You ever heard of a “Hooverwille”? If not you should know more about your history. During the Great Depression there were thousands of people all over the country in “shantytowns” because they had nowhere to go, often because they had been evicted because they had no money to pay rent. These shantytowns were called “Hoovervilles” by many because many blamed the president at the time, Herbert Hoover, for doing nothing at all to help people who had nothing, especially after the stock market crash of '29 which happened only eight months before he became president. He seemed to willfully disbelieve that things were that bad in the country and, like many politicians today, if things were that bad, it was only because people were lazy bums wanting handouts. There were no “safety nets” at that time...no Social Security, no unemployment benefits, no Food Stamps, no Medicare or Medicaid. Many historians agree that if this condition had not been remedied somewhat by the next president Franklin Roosevelt, there would have been a major revolution in this country.
Some politicians today, mostly Republicans but not all, say those things...it would be a huge disservice to poor people to continue their unemployment payments or Food Stamps or Medicare, et al. It is hardly only the politicians though. I will never understand the mentality - if you can call it that - of people who themselves are very poor, who have tried for months or even years to get a job and cannot, but who agree with those politicians. There are always some people who seem downright gleeful at the misery and suffering of the poor, and feel nothing for them except maybe pure hatred. Case in point: State Representative Tom Brower of Hawaii who has literally, personally taken a sledgehammer and destroyed the meager possessions of homeless people...an act which would gotten most other people arrested. He expresses his hatred for the poor and homeless. No, he’s not a Republican but a Democrat.
There may not be quit as many as there were then, but there are plenty of “Hoovervilles” all over the USA as you read this. And “around the world close to one billion people live in informal settlements or “slums.” By some estimates that population is expected to double by 2030." Source. In the '20s people came from all over the country to Detroit because they had heard that Henry Ford paid the huge sum of five dollars a day for workers. He did, for a while, and that was more than most regular jobs, but some did not realize that this job meant hard labor for 10-12 hours a day at least six days a week and there were NO breaks for food, drink, toilet or anything else without the permission of a supervisor...otherwise you were on the street again. One black man in one of the videos I watched, who lived at the time, said you could get a huge chunk of bacon, maybe a foot square or more, for something like 19 cents. You could get a 24-pound sack of flour for 19 cents. But, he asked, where you gonna get the 29 cents?
About 35 years or so after the five dollar a day at Ford, I knew first hand from direct personal experience about the five dollars a day...if you were lucky. Mine was not in a factory but cotton fields, and of course I could never make that much money because I was a little boy then. A strong man in an abundant field might manage to get $5 a day...by picking five hundred pounds of cotton. It’s been around fifty years since I did that. I didn’t fully understand then...but I would never wish that on anyone...except the billionares.
TRB
Let the rich do the work? Now there's a novel concept. People wouldn't be back-stabbing each other to get rich if they had to do real work, now would they.
ReplyDeleteWe have to address the inequities of extreme wealth in the face of extreme poverty. I explored this idea here.