Crises at home

By
Saul Landau                                                                         Read Spanish Version

If
you live in affluent neighborhoods you might have conditioned
yourself to ignore the significant sector of U.S. society that gets
in your face by showing they’re poor, suffering from disease and
acute angst — if not worse.

Sure,
plenty of tree-lined, suburban streets contain apparently normal,
satisfied men and women who work and take children to school.
Advertisers understand that underneath the “normal” exterior,
these people have anxieties. They prey upon fragile middle class
publics by selling them “relief,” from their physical and psychic
“pain.”

When
a “normal person” confronts a “homeless one,” the “normal”
might well say “there but for the grace of God go I.”
“I see those people [homeless] and I buy books like on how to
increase my financial intelligence quota,” an acquaintance told me.
“They scare me.” Yet, Hollywood and television continue to use
stereotyped middle class characters to display “The Real America”
— the country George Bush sells to the world in his speeches. This
made-up America faces “a security threat,” from which “Homeland
Security” will protect. Sell that to the homeless!

When
mass media chatterers raise abstractions — like, is the working
class bitter? Should candidates wear flag pins? Or, will withdrawal
from Iraq mean less security? — desperately poor people shake their
heads and laugh. Security means a bed, a roof over it, and a minimal,
healthy meal, plus occasional access to medical care.

On
the corner of High Street and Bancroft, in East Oakland, California
— and similar corners throughout the country — another America
vibrates with angst. As I drove my wife to work on April 25, 22 young
men, all Latinos (from Mexico or Central America) shivered in the
morning cold waiting for someone to choose them for a day’s menial
work. On nearby corners dozens more try to pass the idle time by
talking, day-dreaming of their village, their family or the
possibility that a man with a pick up truck will stop and say: “Yard
work.”

Jornaleros,
or day workers, abound in cities through the country. Those that get
work fear they’ll get mugged by crack heads en route to their
boarding houses where they share rooms with up to seven other men.
They are not eligible for unemployment insurance. Some of the
formally unemployed sign up for benefits; others have used them up.
Some get depressed.

Before
Bear Stearns imploded, 200 of its executives arrived each day in a
chauffer-driven limo. At the end of the day, the gas guzzling mobile
comfort lounges awaited these important mortgage dealers. Each
executive earned more in one day than most of the jornaleros truly
earn in two years. Top executives received an average of
approximately $10 million in 2006.

Driving
east on Bancroft, one meets the shopping cart brigade. Scores of
African Americans push Safeway wagons filled with cans and bottles to
redeem them at the recycling plant. Under this merchandise they found
in dumpsters, they
keep their meager
belongings that all street people must guard during the day.

The
rare multi-service outreach agency where my wife works tries to meet
the rudimentary health and social needs of some poor residents of
this enormous Alameda County neighborhood. The majority have no other
access to medical care than that provided by County emergency rooms.
Bush doesn’t not acknowledge the daily “drop ins” by young
women, mostly African American and Latina, who use the East Oakland
Center. It helps them survive each day in the land of the free and
home of the brave. Some have served in Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I,
Afghanistan and Iraq and, because they could not readjust to civilian
life, they depend on the generosity of those they beg from and the
waning publicly supported institutions that still offer some
sustenance.

“Two
point three (2.3) to 3.5 million people are homeless at some point
during an average year,”
reports
the National health Care for the Homeless Council. Thirteen and
one-half million have experienced “literal homelessness” at least
once. http://www.nhchc.org/Publications/basics_of_homelessness.html

An
estimated one third of street-lovers suffer from chronic physical
illness. Another
one-third
have mental illnesses. Almost one-half have current or past drug or
alcohol addictions. Communicable diseases, including HIV/AIDS and
tuberculosis, ravage the homeless. Street people also suffer from
countless varieties of infections in addition to violence-induced
trauma. Their life conditions often expose them to unbearable cold
and rain, states the Council web site.

I
see Jayce holding a “help” sign near the freeway on ramp. He
wears clean but shabby clothes and sports a metal peg leg. A ratty
dog sits next to him. A few people offer him coins. Most don’t even
look at him.

He
makes me uncomfortable. His health problems are worse than mine.
Street people have up to six times more medical issues than people
who have homes. Jayce sleeps in an abandoned vehicle or under the
freeway on cold damp ground, covered with patched blankets and
quilts. His leg pains — and heroine addiction — will probably get
more acute. Average life expectancy for a street person like Jayce is
less than 50.

Thirty-six
percent of the homeless consist of families with kids. Almost 1.5
million American children spend part of their year without living in
a home. Some find shelters; others exist in cars or abandoned
vehicles and in city parks and untended green areas. Almost 7 million
kids had no health coverage in 2007, the year Bush vetoed
the
Children’s Health Coverage bill. These kids join 47 million more
Americans who have no health coverage.

The
Census Bureau lists some 37 million Americans living in dire poverty,
deprived of health care, shelter, and sufficient food; 12.3 percent
of the population.

What
a contrast to George Bush’s people. In 2006, the elite one percent
of the population sucked in some 22 percent of U.S. income. In 2006,
1 percent of Americans absorbed almost 15% of the nation’s income.
According to a 2007 report by the Institute for Policy Studies,
United for a Fair Economy and Citizens for Tax Justice, 46 of the 275
largest companies paid no federal income tax in 2003. Each year, Bush
has cut taxes for the wealthiest. In 2005, the bottom 50% of the
population received less than 13% of the nation’s created values.
(Reuters, October 12, 2007)

In
Berkeley or Piedmont Hills, one could live without witnessing any of
the horror of what goes on in the flats. The former Bear Stearns
execs in NY didn’t have to see the thousands of beggars and street
people. They sat back in their limos and read the Wall
St. Journal
or watched child porn on the flat screen TVs in the back seat while
the chauffer maneuvered through NY traffic en route to posh Long
Island or Dutchess County mansions.

The
only contact the rich have with the poor is master-servant relations
— and even these are mediated through underlings hired to protect
the sensibilities of the super rich from the sights and odors that
emanate from the poor.

Compare
the statistics, the sights and sounds, and the reality of the poor on
the street to the idealized America that Bush promotes: a democratic,
fair, just society. What a gap between reality and political
discourse!

Congress
will soon approve another monstrously large bill to support the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq and shell out some $700 billion for overall
defense. Don’t most voters think that the priorities of those
running the country and aspiring for office might have gone very
wrong? Has the time come for the public to demonstrate in the
streets, through emails and even letters, that the campaigners should
stop their puerile nonsense: the poor people are in crisis that has
little or nothing to do with Iraq, Iran or Islam. The so-called
Christian
candidates
should cast aside their ambition and instead of attacking the truly
well-meaning Reverend Wright, focus on what both Luke and Matthew
said: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be
also.” (Luke 12:34, Matthew 6-19:24)

Bush
and his predecessors, to a lesser extent, have used this country’s
treasure for war. None of the candidates have yet talked about
changing the current priorities, although they all refer to
themselves as deeply religious. Have we reached the point where
Christianity stands for war and destruction, where its advocates
eschew real need? Too bad George
Stephanopoulos
didn’t ask that question at the ABC debate instead of his carping
on Barack’s flag tie pins.

Saul
Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow and author of A
BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD.
His new film, WE
DON’T PLAY GOLF HERE,
is available on DVD at roundworldproductions@gmail.com.