I wrote this blog post 4 years ago, but I feel it is relevant today more than ever. As the income inequality and wealth gap continues to grow and more and more people fall into the lower classes, revolting against poverty is becoming more common and sometimes, more dangerous.
“The State Lottery Office (The Poor and Money)” watercolor painting by Vincent Van Gogh.
On social media and in real life, I hear a lot about how the poor “take advantage” of the system and how they “waste what they have” or are “just plain lazy”. Of course, these comments always seem to come from people who are at least close to middle class and have never once gone truly hungry, been homeless or lost everything they have through some cruel twist of fate. Having grown up in a mostly one-parent family that did accept government and charity assistance on occasion (even though my mother often worked MORE than full time), I see a different perspective.
I will admit that sometimes the things that the impoverished do may indeed contribute to their own problems, but often this is through ignorance or desperation. Often they make rash decisions based on immediate needs…
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Maranda Russell 
Very relevant and well said. I’m not sure how it goes in your country, but in Australia this is the mantra of the conservative right wing, and it works well for them, to continually lie about poverty has helped them keep in power and reduce any compassion for the poor. It works on the old philosophy that you have to pose and enemy in people’s minds to create a following, and if you can make the people jealous and fearful of others, you can easily manipulate them. Horrible stuff.
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Here we have a news station called Fox News that is right wing and they harp on about abuses of welfare by the poor all the time. They also seem to immensely dislike immigrants and other impoverished people 😦
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Yes, indoctrination is the word that I use ☹️
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Fox News, is that the station favoured by Donald Trump, well known for his compassion and generosity of spirit to the underprivileged ?
We have his imitators in the UK of course, and sadly they are in power.
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The very same.
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