full-lotus flexing of the pineal gland with electromagnetic energy shooting through the body).
Anyway lately I've taken to eating at a downtown food charity kitchen run by corporate donations that are TAX DEDUCTIBLE. See capitalism produces tons of waste. For example when I worked in a food wholesale warehouse the owner had been shipping up cocaine with the bananas, got caught, but not shut down. We threw out a lot of eatable produce so I recommended "Second Harvest" -- a nonprofit that is based on the "good samaritan" law, the company donating the food is not liable for the quality of the food. So this former mob-drug (CIA?) import-exporter was keen on getting some good PR and better yet -- a TAX DEDUCTION.
Anyway the dumpster diving was fascinating. I was eating gourmet meat sandwiches and gourmet cake! I miss the tastes that were scumptious (so what if the e. coli levels were a bit dangerous -- nothing a bunch of garlic and vinegar couldn't handle). Turmeric is really aweomse as well -- it kills cancer, has no bad smell! Highly recommended.
Well the food kitchen has made me a bit more sociable since most are estranged by butt breath but the people I eat with -- the "homeless" are fascinating. Last week it was two stolid African-American females complaining about a senior citizen women raped because her husband did not want to sleep in the shelter and so the two of them were outside with no security. Then there was the crack lady who had gone clean so she could see her kids but the drugs called and ended up being worth a ride across town to get back on the addiction.
My final eating experience was with two African-American males who were bitterly complaining about the table next to us, full of blacks bragging about their crack smoking. I noticed one of the two dudes at my table had a prominent Christian cross necklace. The other blacks were of Rastafarian identity with a different conception about "progress" and "sanitation" which I might at was part of the eugenics progressive movement!
There's one billion people living in slums around the world in these new "hyper-cities" with over 20 million people. These slums have no sanitation and no basic amendities of civilization. Mike Davis' new book is really excellent on this. China is having a huge labor crisis driven mainly by AUTOMATION!! The new production efficiencies in the sweatshops are driving out the workers! This is detailed in a new economics professor's book who specializes on the apparel industry.
So structural unemployment is a big deal -- which is why Europe workers have pushed for a 30 hour work week. Yet when you combine that with work standards and personal hygiene, etc. then things get really fascinating. For example Germany NEEDS more Turks to take care of their rapidly ageing work-force and their dwindling population.
Civilization has always, eversince 10,000 BCE, been based on expansionary warfare using plow-based iron technology (see "the origins of agriculture and the birth of the gods," Cambridge U Press, 2000).
This is hard for people to accept because the ongoing genocide necessary to maintain a strong military to uphold the value of the dollar is suppressed in the media. Mind control is more important than physical body control (martial law).
Politics is totally based on the Big Lie of imperialism. Obviously people on an individual level need to make the best of this and I truly believe the role of religion is really to sublimate the sexual energy so that there is more brain power for creative problem solving. Unfortunately the secret of sublimation has been lost -- which is found in yoga and trance dance exercises -- and replaced by the repression, projection, oppression cycle. 90% of human history is as hunter-gatherers and the traditional Koi-San culture of Africa has a well-documented strong spiritual healing culture.
What I found to be fascinating was that one of the last times I went to the food kitchen there were Somalian youth volunteering to serve the food. Now the dynamics of Somalian immigrants with the African-American citizens is really wild. Minneapolis has the highest Somalian population in the U.S. but ironically the largest business in Minnesota (Cargill did $70 billion in revenue last year) is dependent on vast levels of tax subsidies and it's sole purpose is to undermine traditional sustainable farming around the world. This is a Cold War "Food for Peace" policy. Cargill dominates the food supply in 100 countries and in Somalia Cargill dumped grain at one-ninth the local farmers price, thereby causing a STRUCTURAL crisis in Somalia leading to the Civil War and the current imperial attempts by the U.S. to control the oil in Somalia.
But the Somalians are very religious and best of all their national, official form of Islam is SUFI MYSTICISM!! This is really wild and I think triggers dramatic reactions from those who have yet to recover from the cultural genocide of slavery. The Somalian youth in the U.S. often adopt the dominant black culture of the former slaves because the STRUCTURAL inequities of the education system. Again there are only so many jobs for the well-education -- due to automation. The refugee camps in Kenya, using the British education system, had better education than the poverty-stricken inner city schools of the U.S. This structual poverty in the U.S. rapidily deteriorates the value of religion and hard work for Somalian youth and so there is a real struggle going on in Minneapolis. There has been significant Somalian gang activity where the kids are doing drugs, have bad personal hygiene and are robbing people who come out of bars drunk.
See in Somalian culture alcohol is totally taboo. About a month ago I went to buy mouthwash in a little Somalian store and an older woman was hanging out there, read the ingredients and recognized "alcohol" and was repulsed! Most mouthwash sold in Somalian stores is alcohol free.
The key message is that "technology" is very "sanitized" because in Freemasonry the goal is for the machines to take over. Read Professor David F. Noble's amazing book "The Religion of Technology" (1996).
Happy Independence!
That's a good question, my dear Blue Collar Goddess. Is laziness a "mental illness?" Is "acquired poverty" a mental illness? Would "acquired wealth" then be a mental illness? That certainly opens Pandora's Box!
Conditioning is strong. We are, perhaps, most comfortable with what we economic level we were raised in. Maybe that's why so many nouveau riche implode.
Interesting. I hadn't thought about it, but all of the people I described are white. Of course, the slob mentality runs across the board of all races and ages, and both genders. It's doubtlessly passed along as a meme from one generation to the next.
Wow, thanks for the long message. You certainly are knowledgeable and have interesting experiences. People live - and, surprisingly, thrive - at all economic levels. It seems to be mainly conditioning that keeps us at one or another. If we are poor, we may never run across the mentality that says we, personally, don't have to be. I do believe that affirmations which change our perceptions of reality can be useful.
"I am whole, perfect, strong, powerful, RICH, loving, harmonious, healty and happy!" Say it. Believe it. Pass it along.
I was just reading an article on passive aggressive behaviour when I read your blog entry. I must confess, I can relate!
http://www.toad.net/~arcturus/dd/papd.htm#1
Perhaps it's an effect of the punishment & reward cycle, the arbitrary imposition of power upon young minds, and the failure to honor that inner self-directing impulse.
Just a thought.
-g angel :)
A really good example of the structural reasons for bad personal hygiene is the award-winning documentary "Born in Brothels." I just watched this movie the night before last and you can read my review plus a link to a movie website description. All I can say is if you can keep from bawling throughout the movie than you are a strong person.
http://drewhempel.gnn.tv
Here's a remedy for slobs.
http://flylady.net/pages/begin_babysteps.asp
I did a bunch of cleaning here at the apartment and in my car recently, and I was surprised how much my spirits lifted! I think that when a person's surroundings start to go down it makes a kind of depressive rut that a certain kind of person will enter before they realize it, and right away it feels like normal. You just have to keep on top of clutter.
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