Reflections From a Murky Pond

It’s a very well known but seldom openly talked about fact of life and politics in America that the Liberals feed like parasites upon the poor. The Liberals need a steady herd of people – preferably largely minority – to be perceived as impoverished and to perceive themselves as impoverished in order for the Liberals to maintain some level of hold upon America’s cultural, political and economic landscape.

In a country where the single most often repeated lament about the “poor” is that they’re obese this has presented the Liberals with more than a bit of a quandary. How are the Liberals to tend their herd and farm them for votes and support as their overall situation becomes less dire? How are the Liberals going to stampede them at the forces of capitalism and individual freedom when their “poor’s” standard of living isn’t that objectively uncomfortable?

Enter Obama, or more accurately those who do the dirty work for Obama’s handlers since Obama himself is more minstrel than leader.  The Obama Regime’s Census Bureau released its brand new, still technically experimental “supplemental poverty measure.”

This Supplemental Poverty Measure fundamentally changes how poverty is measured in America. It doesn’t just update the thresholds and metrics for measuring poverty, it is designed to change the basic measure of poverty from an objective standard to a relative standard.

The current poverty metrics are antiquated and do need updating, and this supplemental poverty measure has inside of it some damn good changes. It’s its philosophical base that is pernicious.

Traditionally the poverty line assumes that families need a set amount of money to meet their material needs. The Obama Regime’s new supplemental measure declares that people need at least what Americans in the 33rd percentile of expenditures already spend on “essentials.” This in turn means that, if the Liberals can coerce the government into shifting to this new wealth measuring standard, they will always have a large crop of “poor” to exploit irrespective of improvements in overall wealth.

A permanent class of poor determined to be such by relative standards is the culmination of the Liberals’ fevered wet dreams. With their boy, Obama’s help, they’re one giant step closer to achieving it.

~*~

Keep your eyes open. Travel light but load heavy, and always put another round in the enemy after they’re down.

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Back in the lead up to the 2008 elections Obama was all about spreading the wealth. Amid the plethora of not-quite-promises that Obama jabbered during that campaign, that one message was said clearly and openly. Spread the wealth. And this bit of Socialist rhetoric helped carry him into the White House.

Campaign Obama – 2008 v. 2012

Once installed in office, Obama had to start his reelection campaign – after all, keeping his job as long as possible is always Job #1. This presented a problem for the Campaigner-in-Chief; how do you redistribute wealth, after you’ve gone to such great lengths to convince your followers that it’s a declining and failing resource?

Fortunately for Obama, his handlers were up to the challenge. They managed to shift their boy’s message from, “Make Them Pay” to “Make Them Hurt Too” – and spreading poverty is so much easier than spreading wealth anyway.

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Americans really need to rethink their ideas of poverty. They need to cast off and spurn the depraved phantasmagoria created by the Liberals’ political elite and look at the reality of what is called poverty in America.

It doesn’t do anyone except the Liberal politicians and professional activists any good to maintain false impression of poverty and the poor within America. It certainly doesn’t benefit most of those who are classed by the federal government as poor.

To the average American, the word “poverty” implies significant material deprivation, an inability to provide a family with adequate nutritious food, reasonable shelter, and clothing. Activists reinforce this view, declaring that being poor in U.S. means being “unable to obtain the basic material necessities of life.” The news media amplify this idea: Most news stories on poverty feature homeless families, people living in crumbling shacks, or lines of the downtrodden eating in soup kitchens.

The actual living conditions of America’s poor are far different from these images. According to the government’s own survey data, in 2005, the average household defined as poor by the government lived in a house or apartment equipped with air conditioning and cable TV. The family had a car (a third of the poor have two or more cars). For entertainment, the household had two color televisions, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there were children in the home (especially boys), the family had a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation. In the kitchen, the household had a microwave, refrigerator, and an oven and stove. Other household conveniences included a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.

The home of the average poor family was in good repair and not overcrowded. In fact, the typical poor American had more living space than the average European. (Note: that’s average European, not poor European.) The poor family was able to obtain medical care when needed. When asked, most poor families stated they had had sufficient funds during the past year to meet all essential needs.

Yet the oft-times strident protestations of professional anti-poverty activists and Liberal politicians almost always try to push two ideas: that poverty in America is widespread, affecting as many as one in seven Americans, and that being poor in America means serious material deprivation.

The first idea, that poverty is widespread in America, cannot be argued for or against. It is an based upon US Census data and an arbitrary household income level that is, at least partially, based upon relative standards. The second idea, that being poor in America means serious material deprivation, is false on its face as research using the government’s own data has proven.

These lies make perfect sense though; they’re both firmly rooted in selfishness and self interest.

The professional anti-poverty activists make their money off of poverty. They’re naturally going to market it in a manner that draws the most attention, sympathy, and money. Also, by misrepresenting the nature of poverty in America, they can ensure that funding goes to programs that do not lift people out of poverty, thereby ensuring their own continued source of employment and revenue.

The Liberal politicians are a different and more disgusting and evil story. They’re just farming votes and using the poor, especially the Black poor, as something akin to sharecroppers. And just like so many landlords after the Civil War, they’ve set things up so that the sharecroppers can never actually buy that land they were promised.

Yes, Americans need to wake up and look around at the reality of poverty in America and how it differs from the self-serving myths certain unfriendly elements have promulgated. Then we might be able to address the real problems both at the tactical and strategic levels.

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