In a one public opinion poll, 80% of those who identify themselves as conservatives said they feel that poor people “have it easy” in America. Now, at first you may think this is the pedantic bleating of the out of touch and the brainwashed masses who have no idea their red state governors are hosing them into poverty, but as it turns out, maybe those conservatives have a point. I recently got the following, as an attachment to an email to me here at The Chute. It was written by someone who didn’t want to blow the cover off the whole “It’s so rad being poor” racket so they wanted us to protect their identity with a pseudonym, Poorsy McGee.
Without further ado, I bring to you this piece about the god, poor, poverty-stricken life, by Poorsy McGee.
Life on Easy Street
by Poorsy McGee
You truly do not know how sweet the world can be to you when you are poor in America. Because being poor in America is just so damn easy. For instance, I almost never have to stress out about where my next meal is coming from, because I usually can’t afford it anyway. Talk about a stress reliever, starvation will make you forget about nearly all your woes!
Speaking of stress relievers, if you’re like me and hate speaking in public on important topics of the day, being poor is your ticket to complete and total anonymity. I mean, sure, every conservative knows that approximately 95% of us are all poor freeloaders, so we’re not unknown, just invisible. I don’t have to speak in public about what it’s like to live in total abject poverty every day of my life because my opinion is so very rarely asked for to begin with!
And that makes total sense, if you think about it. I mean, why would anyone want to ask me how I wound up below the poverty line, scraping nickels together for TV dinners?Why would anyone ask me how it came to be that I’d be working two jobs and still on food stamps? It’s so much easier to just presume I’m a black, unemployed, unmarried mother and an Obama voter, even if the truth is that equal percentages of black and white people use assistance programs?
One of the best things about being poor is that unlike other, regular, human beings, you’re not required to have an opinion because everyone else is busy having the opinions for you. They’ll tell you just how lazy you are, no matter how many jobs you work. They’ll make sure to let you know how much you cost them every year, even though they spend at least twice as much propping up corporations with their own version of welfare. You really don’t have to think at all when you’er an American Poor, because just like your life, when you’re poor, your thoughts aren’t worth anything, or at least not as much.
Nothing is more kushy and comfortable than sleeping in a tiny apartment (if you have one) on old ass sheets (if you have them) and eating preservative-laden junk (when you can afford it), there is no doubt. Being poor in America is so fantastic and easy, that’s why you see tons of conservative states full of broke people taking federal aid, right? Or is it just that they are blindly hypocritical about poor people? I can’t tell. Remember, I’m poor so clearly I’m not smart. But put a million bucks in my bank account and all of a sudden I’m a genius.
At the end of the day, it’s important for all poor people to know how lucky they are to be alive, and to let that grateful feeling for breathing air fill their lungs and their hearts. We should stop worrying about where our next meal will come from and just eat our magical boot straps, if they don’t end up helping us pull ourselves out of poverty. And remember, that’s poverty we created, are perfectly happy to wallow in, and is exactly like a vacation to Disneyland.
