7 am PST, 58*F, Cloudy, No wind
Online, and even in person I hear a lot of hate and disdain out there for people who need help with food and basic survival. Don’t pretend you don’t see it. Despite the fact that most people who need help are working, or taking care of other people who are disabled, old, or young or are disabled themselves. Empathy has been weaponized, even demonized by the current regime. To the point that disabled people are literally afraid for themselves and their loved ones are afraid for them.
Whatever happened to “A people are only as great as how they treat the least of them?”
My grandmother used to say, “If you have more than enough, build a longer table, not a taller wall.”
And since so many people on the hateful side try to spew bible things, what about the whole treat foreigners as your own, fishes and loaves, and good Samaritans? Didn’t Jesus heal the sick and cherish the disabled? So why the hate?
I feel the hate often enough, as a person with a disability. A disability is not a moral failing. I never asked to be disabled. I was born with a mutation that makes my bones brittle and my connective tissues weak. A mutation in the gene that produces collagen. I have never gotten onto disability. For the most part, unless I’m in a cast, limping, you can’t tell I’m disabled just by looks. I am both “not disabled enough” for disability and not healthy enough to keep a normal job regularly. What employer wants someone who is constantly injured and can’t do the job? Not only that, I feel it is dangerous right now to be on disability. To be on a list. With the current regime who is trying to vilify disability, to try to force people into institutions (and camps, and we know from history what that leads to) so I haven’t even attempted to get on that list during this administration. And you have to live in abject poverty as well. Having no more than $2000 in assets. That includes your car and home- even if it is a tiny old camper. I think I’ll keep my car and camper, thanks. I’m still poor, making low wages and low hours or sometimes no wages when I’m injured (like now, although I must say my current employer is an angel and is still letting me work for pay, just easier work instead of the whole physical part). Having a disability makes life so much harder, a person who isn’t disabled would never understand the effort it takes just to exist.
And so, I will spend the day on the phone, on hold, waiting for an interview that I have to do twice a year, at least, to prove to some nameless and faceless person on the other side of the phone that I need a little help with food.
And don’t tell me to go to the food bank. The local food bank is tiny. Cans of food are 3 years past the expiration date and basically all has gluten, which is poison to me. It used to be better, there were boxes of vegetables and staples, occasionally cheese and eggs. When I had the farm, I donated lots of eggs weekly. But that has disappeared with the regime’s attack on poor people when he cut funding for food banks. That leaves rice. Rice, which my doctor says is bad for the blood sugar. So dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t.
And Snap is on the line. And they are making it harder on the already hard off, those struggling. And yes, I do grow my own food, as possible. It helps but that’s not going to keep me fed with enough protein and grains when I’m broken and hurt. Without snap, I’d have to choose- rent and gas for the car to get to work, or food. I contribute to the world, the best I can. I work the best I can. Nobody wants to need help. Nobody wants to be disabled and struggling, in constant pain, always worried about the future. And there are those caring 24/7 for loved ones. You can’t go off to work 2 jobs when you can’t leave a loved disabled or elderly or child person alone. Someday that might be you taking care of your father or mother or a sick child. Or are you just going to throw them away? Or maybe you will be the sick person, and your family member has to give up their life goals and ambitions to stay and take care of you.
So, think about that, the next time you judge someone who is “on the dole.” You are much closer to needing help then you are to having a million-dollar boat. Your taxes, my taxes… would you rather they go back to the people and help everyone as a whole, and make a better overall society or do you like them going to bombing innocent kids in schools and saltwater treatment plants and destroying other countries and making statues gold plated for some old man’s narcissistic ego? Where should the anti-empathy and misplaced hate really be going?
Yes, I’m trying to homestead. To be more self-sufficient. I do the best I can. And I will continue to do so. I will also not lie about my situation. I will fight tooth and nail to exist. I always have. And I’m not ashamed of that, even if society tries to tell me I should hate myself. Be in my shoes, some wouldn’t last a day, I’m sure.
And for crying out loud, love one another, help each other. Don’t make things harder on people trying to exist the best they can. Empathy is not a crime.
Climate Wary Homesteader 