I'd like to see the day when American politicians are willing to do this.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Four Mexican politicians completed a three-night stay in a spider- and scorpion-infested shack on Wednesday as part of a campaign to raise awareness about poverty dubbed "Vile Brother."
Most politicians in Washington wouldn't give up the slightest comfort for one day for the sake of putting themselves in the shoes of an average citizen, much less live in acute poverty and squalor for a few days in order to get a picture of how great the problem truly is.
It is the American way to assume that if people are poor it's their fault for being poor and it's their responsibility to extricate themselves from that situation. Unfortunately for those living at poverty level their situation is often more a result of given circumstances than by a lack of willingness to work. Many people in this country work more than one job at minimum wage and still cannot afford to lead a decent or even remotely comfortable lifestyle.
One of the best things I've seen recently is that show "Thirty Days" done by Morgan Spurlock, the guy who made the documentary "Supersize Me" about McDonald's. Thirty Days follows Morgan and others in experiments with living in conditions which are otherwise foreign to them. One episode that really hit on an extremely relevant subject was one where Morgan and his girlfriend move to Cleveland, Ohio to try to make it on a minimum wage job with no health benefits. (A situation millions of Americans face every day.) It was an eye-opener for them and for me, the viewer. They worked so hard, often more than one job, but still scrimped to make ends meet. They had no health insurance, so when one of them came down with a sprained wrist or a urinary tract infection they were forced to go to the emergency room, racking up outrageous bills that they could never afford to pay if they wished to eat and have a roof over their heads. They relinquished their credit cards and any other financial cushions before embarking on their experiment, so there was no fallback.
At the end of that particular episode Morgan Spurlock said something to the effect of "I advise everyone to take time out of their regular lives to try and put themselves in someone else's shoes. There is no way you will come out of it unchanged."
The thing that made me angriest was the lack of health insurance. The fact that these people -- who have no money and can barely eat anything more highbrow than rice and beans, who are working their blood, sweat and tears every day, who are obtaining their furniture and appliances and clothes from a shelter/donation center because they just can't afford to buy anything new -- are forced to go into extreme debt everytime they encounter an issue with their health. That infuriated me. Morgan received a bill for his sprained arm. He put it to the camera. He was charged fifty dollars for an Ace bandage. His full bill was over five hundred dollars. (I cut my finger with a knife once and had to go to the emergency room for stitches. It was over a thousand dollars and I was praising the heavens that I had health insurance. I can't imagine facing that situation and knowing that I was responsible for paying that exorbitant bill.) Even those of us who have health insurance through our employers are required to pay out of our salary for that insurance and steep co-pays for doctor's visits and prescriptions.
Poverty, hunger and a lack of health insurance are crises in our society that are going ignored while our president and politicians go on vacations, give themselves raises, enjoy unchecked power over the people and foreign affairs...
While we have billions of dollars to give to Colombia to aid them in their "war on drugs," while we have hundreds of billions to spend on weapons and wars, while we have billions to give to already incredibly rich energy corporations and investors in exchange for absolutely nothing, while we subsidize huge corporations of all kinds with tax breaks (the same ones that pay their employees shit minimum wage), we cannot do anything about our health insurance crisis or HUNGER.
It's a fucking mystery. There is only one reality show I look forward to seeing created in the near future: Survivor: Politicians Survive The Slums (must work minimum wage and live without health insurance). That's a draft they'd all be quick to dodge. Assholes.
Posted by Maria at August 25, 2005 02:11 PM | TrackBack