So, today was the day, we had to break down and apply for food stamps or as it is now called Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP).
You know it is something I never thought I would have to do, but the economic situation here at the Dog house is as grim as it gets. Even after bankruptcy, losing the house in Colorado to the bank and all of that, I thought that I’d still have it together enough that it would not be a call between food and the meds Mrs. Dog needs to keep her going with her back injury.
I went back and forth about writing about this, after all, everyone has it hard and I am surely not the only Kossack that can't seem to find a job that will keep the power on and the food in the fridge.
But I decided to not out of a desire for pity or support, but because I want to try to take the stigma off if it, if that is possible. We are lucky enough to live in a townhouse which my cousin is footing the bill for (for now at least) but it really frustrating to be in this shitty situation.
I had a gig, but I was working for someone who turned out to be impossible to work for (I was warned at the time I took the job but unemployment had run out and I needed the work). Unfortunately I didn’t work for that gig long enough and the whole unemployment is a mess. Again, not a situation that is going to be unique.
But at least the process of applying for food assistance is not hard and not in any way demeaning. Here in the great state of Maryland you just fill out an online form and then they call you in for an interview. They ask you to bring all kinds of info, your income, what your meds cost the bills you have, how much money is in your bank account and the and the like. Then they look it over and decide if you are desperate enough to get some assistance.
The level of assistance varies depending on the number of people in your household and any income you might have. They seem to think we’ll get some assistance, as much as $367 a month. With any luck we’ll be off it shortly as we are both really looking for any kind of job, and in a two person household if you make more than 1,484 gross income a month you are considered too well off for this program.
Which brings me to the really big number. There are 40 million Americans who are in dire enough straights that they are getting some form of this kind of assistance. Think about that number for a minute. That is 13.11 percent of the entire population of our nation.
Now compare that those top earners who the Republicans tell us can’t be taxed any more. Paul Ryan made a speech recently about how it was the Obama administration that were stoking division and class warfare in our country.
Leaving aside the fact that he blaming exactly the wrong person it is not the rhetoric that is driving the Occupy movement and all of the discontent in this nation. It is the fact that 1% of the nation controls 42.7% of the financial wealth in this country and there are tens of millions who have no health care, no jobs, and are in danger of going to bed hungry that is what causes discontent.
It is easy to be complacent when it is not you that is on the end of the suffering scale. The fact that there are 261 millionaires in Congress might be a good reason why there is so little effort to help the regular people of the United States (Rep. Issa, I am looking right at your beady little eyes!).
What frustrates me the most about this whole state of affairs is the same people who are blocking the efforts of the Obama Administration to put our economy back on track are the same ones who wrap themselves in the flag and brag about their patriotism. The thing they miss is that a nation is not just its boarders or government or resources, it is its people. Letting the people of a nation suffer needlessly is the very antithesis of patriotism.
You never think of yourself as one of the truly poor until it smacks you in the face. Today is the day that I have to recognize that for all my middle class upbrining, for all the skills I have worked hard to aquire and perfect, for all that I am one of the poor. I knew I was one of the 99% I just never thought of myself as one of the bottom 20%, until today.
So, what do you do when your nose is rubbed in it? What can you do? You fight back until you can’t fight back any more. I’ll continue to pound the pavement looking for work, since it seem I have to give up on a career that I would like to have (there are several, just no one wants to pay me to do them) and recalibrate my expectations down.
But I am also going to continue this fight. Not for me, though I would benefit from the change, but for all the people who have been shorn of hope, bereft of pride and told that they are losers and worse because they can’t find work to feed their families, let alone achieve the dying American dream.
I am going to continue to support the Occupy Movement, I am going to speak out about the inherent unfairness of a system that rewards people who crashed the economy while punishing those who only ever wanted to have a decent life with reasonable comforts and security.
So, today I filed for Food Stamps. It is a shock to my sense of who I am, but like all shocks it can be positive or negative. I intend to make it both, positive for me and negative for every one of the 1% who take their wealth as some kind of birth right or worse as some kind of indicator of their inherent worth as people.
You know what? I think that is Class Warfare and I think it high time we take the war to the ones who have put us in this position.
The floor is yours!