If you are poor enough, and I've written about this many times, you are left out of the warp and weave of society. Poverty is one reason I no longer have a family. Poverty led to my being disabled in the first place. Poverty keeps me from doing activities I would rather be doing. In my case I am fortunate, I do have my husband and a few good friends despite being poor. I'm not really lonely as of late doing activities with husband and friends, but I've had those times in life. Society is indeed headed in a direction that is scary for social connection. Maybe once I figure out a new church or other things I can improve things even more. This article is true though, the poorer you are, the lonelier you will be.
For homeless people this is even worse, think about this, if you are homeless, there's no one close enough to be taking you in. That's the loneliest place to be. Can you imagine? The Bible had a verse I still remember.
Proverbs 19:4 “Wealth maketh many friends; but the poor is separated from his neighbour”
Doing stuff, hobbies, going out, and gas for visits all cost money. Even if I get an art scholarship for an art class, I still have to pay something to be there. Other activities cost supplies, entrance fees and money for gas to get there.
So, this doesn't surprise me.
The article talks about how the work world has changed, the low paid jobs are often outsourced so the workers don't feel embraced by the company. They are underlings kept separate from everyone else. The book "Bowling Alone" is mentioned, and how civic organizations have died out in America. Lower income people have far less groups to go to in other words and have to work more hours more often than not.
They discuss how poverty itself can burden friendships since poor people often need more help and favors and how one's self esteem is affected negatively. Those who are single find dating much harder and too expensive. I talk about how the poor never are able to find each other, we are isolated from each other. Some may tell me go find people in your same situation, but it has felt impossible around here. I asked my husband many times "How come I never meet anyone in the same circumstances as myself"? I do online but IRL it's very rare. I befriend people from all walks of life instead.
Society is changing in a way where the isolation is growing. There's less opportunities. I notice with older people they have groups to go to and participate in but many of those groups just have boomers and older and no one younger in them. I've been in a multitude of groups like this. It's better I did things that way instead of hiding at home. The library book club had people all 20 years older. What happens when those groups all die off? I made an effort for community involvement and it paid off. Is part of the problem that only older people [boomers and above] have the money and social capital still that the predatory capitalists have now erased for anyone under a certain age? Are younger people having socialization problems? I've noticed young people seem quieter; I don't know if it is because they aren't going to talk that openly to a disabled old lady or if they are spending more time alone and it's taken a toll. How would I know?
Most who have read this blog have seen me talk about how money has affected my life in organizations including churches.
Should people accept such a lonely society? Do you see how society is basically no longer working or it costs money to even be seen as a human being? Here is a Substack article written on this Slate article.
He's right about a lot in this article. I agree with it. He talks about the demise of social lives in American society. I addressed how we were forced to move away from each other years ago in my article "Economic Nomads in the Geography of Nowhere"
In some ways, I never recovered from that last move, while I came to accept life here and found the good things and a few friends, there was always part of me that thinking, "I'll be wrenched away from here too now". It was a theme of my life always being taken away from people and places. People need to have a HOME for life. Humans need connection and security. That's one reason American society has so many mental health problems. All this moving has ruined society as a whole. I hope in the future people won't be forced to move so much.
As I have written too poverty ends belonging now in American society.
He writes:
"I’m desperately lonely.
And not on a purely personal level. Compared to the past, we are all desperately lonely in the modern age.
Do you have 4-5 friends that would come over and play a game with you?
Do you entertain guests at least once every two weeks?
Have you ever been to a dinner party with a bunch of adults your age?
How often do you go over to someone’s house that you’re not related to?"
In my case I do see two friends one about every two weeks, and the other about once every 6-8 weeks, one lives around 20 miles away and the other 50-60. I could not bring 4-5 friends together unless I was doing something with my art club. My art club usually met around once a month. Autistics don't always get "friend groups", we usually befriend one on one or on occasion couples or do activities.
I have never been to a dinner party outside of a church context. Some of my churches sponsored dinner parties but I know I could not meet the expenses of holding one myself though I attended a few in my first IFB including a large barbecue. That reminds me of my mother when she mocked me, asking me "Having 25 people in your home is not something that doesn't require work, you would know this how?"That woman has never been lonely which gives me some strange thoughts about life. I never go to anyone's house though this is complicated that some have stairs and it's hard for me to get into their houses. Otherwise I probably would visit more of their houses. I would have some friends and me meet at the library and other places sometimes to get around this problem.
He is right about the death of the extended family. My mother grew up safe and secure among literally 100 relatives. There was a small town that was full of my relatives up to the early 1970s on the side of the family. Most moved away starting in the 1960s. When I read old books like James T. Farrell and Saul Bellows, the social and family networks even in big cities are VAST and long in duration. That doesn't apply to society today. "In the early 1900s, it was completely normal to be in proximity to your uncles and aunts, cousins, second cousins, third cousins twice removed (I don’t know what that actually means), And so on.
He talks about how people were more interdependent with one another. People weren't eating alone and going days and days without seeing or talking to another human being. We have each other but in-between times I see my friends or art club I can go days without talking to anyone else except online. One reason I DO live in small towns, is I do like getting to know clerks, and others. That does happen if you live in a small enough place. My town is still small enough to have vestiges of the old school friendliness here and there.
"Society used to operate on a web of relationships between people that were interdependent on each other.
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. Each of them had a trade and something they could be relied on for. Some of you reading this likely have a last name such as, Fletcher, Gardener, Baker, Smith, etc. All of these are jobs that cemented someone’s place in society. If you have to go and get your bread everyday from the baker, you’re probably going to develop some kind of relationship with him.
“Hey Tim, how are the kids?”
For the first time in human history, this interdependence has been obfuscated.
He talks about how women while they had to work all day cleaning the house, cooking and taking care of children got far more time to be social, caretake and volunteer. "Bowling Alone" talked about how this helped with societal connections in past decades. Many times, I have mentioned when I was in my 30s talking to Silent Generation friends in my old rural community, most said life had far better for them than their daughters. Most of my silent generation friends are long deceased now. At least two told me, "Life used to be better!" People weren't so overworked.
I don't think life was supposed to be like this. He makes a list of changes. Maybe life was meant to be more than just living in an economic prison where life is all about money and work. The rest of America knows America lost the plot. Even many realize most of the evangelical world seemed to sign on more with predatory capitalism than the actual teachings of Jesus Christ. Some of us discern the AI cage being built and are already being harassed to death and punished for not having money over and over! I've noticed AI and abusive mega corporations abuse those without money most of all, or who need an extra day to pay a bill. He also talks about how society is rapidly declining. Seriously where is the motive to have children in a world like this, so they will be broke and alone too? Even with those regretful parents, time is so short, you can tell a lot of the regret is pure exhaustion.
He agrees too.
"Work was meant to supply us with the things we need to live, not be the reason we live.
We have embraced materialism in an effort to be fat and happy, but we only got fat. The world is so inundated with cheap plastic from China that is has entered our brains.
The modern person works more than his ancestors for money that can be endlessly printed. All to come home to an empty apartment in a city full of strangers.
Aren't we overdue long ago for a backlash against all this crap? Do real countercultures happen instead of sponsored ones by intelligence from Laurel Canyon? Maybe in real life, think about new ways to do stuff. I try to use small businesses as much as possible. I try to get to know store clerks and others I do business with. I still want to try and find a church that is more old school and follows old ways with social connections. If you can buy something local do it. That's gotten harder but I try. Some new thing may be spending less time online, I will still blog, and getting more involved in local art happenings as my body allows.
Are more thinking people realizing we need something very different? Where people finally say "ENOUGH!" to a depersonalized, asocial economic slavery and oppression society. Poor people shouldn't be lonelier. Money shouldn't determine having others in your life.
How can we go back to better ways? How can we not let technology rules us or get led by the nose into lives with the soul washed away? I read my state wants to put a tracker in every car to track your miles and where you go, for the future carbon credits. I told some people on my Facebook, isn't it time we say ENOUGH to this crap. "We don't want to do it!"
We are losing even what it means to be human in this mess. Is money the price of even having human relationships? Add AI and it's even worse. There are parts of my personality that yearn for the past, and there's definitely a reason for it. With poor people being lonely, we have to try and reach out to others, and in those things I had some nice things happen. They are throwing up barrier after barrier in front of people. I hope more speak out. We don't have to do things this way nor do we want to. Reach out to any lonely people you run across too. Be social. It's not easy for autistic me always. I don't want to live in a boring technocracy where dollar signs are your whole identity. America is getting to that point.
The cut off for Medicaid in my state has remained at the same number since 2016. That means in ten years even with extreme inflation and over that long of a period of time, they kept the cut-off the same. That is a giant backdoor cut in Medicaid. I live in a state historically known as "blue". I was right about the extreme welfare cut-offs. Back in the 2010s, I remember all the household budgets, all the prices have gone up by 100 percent, especially doubled. I am paying on so many medical bills, with payment plans, I have a roster of them all to keep track of them. Default on bills is probably off the chain now. I've paid mine but they keep going up.
No one can afford their bills. Lest someone blame the Republicans only for all the welfare cuts, the welfare, Medicaid, EBT insanity happened under Democrats too. We essentially do not have social services anymore. This is very scary for a disabled person. They raised Medicare Premiums. I get a small Social Security check and today, almost 300 of it is taken out of the gate for premiums/Medicare D premiums. So I get my low-level check, an amount anyone would struggle to live on and 300 of it is gone on the first day. All costs were increased by 140 dollars in one year.
The rich jerks in charge don't care. They are only out for themselves. Maybe this is what you get when all your politicians are rich and even local ones live the 6 figure life and are completely out of touch with how ordinary people have to live. We had 60 dollars to spend at Aldis yesterday. I'm doing things like eating the same thing over and over for dinner, its cheaper and there's only so choices. I consider skipping meals again, but get scared about my weird metabolism, that can go even lower if there's too little food. The money they expect everyone to pay on everything is insane. The powers that be lie and tell us inflation is only 4 percent, we know it's far higher. We are paying double for somethings we got just a few years ago. I'm in danger of homelessness. So is my husband. If one of us dies or needs long term hospitalization or rehab, the other party is in great financial peril. In my husband's case, I am hoping his sister or best friend would take him in. I am hoping friends would help me but that's a lot to ask of anyone especially in someone's case like my own where there's severe medical problems to contend with. The way they got the housing set up, as I have written about multiple times and the rest, the system seems designed to just crush people. Too many assume disabled people will be automatically helped. Trust me, social workers never had much mercy for me. The one social worker was sincere from my house call doctor's office at least but their first order of business is usually to turn you away. I worry even now about weight discrimination affecting me when it comes to housing. I wanted to meet with social workers, and talk to them about emergency plans for both I and husband, "What should we do?" but there was nothing like that out there.
Yesterday I talked about what we should do if either of us ends up homeless. I said my arbitrary plan is to find an open disability apartment but that would mean moving to a very remote area most likely away from medical care, and that is scary. "There really is no social services system and we have to plan accordingly." This is why I wanted us to move into housing and why the HUD cut offs are so punishing. I'm still on one list as a back-up and probably should go on more just for back-up but the HUD cut-offs are insane too, they match the 10 year old Medicaid cut-offs that do not take inflation or reality into consideration. There was a lot more help 10 years ago.
The system is NOT working anymore. The amount of money the social workers except people to live on no longer works, in my state they never changed anything for all this inflation. That is why Medicaid is using the same numbers from 2016. The math doesn't math. My rent is paid, but this is a burden I live under. I'm tired of living in fear. I also have told him chances are if we remain housed, we may have to take in a friend or other people who become homeless. "The streets are going to fill up with hoboes just like it did during the first Great Depression!"
How much do the assholes in charge plan to squeeze everyone? Until they can't eat? That usually brings revolutions in world history. Revolutions can make things worse and then you basically live in a war zone, where supplies are vaporized. Hate to tell you all but I see outraged comments on many websites, where people write things like {paraphrasing here}
"Let it collapse"
"This government does not care about us"
"Thomas Jefferson had the remedy"
"I am sick of these bills, I hope society just cracks up and I no longer have to pay them"
There's been "revolution" comments too, I won't repeat here, but use your imagination. I don't want my blog censored.
This is something new and means people are getting fed up. Some of us are questioning a "ruined decade" starting with 2020.
These are the comments of a failing society with failed leadership on multiple levels. Thinking of that old bicentennial time, people back then liked being American. It wasn't perfect, the 1970s had problems and Jimmy Carter but there was a lot more hope back then.
I make jokes to my husband if famine hits, well we are fat, and our metabolisms suck and maybe we would survive. Americans were so passive and bent over for all the Covid crap, will they just watch fellow citizens starve as they suck their thumbs? Some of us have friends who have helped thankfully but what is wrong with this place? I am glad someone asked this question....
Yes what is going to happen? See Argentina, the Weimer Republic, etc. etc. It's not good.
Most churches don't care. Those of us who are this poor, know we can't afford church or would be embarrassed as the pastors make their tithing demands. Locally they closed our Soup Kitchen, they said, "Oh we are going to reopen it" and there the building sits still not open two years ago. We drove by it the other day. Someone told me they pass out bag lunches. I feel bad unable to give much. I do give spare scraps for food I can't eat to one food box, but then I take from it too. If I had money I'd fill that damn thing up, with some canned meat, real food and things people would enjoy eating instead of the endless parade of beans.
The United States sucks now and is becoming a third world country. There's a reason they got hygiene stations with shampoo for the poor at your local library. People can't even afford those items. It's for the homeless living in cars and tents but other poor people can't afford it either. The food banks got worse. They hand out the same cans of beans over and over. The churches hand out the same government food everywhere, around this area, that includes usually cheap cereal, a can of black beans, a can of pinto beans, or bag of pinto beans, maybe some rice, cheap bread, and boxes of macaroni and cheese. The cans of chicken disappeared around 6 months ago.
How come no one ever says, 'we should be able to afford basic things, this is wrong". Working people should not be homeless, or unable to afford shampoo or groceries or their bills. Hey in the 1990s, I knew bullshit was coming when they started all that "temp" crap, and I would have been happy enough back then to get a basic plastics factory job to pay my bills and be stable, but they made them all temp which means you couldn't depend on the work or the pay. I'm disabled, I never expected to be rich being disabled but right now the disability checks are shrinking and inflation has made them almost worthless. For years after I paid rent, there was always a certain buffer that was left, well that's now gone. Sometimes I hate my body because it made me poor. It is ironic I have to go without. One friend meant well giving me more dieting advice, but I thought, "Don't you realize I go without now all the time?" I and my husband are always splitting a portion for ONE into a portion for TWO." We did it yesterday with an Indian package of food I got for a cheaper price from the Indian store. Food choices are restricted from poverty all the time.
We are told all this utter crap about America being the richest country in the world. What a joke! The rest of the world sees this embarrassment. Iran did a video feeling sorry for poor Americans knowing the numbers of the homeless and unemployed here are exploding.
There's hoarded wealth at the top, but Americans are now becoming some of the poorest people on earth as far as developed nations go. Some guy I am guessing some sort of system lover, told me on YouTube comments to go see how great Cuba, Venezuela and Iran were. It was kind of weird they chose countries the USA is messing with instead of fixing problems here. Sorry that's not working, I live in an area where I can see ruins within a few miles once I leave the "good part of town", your delusional rah-rah American crap isn't going to cut it! There's YouTube videos about the ghetto area I live near and how "dangerous" it is, even though I am there an average of twice a week. These rich dummies who never see out of their bubbles still believe all that crap about America being rich because they are rich themselves. They live in denial and get mad at anyone who talks about the real state of the economy.
Patriotism is dying on a withering vine, in a place where so many have decided to lick the boots of soulless billionaires and sold their own family members out down the river. My ancestors destroyed my future life moving to this place, and denying their heritages. I told my husband, his German parents should have stayed home, maybe he would have been a middle-class man there. I would go back and tell my Hungarian and German ancestors, "Stay the hell home!"
Those of us old enough to remember the bicentennial, remember what a big deal it was, our schools had us dress up, our parents bought decorations where there was glass plates with colonial scenes and brass Liberty bells. There were giant parades and celebrations. We felt proud to be American. Now that the 250th anniversary is here, no one cares.
What is there to celebrate? Our leaders hate us and seem to want us dead [Covid-democide]. They are out of touch jerks with no empathy. They have turned the USA into an exporter of wars instead of anything good. The world hates the United States now. They look at how abused the American people are and the poisonous food here and are disgusted. Some feel sorry for us while others are afraid of this place.
I'm talking about both parties. When local politicians bootlick that data center companies ignoring all the desires of fellow citizens, you wonder how come the sincere ones are so rare? There's nothing to look forward to but a possible AI hellscape with a oppressive social credit system. Anyone with half a brain can tell things in America are getting worse. We will be lucky if this place doesn't become like the book "The Road" and the better option would be for it to fade into third world obscurity. Some rich boomers can delude themselves with dreams about QFS and Nesara and whatever you call it, supposedly making everyone rich, but you are taking crazy pills to think these billionaires from hell are going to share.
Homelessness does seem to be exploding, I live in a more affluent town, they keep them hidden around here but I follow some social media pages of towns in my state that have been taken over by the homeless. Remember the town I went to college in? That place is so overrun with homeless people it's insane. There's one YouTube channel of a Christian man feeding the homeless there, and there's lots of them. Some are elderly but others are very young. They all look very hungry.
I couldn't get a job in that town in the 1990s, so I'm sure things got worse there. By 2012, the train station and a McDonalds was known as "homeless central", you could get hit up by 15 beggars all at once. I don't blame the people begging, some have nothing. There are some homeless organizations there that hand out tents, food and set up free vision, and hearing clinics for the destitute. Getting a job in that place would be like winning a Lotto.
My attitude towards that town is a negative one, I was poor there and denied needed help. The place sucked, there was a thin sliver of rich people and everyone else was poor. You had to beg to get even the crappiest temp job in the 1990s. I won't be surprised if it collapses into another heap and becomes another notorious poor and collapsed town in my rust belt state. Think of Gary Indiana, there's tons of Gary Indiana's, scattered across my state. It's a town on the way to collapse in my opinion.
We are in a Depression. This economy is a sinking ship. It is crazy how they have made homelessness illegal in many places while doing everything possible to increase homelessness. The laws are written in a way to make all needed activities in being homeless illegal, like sleeping in your car or camping. They don't provide any options either. When I was on X/Twitter, some conservatives were claiming Trump was going to have more homeless shelters built to get them off the streets. There's been no evidence of that whatsoever.
The laser technician having to buy a dog bed to sleep on in the back seat of her car, that's very sad. There are a lot of people living this way now. Then there's the people who bought the camping trailer to live in. A lot of the new laws about "camping" in multiple states is going to make their lives a lot harder. I have written about the social services system being set up like a maze where people fall through on purpose. The same applies to homelessness. They are ensuring that more people will end up homeless, but at the same time making survival impossible and writing the rules to punish people for becoming homeless. The system is set up in a way to destroy people. Some people who visit America are now commenting that this place is depressed. I see it in everyday life.
I agreed with this comment.. "veebeequeen
1 day ago
Why the hell do we have 'government' when it does nothing for the people. This makes my heart so sad for so many people experiencing this. I've lived in a van for good chunk of time and I loved the experience, but that was due to choice and not necessity. States making homelessness illegal with NO backup options or assistance is purely evil.
It is evil.
The evil in charge don't realize, they've lost people. Yeah there's still a few brainwashed MAGAS out there, the majority to be frank have jumped ship. They know and admit Trump turned his back on the American people and America First was a lie with the war on Iran and the state of the economy. Some are getting the inkling in an owned and corrupt system, that voting just feels like a dead end.
The Democratic party is a joke and already trying to foist Newsome, the guy who destroyed California on us. I saw his new book at the library, why would I read that trash? California has the highest numbers of homeless people. His new book seems to push identity politics as a selling point. He helped with gay marriage so look away from the slums of California and the endless people living in tents.
The young have grown so disenfranchised it's scary, they are getting tired. I see far less hope in them then when I was young.
This guy is right too:
[–]Typical-Mud-8589 1 point 2 hours ago
When the gap between survival and affordability becomes impossible to bridge, the social contract essentially dissolves, leading to massive instability and collective unrest. We are really playing with fire if we keep ignoring the reality that everyone deserves a baseline of dignity and survival.
Sadly this cycle has been repeated over and over in world history. The social contract in America is fraying to nothing, there will be far more instability and unrest. One town I considered moving to for cheaper rent, it is good I did not go there. I found out later from their Neighborhood board, the cheap rent got raised as of last year and is at least 1,000-1100 dollars. As everywhere gets more poorer, the crime rate will skyrocket. Many posts are about people being stolen from. They were looking for a stolen kid's bike the other day.
I wrote for years how poverty destroyed my health, and was part of my severe obesity story and wrote poems about it. Ironically this blog's traffic is growing like gangbusters. I get the feeling the growing poverty in America is bringing me readers, because I am one of the very few who talks about life being poor. Have any of you noticed, how there's no voices of anyone but rich jerks allowed anymore? You never see books, or writings etc. by ordinary people anymore. It's all bougiecrats, and elites. This is one reason zines are part of my hobbies. I know I am taking forever on the Covid zine, but the next one will be Fat Pat dealing with the ECONOMY. I have endless comics I already drew in my journals. When people are made voiceless that's a problem.
Why don't the Poor have a voice? Have you noticed how no one talks about poverty or the real economy except for some videos on Youtube or alternative websites? We are STILL being gaslit to death. We have been silenced. Why aren't there websites more directly addressing the USA economy? How come we have to go to the independents to get any news or any validation about what is happening? Think about that and how our media and everything else is owned by the same 6-7 corporations.
The level of poverty among people is worsening too. What about young newly disabled people? How will they survive when survival was so hard even earlier? I am not seeing the reactions that should be happening in an economy like this. They have distanced us from society. I hope some people are trying to find solutions and I am just cut off from knowing about these things. Are things going to change? Are there are going to be more communes? Will a mutual aid society come to my area? Will the churches actually do anything in terms of food, and helping the homeless, instead of passing out boxes of government food? I don't know. There's that point where you say well, I should be doing something positive instead of waiting for someone to do it. Maybe ponder that in your own life.
If our leaders suck, and the system is failing, we may need to build parallel systems or do things on a local basis for survival and community. Look for needs in your area and see what you can do. It's better to be proactive in this way and seek out more community and personal ties. If the economy does collapse, this may help with survival in the long run. I do wish there was more awake people around me. I know some thank goodness. This may sound like weird advice coming from me but if you have a decent family keep them around, I hope you can help each other. That was a sign of a real family.
I try to think of solutions all the time for personal survival, some ideas of mine are funny like, eating the same thing for dinner for 4-5 days, and some worked like thinking of stuff to sell. What about the bigger survival picture? Is anyone out there thinking of solutions? My own health, resources and power are pretty limited. I guess one thing I want to say is don't wait for the rich jerks to come and "save you" or those around you. Hopefully some grassroots stuff is coming together. The Buy Nothing movement is one positive thing out there, it's how I get free stuff and exchange things I don't need. Americans are already starting to barter under necessity and Buy Nothing is evidence of that. I think of history where people did come together to meet needs not being met in other places.
I went to a Buy Nothing Meet-up, and while no one took the clothing I had, I donated those things later. We got some cookie sheets and other usable items. We need more things like that. Maybe we need something food based so people can share resources for food. Some towns may have Food Not Bombs chapters but something along those lines. This town needs some more community gardening, maybe some places can do things like that. I'm trying now to research what is out there on the economic justice front and local endeavors. I may do a blog article listing groups I found nationally. Here's one group called the Poor People's Army.
I know the extreme wokes may have ruined some things out there, but maybe there's some still old school types trying to bring real help and answers as far as economic oppression goes. No Kings is a joke, many here know my opinion about them. Many some people should do their own protests, I know there's some real antiwar protests not associated with No Kings. I looked up one in Chicago. Are there any real economic protests or other endeavors out there? I don't know. These are some questions I would like to answer.
I'm just one person but I am looking around trying to figure out if there are local people examining the economy like me or trying to form other systems for survival. We need community especially in a time like this. I still dream of a church where the place shares resources and isn't just about enriching a pastor. I did meet a local independent disability activist; I plan to go visit with soon. Maybe I will talk to her about ideas related to disability.
The second Depression will be a lot harder. We barely know our neighbors. We have too many churches that shut the poor out. Many of us have no families. Community is gone. Some of us more fortunate have friends but in dystopia America you see people all the time who talk about having no friends. This place does everything to separate people and ruin community that it can. We definitely need community back. With the homeless, there needs to be less focus on "punishment" and more on responding to what made them homeless to begin with. I remember when people wanted society to function and wanted things to be better. Why have things gotten to the point where the actions taken are always ones to ruin people's lives and make it worse? It needs to change.
Many Americans have no money to travel anymore. What will this mean in a world where everyone lives far away from relatives?
People can't afford to see each other in person anymore.
During the boomer's era when a man with a high school diploma could get a job let's say at a factory, or as a school janitor, could buy a house and raise some kids and feed them, life was different then. That family had enough expendable income to go to "Grandma's house" even if grandma lived hundreds of miles away. This is another issue not being explored by sociologists very much, how declining money and expenses for travel are breaking up family. Sure some say you can stay in touch via distance. I have friends online I never have met in person, I've talked to for 25 plus years. It often can work. With family though, if you are simply not around, and you don't have people who like writing letters or emails, the relationships will die on the vine. If you all live hundreds or even thousands of miles away long enough, time will erode any possible relationships. The poorer you are, the less contact you will have with your family. The younger generations who cannot afford rent, food, and more do not have money to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to "go home" and visit family.
We were all scattered for careers that didn't pan out.
One thing I have noticed is social services, counselors and others assume everyone has a family. While SOME people have family networks where they live, that's far fewer. Narcissistic parents will scatter families, people move away, even the golden and lost children feel the strain around the narcissistic parent, they think "I got to get out of here!" Families broke up for careers and economics and well while it paid off for older generations that did find careers, it stripped away any notion of family for younger people.
One thing I noticed in some smaller towns I lived in, is some families were still intact, they all lived in the same town. Life for them was far different, their family and relatives were part of the warp and weave of their everyday life. I know this woman where there were 5 sisters and they all lived in town, one was deceased but they visited her all the time in the nursing home before she died.
You Separated Everyone Long Ago
I notice the estranged parent set never deal with this issue. I have posted about their outraged anger at their estranged children but do some realize, many of us grew up without extended family simply because they were too far away? Do they realize many of us saw our families scatter to the 4 winds, hundreds and thousands of miles away? I have written about how I grew up being hundreds of miles from all relatives. Why are some of these estranged parents shocked, that families have broken up? They blame their estranged kids but don't realize the fix was put in place for families to split up years and years ago.
I saw this estranged parent on social media getting angry at estranged children claiming, "They have no loyalty, roots, or sense of history, towards their family." Well what do you expect? Those things were thrown away in the 1960s. Family were strangers they saw once or twice a year or less. They couldn't pay their rent and their jobs paid them only basic survival wages so how could they afford to run around and visit people and build relationships with them? They weren't family, they were strangers. Even on Breaking Bad, the relatives were present in each other's lives even though Walter White was betraying them.
This estranged parent ranted about "family being reduced to DNA".
What do you expect? Seriously. You think there's real relationships among people who never see or talk to each other? The reality is, that for many family members all they share is DNA and no relationships. I was far closer to loving friends I met online, I shared heart to heart conversations with via email than I was many family members. I sought "family" in all the churches I joined. It worked out once but then I was forced to move away from those folks. Church could be weird watching people around their families, and most of the conservative ones became extremely family focused to the point people without families did not feel welcomed.
When a society decided that everything was going to be monetized this means social capital as defined by the book "Bowling Alone", connection no longer mattered. Along with the third spaces, family disappeared too. All decisions were to be made based on economics and "making it". Now that the younger generations aren't making it, the system is failing, the families are gone and the economic success except for the very wealthy has dried up. The estranged parents don't even understand or realize why their adult children are so upset.
When Grandma lives over 500 miles away for years and as an adult, you live even further away for over 30 years.
How is a kid going to see "family" as important if they lived far away from all relatives and relatives were these people they only saw once to twice a year and sometimes less? I went no contact due to abuse, but I know one reason my mother gained control of the family so easily and why so many of the "better" relationships died on the vine, was I simply lived too far away and could not afford the necessary travel to maintain relationships with family. I didn't have the hundreds of dollars to go visit one's cousin's wedding, and I also had medical problems that made long distance travel far harder. It occurred to me as I tried to rescue a few relationships with some before going no contact with the entire family, some simply had no interest in maintaining family ties. They found my desire to "get to know each other" weird. They didn't relate to it. There was this sense that everyone was supposed to have their own life, and by even displaying a desire to have them in my life, I had broken some unwritten rule. In my case I learned to no longer beg people or go to empty wells, but the default was, "We don't care, get your own life, leave us alone".
No one came to visit me for years except for 10 minute stop offs on the way to elsewhere and even that disappeared. No one is going to keep any relationships going with this type of distance.
Reaching out to Strangers Got Old and They left Me Before I Left Them
What does family mean today? Before I was no contact, I used to make phone calls, I was the type to call Grandma on a regular basis and even Aunt Confused. I sent presents, cards and more. What did it all mean? I was always reaching out while no one reached out to me or did as little as possible. I've talked about how I became a stranger. As I wrote in my no contact letter to my mother "Both of us have noticed we have become more ostracized over the years, If people slam a door in your face enough times...what happens if you have any self-respect left? You walk away." And yes the slamming doors ricocheted through my life and affected what decisions I made. You can only try and force relationships that don't really exist so much.
Churches Aren't for People with No Families
One reason conservative circles were always hard for me, was they all talked about how important family was. My fundamentalist churches, especially the last two, pounded on it continually. Those patriarchal types with their Quiverful clans of 10-12 kids lived in the world of yesterday no longer available to most. They had money and land for all those kids and tons of relatives around them. Many seemed stuck in the lives of 50 years ago where aunt and uncle lived down the street and you could go talk to them. Church got weird sometimes, the second IFB was always preaching how important family was. What if you didn't have one? Everything was about the "family".
Some didn't get the memo that most families were all broken up starting in the 1960s and we didn't have extended families anymore. The demise of the extended family, I believe made narcissism worse. When there was more of a community around, there was more pressure to keep the narco-paths in control, '"why are you treating your kid that way?" An abused kid could get a break at a relative's house if they were close enough. The isolation of the nuclear family allowed abuse to fester and grow within four walls. The worse could get away with more. There was no one to challenge them. There was no community to demand at least a certain modicum of behavior.
Uncles, Aunts, Cousins etc. you don't know.
Uncle Lost Boy doesn't care that I exist. He's never sent me a card and neither has his wife. I doubt he's thought of me in 25 years. "Oh I have a niece". That's the reality today. If I was homeless could I call Uncle Lost Boy for help? Doubtful. I'm a stranger. Remember I have no beefs with him. He's too controlled and passive in the face of my mother but there's been no harsh words between us. He is far closer to his wife's more traditional working class family who all live in the same town. Who can blame him?
My father's family had nothing to do with my family. We visited them but no one visited us after 1982 when my family moved to the Midwest from the East Coast. Aunt Confused kept some contact and visited once in 1998, but otherwise went poof out of our lives especially when she disappeared in the early 1980s and didn't even say goodbye to me as a teen. That was over with. They had money for trips, but no one was interested. Oddly they kept in contact with my mother, but money and lavish presents were motivators for weddings. First cousins, simply had nothing to do with us.
I am not the only one no one talks to because I went no contact. My brother told me he hadn't talked to my sister in 2 and half years right before I went no contact with him. My other two siblings are at least at the very low contact level and could be no contact now. I found out from Aunt Confused, that two granddaughters wouldn't even share their addresses with her. She was invited to weddings, but not allowed to be part of their day to day lives. The cousin who called me to tell me he had gotten divorced, a few years ago, told me he hadn't seen any family members in years. Some ACONS warn when the scapegoat leaves, the families break apart. Mine had broken apart before I left the fractures definitely grew. Younger people don't have the same money, time, resources, energy or space to maintain family relationships like older generations. That impact is already happening.
This issue has been covered on this blog by me multiple times where I talked about my life as an "economic nomad" and there was never any real home. Someone may ask "What's your home town?" What town do I name? They say "move home to family for support" to young people. Some have divorced parents so things are even more broken up. What does that mean when the family is spread about 5 different states?
One thing I constantly noticed in the fundamentalist and conservative churches I was in, was many were in the more traditional mode, they lived among family members mostly in small towns. Now these churches were mostly the Baby Boomer generation and older. They had jobs and established lives in small towns, and extensive networks. This will not be true of the younger generations. I predicted there's going to be a lot of churches closing when the boomer generation dies off. This one thing I chafed against in all my conservative and evangelical churches. Many evangelical churches claim they grow by going out to the highways and byways and street preaching for new "converts" but I'll be frank, that's rare. Most people in the churches are family members. I've noticed with some of the estranged parents, they all are of that background, some are evangelicals using religion to shame their "wayward" youth.
Conservative politicians were always hypocrites about "family values", they pushed those in our faces for years, while pushing idyllic 1950 visions of home and hearth, they built financial systems and took away all social safety nets that would have allowed more families and communities to remain intact. I didn't want to hear about how all the people without families were wicked. I've noticed the estranged parent movement has a huge evangelical flavor to it, where they push the same stuff ignoring the economic realities their adult children face and say their children are all "wicked".
Physical Presence Matters
Family will break down from distance alone, physical presence matters. In history, cultures had rituals and shared events. These events built up solidarity and positive memories. That won't happen in a family that can no longer afford travel or participate in any traditions or meet-ups. The family dinners, and family reunions of yesterday also have disappeared. I am old enough to have seen some of those things in the 1970s. Things were different then. When I was sent to my aunt's house to stay, that wouldn't happen for many children today. Due to distance, people will be facing extreme illness, poverty and other life troubles on their own. Those with young children will be on their own or fully dependent on expensive daycare. The family is simply not there to help. As the economy gets more oppressive this means the young will have less to do with their families, even in non-toxic ones they would otherwise desire contact with. The money will simply not be there.
Connection between family members has broken down. Now there's those of us who had to break connections that brought pain, abuse and sabotage to our lives, but there's many connections being broken now for other reasons. Family are strangers that don't even know what your day to day life is like. I see the theme with young people trying to describe their reality to their parents, where the parents take little interest, or do not relate whatsoever to what they are facing. The old days weren't perfect, some were stifled and controlled too much by their family systems. Some families were abusive or demanded too much. Small town life with a permanent reputation at the hands of your family could be oppressive. People were told to obey parents to the extreme. However, this isn't good either.
Family as Competition Clubs, with No Love or Loyalty
However there were some family values, that were different. There were notions of loyalty, duty and more. While some of these things could be used as a trap, in the "old days" one could depend on one's family a bit more. A daughter would not be left to die in an inner city with no one to help or even pushed to get a job like that in the first place to avoid "homelessness". Family used to take each other in if they faced hard times. There was unity in some families. There was some cooperation and an idea of "us against the world". Older generations did have the outlook of "keeping the family together". I've seen this meme around and there's truth in it. Many have noticed when their Silent Generation grandparent died or even a more traditional older boomer did, the family folded, no one was having family meet-ups any longer even beyond the affordability issues.
My family was a competition club. I'm not the only poor person who got mocked. I grew up listening to this nonsense. Nepotism became for the favorites instead of trying to help the family as whole. I noticed among older generations there wasn't such a severe divide economically between family members. This is definitely one thing that has happened to the American family. There was no more togetherness, there was economic competition. There's a reason estranged and toxic parents put their kids down as "losers", and then they are shocked when said adult children, walk away. They have no sense. Of course they would. Their family is not a bastion against a cold hard world but people who made everything far more difficult.
While there were disabled people who were abused or rejected, [locked away in the attic] I know if several great-uncles and aunts got Huntington's today, instead of 50 years ago, their fate would have been far worse. I don't have contact with those family lines anymore to know how their children have fared. Family shared business and opportunities where now that seems to be only competition. Some wealthier families do use nepotism still, but many are left out of that. There was some social contract and more trust within families. Family was supposed to protect and look out for each other. That definitely has been lost in many places. Leaving a relative to the homeless shelter instead of helping them, would have brought shame in the old days.
There were negatives, abuse could be hidden, via the unspoken message "We don't air our dirty laundry in public", you didn't go to therapists back then. There could be more secrets but family in more cases was something you could depend on more. The second Great Depression will be far harder on people because during the first Great Depression there was far more family cohesiveness and connection.
There's some panicking because Gen Z and younger generations don't want children, "We've gone below replacement levels!" If you think about it why would they? People aren't receiving fond memories of family but dealing with families that harmed and abused them. Even if more neutral, family connection is something for yesterday. DNA today means strangers who live far away, it doesn't mean people you can turn to or count on. I know some fortunate souls have a far different experience of family but for many people it's been a wholly negative experience. This is one reason young people don't want children, if family is a negative word to you, why would you want to add members to a family that never had your back and always left you behind?
Years ago I looked at Marilyn Wann's Facebook page. She had some interesting stuff up there. It was after 2020, sadly she seemed to support all the usual "liberal causes" and Covid mandates and masking which obviously I don't agree with. I agree with liberals on SOME things, most are against the Iran war for instant. Being neither liberal or conservative keeps life interesting. Some of the fat conventions and other things she posted were of interest to me.
The dream days of size acceptance never happened. I'm not sure society changed. A few liberal circles are more welcoming to the fat. I guess that's a positive. Maybe there's less discrimination in a few places. The anti-discrimination stuff was always a good thing. I have noted there's some places and demographics who have different views of the fat. Most zine conferences, remember I go to those in the real world, will have a few younger fat girls, doing zines on being fat. I will buy those if I can and offer support. Some may have some of your classic size acceptance views and be "woke" but I figure I agree with them on enough basics. Of course I want to tell the young fat ones too, seek weight stabilization, prevention, find out why you are fat, avoid sugar, and "DON'T END UP LIKE ME!"
Much of the right wing are pretty nasty to fat people, especially on X they are always complaining about fat people and saying we are all parasites to the system with Fat and classism combined. It got old. When EBT was going to be cut, they posted racist and other memes insulting poor fat people. They claimed fat people bought junk food while living on EBT. I've written here about how poverty creates obesity via low quality food and stress. I agreed with MAHA about food and other health matters, and the too many carbohydrates in the food pyramid, but none of them have made healthier food more accessible or affordable? My disappointment at not seeing some changes in those areas, has been upsetting. Decent food is far harder to acquire. They've made life more limited making it more expensive, less leisure, less things to do, locked down. I am constantly frustrated trying to find decent food of quality around here, and use a combination of ethnic markets [foreign food is higher quality than American with far less preservatives] Aldi, and the veggie stand during warmer months.
Sometimes I would see anti-fat acceptance messages on X, and they were right that it was weird, that people getting fatter and sicker was pushed as acceptable. Years ago on this blog I constantly talked about why isn't anyone asking why everyone is getting so fat? There's something more wrong here then failed will power and people pigging out. No one listened and the problems just got worse. In the size acceptance world, I was banned all over the place. No one cared that I was dying of being fat. I almost died at 28, my youth destroyed. Yes I had serious endocrine problems, high stage Lipedema and lupus related problems but I didn't know it yet.
Years ago, I'd get into internet debates about how CICO was bullshit and diets failed. There seemed to be less judgment for disabilities and being fat in the UU world, then there was in more conservative churches. My working class IFB was good but that second one, my goodness, it was horrible. They were always dieting and competing over who was the thinnest. That was the worse. I wrote about the one preacher who told my entire first IFB church, that I was going to hell for being fat.
People have gotten fatter and sicker.
Everyone just got sicker in American society and now everyone went running to the Ozempic. I won't take it because it can cause blindness and digestive problems. Sometimes I wonder what else is in those shots considering what has happened with the Covid vaxx? Everyone is still desperate to be thin. That never changed. Covid and the bad economy probably cut the money flowing to the diet industrial complex, but "thin is still in". Does anyone here remember all the articles I used to write where I theorized they were fattening us all up on purpose for profit? Hmm most people thought I was crazy, but when I look at the Ozempic landscape, hmm look how that worked out. When they wanted me to go on it, they told me it cost insurance $1200 a month, That's a lot of money to be made.
Of course the stuff doesn't bring a permanent cure, you have to stay on it forever or you regain weight. Sheesh. The diet industry remains as loathsome as ever. It was used as a prison and control matrix on American women especially. It was used too as another dividing tool in this society. Some claim Ozempic has destroyed the body positivity movement and claim it is so miraculous soon there won't be any fat people. I don't think it's that great.
Fat people are still as hated if not more than before. For some reason people on X thinks all super-fat people who are extreme liberals are all lining up for booster shots, not all of us! I gave up on the diet industry, as everyone here knows. It failed me. Shove your diets up your ass! [and I say this even with my weight on a downward trajectory]. CICO is a freaking joke. Even if I lose more weight or not, my middle finger will be forever raised to the lying and conniving diet world. American food sucks. Why do I have to go to an ethnic store to even find decent quality garbanzo beans, that aren't soaked in calcium chloride [which keeps them from softening up in Indian recipes] or sulfites?
The Size acceptance world while it had a few good ideas about ending discrimination and providing access, seemed to bring out some of the earliest "woke" people. These were people who denied reality for a political agenda. And that's the biggest problem with the size acceptance world. They deny reality. The reality is that fatness limits movement and affects the health especially over a certain line. You can't paper over this and people know it. This is why you can see endless videos and outrage against the fat acceptance movement. Just google fat acceptance and look at the contrarian videos and memes. One meme had all these fat people listed on it who died before 55. My troubles in the size acceptance world were a future warning for the direction the left and "woke" would take with censorship and silencing people. I am fat but I live in reality.
Saw this meme, I guess I fit the lower left one. I do wish more people figured out obesity isn't always about "overeating" and the multiple reasons behind it. I do agree that they "lie to people and say healthy at every size and ignore the fact they encourage people live in pain until they die extremely young"
For those new to this blog, back in the early 2010s, I talked about my troubles with size acceptance, how they were ideologues who refused to listen. They forbid any fat person to talk about medical problems on their message boards and forced positivity. I argued with Marilyn Wann when I was under the internet moniker "Victoria" and was at or near 700lbs. I was dying. That woman called me a fat hater. I told her go visit bariatric nursing homes.
Years ago when re-entering the UU, I gave size acceptance another chance, but I grew bored and saw reality denied and they expected "woke" beliefs on everything. The groups were all politically correct to the hilt, and ignored anything that had to do with real life or economics. No one listened when I said, "Look this much obesity is a symptom of illness, it means people are not doing well medically, it means something is wrong with the food and environment". Normal people never even felt the push to overeat if you blame that and for those with low metabolism, their endocrine systems are broken. They ignored theories about plastics and endocrine disruptors. No one cared. It looks like I was right. Size acceptance still hasn't come into reality from what I can tell.
The lives of the super-fat/infini fat is not the same as the small or midsized fat. The fatter you get the more you lose. I know if I hadn't lost the 250lbs in 1999-2001 from medical care, I would be dead today. No one makes it too long at 700lbs.
That's something I noticed fat acceptance obliterated the reality of the infini fat, I guess they admitted we existed, but there was a covering so to speak as to what people dealt with. Years ago I realized they hid the problems that came and refused to discuss it. I realized years ago, that I was a 1 in 5 million person to have become 700lbs. That 400lb plus weight gain was a horror. I started this blog you know many years ago not to protest Covid nonsense or talk about my life as an ACON but to find out what was wrong with me. This blog helped me get my Lipedema [lipo-lymphedema/stage 4 diagnosis. It also in the long run helped me figure out my lupus related/other endocrine problems and led to my diagnosis of Celiac Disease.
As late as 2023, Marilyn Wann was repeating the same messages. One thing about these extreme "woke" social justice warriors is they never listen to the marginalized people they claim to represent. This happens in other areas. This was the same in the "woke" left, talk about your real economic life---no one cared. They had abandoned the poor and working class. Some groups were elevated and others ignored. Only the ruling class and its desires mattered. Maybe the same thing happened with fat. Surely the ones in power didn't want anyone questioning the rapidly declining health of people in America with the worsening obesity. The diet industry with its billions in profits didn't want anyone challenging their business. They profit off repeat business and failure after all. Those with money were listened to. Those without weren't. Their causes of the day are what mattered more than the real life of human beings. I realized thinking about my time in size acceptance; they resorted to censorship and silencing far more before other parts of society took up those banners. This is one reason I no longer consider myself a leftist. I got tired of being told to shut up.
She claims here that her views remain the same. Does she realize how many people are now dying of obesity? I'm one who survived, don't forget that. Most people who hit 700lbs by their 20s are dead. It is so absurd to me how she couldn't even address the super-fat people like myself putting her "I can still work, and have money midsized-upper class and fantasy standards on the rest of us." The social justice warriors never let reality get in the way of their cults. One line could have been partially as a result of my disagreements with her years ago. ".Your paper seeks to explain why fat people exist. Either we are badly behaved (see stereotypes mentioned above) or we are victims of an allegedly obesigenic environment (anti-fatness + classism), or we are diseased by definition, regardless of our actual health status (i.e., eugenics). We need no such excuses or explanation."
As I said before, she still ignores that very high weight causes health problems or often is the RESULT/symptom of health problems with no moral imperatives involved except that often patients in that desperate of a position aren't listened to. And as I wrote years ago, there is healthism here, where if you are fat and sick, you are to be hidden away and considered not worthy of a voice.
It doesn't surprise me either that these liberal size acceptance people often took up for the Covid vaxx banner. I remember her Facebook was literally plastered in pro-vaxx and "Covid cautious" postings. There too the people getting sick won't be listened to. Big Pharm and corporations have the final say. That connection worries me. They never heard of "Died Suddenly? They must sweep those people under the carpet along with the people bed bound from obesity.
I've kind of ignored the size acceptance world for some years, they weren't open to any outside views. I gave up and walked away. Sometimes I posted about them on here, like I do now. I went to a few Zooms during Covid years, but gave that up. Fatties Against Fascism seemed to be a cool group to me for a while until I started to question some of the left. They also become pro-vaxx. I obviously don't support Antifa and never did, and well, as I wrote here, before I left the left. If you are no longer liberal, most of the fat acceptance world and size acceptance world, while I agree with them on SOME things, there were many things I no longer did. So I was kind of out of all that except the rare run-ins at the zine conferences.
The fat acceptance world just didn't seem to fit anymore. It seemed predominantly ruled over by middle class to upper class academics with purple or pink hair, who had the financial standing to live these lavish lives. They had no problems affording vacations [like the plus sized Disney women], or scooters or big people's clothing. Many were midsized, functional and able to work good academic and other jobs that paid good salaries. In other words, they didn't relate to my life and vice versa. Some of their messages on discrimination, access and better clothes, I was very happy with, other messages I was not.
Many of the spokeswomen lived in very liberal West Coast towns for some reason. These weren't people that were going to understand the life of poor or working class fat people. They didn't understand the health horrors of severe obesity.
Stories like this one bug me with these plus sized women going to Disney World. This article tries to make looking fat look easy and fun. 50 more lbs and even these midsized fat women, would not be able to fit on any of those Disney rides. I'm glad they have fun, all people deserve to have fun. When young I used to go to an amusement park and even in the low 200s had difficulty walking and fitting on rides. It's too bad Disney World has become so expensive most of the country can't afford the place anymore. I consider it a mousetrap for humans and their cash.
How do they do all the walking without their feet hurting? Maybe they are wealthy enough to rent or have their own scooters. Even midsized people will get exhausted after a couple miles of walking. These women also are an anomaly to have the financial standing to spend thousands of dollars especially over the 300lb rubicon that brings job discrimination to most. Some of them are in the 200s. Most fat people are poorer. They are not. It's not realistic. Why do they dress like they are 12 years old? How did they have the money to afford Disney World trips in the early days?
They do show how one can still live life in the midsizes, but I worry for them and others, if the weight goes up, the fun ends.
Back to Marilyn Wann. It's kind of scary she never adjusted her message. Why not? Didn't she meet any fat people like me or do they simply not exist in her world. They probably don't especially if she lives in a wealthy West Coast city. People on disability checks don't live in towns that expensive unless they got in early to subsidized disabled housing. She may never run into anyone like that.
It does bug me that over 10 years later, she sticks by the same opinions with no adjustment. She never visited that bariatric nursing home? Yes, the weight loss industry has failed us all, but ignored here, is that people did get far fatter and sicker in America. "Fat American" became more of a trope as even other countries like Europe who outlaw certain additives to their food and have more reasonable lifestyles, realize something went very wrong here as Americans got fatter and sicker.
Advancing illness across the board.....
I tried to point this out to a few on and off, but got ignored. I have noticed, that young people, SOME seem to be having worse problems with obesity, where 400lb people and maybe even 500lb people aren't as rare as they used to be. When I hit the supersizes, I was extremely rare. In the 1990s, you just didn't see 400lb people. I hit the stratospheres, so I was stared at but 400lbs used to be a weight people would stare at you. Nowadays, you can go to an average Walmart and find someone over 400lbs within 15 minutes. This is now worse then it was in the 2010s.
The poorer the town, the easier it is to find a supersized person. There are more fat people. This may change as economy sinks, and food becomes less affordable. I am not sure if they will unload more cheap processed crap on us though or if the broken metabolisms will bring more obesity and bloating from malnutrition that is already rife. Poverty made me fatter so anything can happen.
For years, I wrote about how I hoped attitudes would change towards obesity and there would be more truth out there. It hasn't happened. I'm happy that there's more nice clothes to buy for the ones that can afford it in bigger sizes and a few young fat women in the zine world and other places who can defend themselves a bit better and discrimination at least in some circles [not the work world still] is frowned upon but very little else has changed. Everyone's entrenched in their camps and too many are still making profit. The size acceptance world runs cover for the increasing illness and obesity for the corporations whether knowingly or unknowingly. From what I can tell, their numbers have shrunk and outside of a few liberal niches, they became an ignored "fringe" group.
People ran to acceptance, because they don't want to be discriminated against or treated like trash. What else do people do when the answers given constantly fail? Even radical acceptance people teach acceptance if you fail to SOLVE a problem. That's why size acceptance came into being in the first place. [Caveat here, I don't consider weight a problem until it interferes with walking and health but it definitely does by a certain weight, I would say 300lbs for most] That's another thing never addressed, why do all the diets fail? The response on the other side is weak too.
I am against discrimination, but they silenced the voices that demanded answers as to why everyone was getting so fat and sick. The diet industry can go to hell, they profited off us and lied. They blamed and shamed me for years, while setting me up for failure. Their weight loss garbage never worked on me. I needed a working body, stability without trauma, better food and things I was not able to access years ago. The whole thing has formed a control matrix of madness.
I don't diet, weight watchers and the rest of it is a joke. I wish I could afford a decent gym and still feel sorry Covid knocked me out of Planet Fitness, but now the chronic fatigue has left me overwhelmed on most days anyway. Just getting done what I need to has been harder and harder while allowing some spoons for art projects and endeavors. I left the diet industrial complex long ago. Whatever weight loss happens in me is usually the result of medical care and for medical reasons, that includes my old 250lb weight loss too. My last weight was 460/462. I got old while fat and well I know I am never going to be thin at this conjecture in life so I accepted some reality. My eating is more rigid due to endless allergies [no potatoes since 1996], diabetes, financial concerns, gluten free, and kidney problems then most humans. I delay food when I can, to lower calories, like this morning I ate at noon and blood sugar was 110. Staying alive from diabetes means no sugar or very little, and eating regular meals. There's a point a person can only do what they can. Gluten free has changed some of the landscape and doctors already have lowered some of my prescriptions for vitamins or altered dosages due to improving malabsorption.
Being fat cost me big. If a person has a normal body and can avoid obesity and eat normal and move normal, do what you can. Live a basic life-style and avoid diets, ultra-processed food and metabolism drops. Make nutrition part of your life. Size acceptance people would not like me saying this but "tough". I have faced enough rejection for obesity in one lifetime. At least now I don't have to put up with as much BS as when I was young. Few are shouting "Fatty-Fatty Two by Four" at a woman on walker with multiple handicaps. Getting old when fat sucks. That's another thing no one talks about, the mobility issues, and the issues that surround "peeing", and UTIs. Getting old is better than the alternative, but the smaller someone is, let's be real, the easier their life is.
It can get complicated for me lately, how much is chronic fatigue/lupus-related problems, Lipedema/deafness/autism/autoimmune problems or how much is from being fat? I can still walk but am so tired. However being fat is hard, if one can avoid it do so. Young people even if they are in the midsized categories should be cognizant of weight maintenance and prevention. AKA you may be a large functioning person but you don't want to turn into a larger non-functioning person. Some here may say, but Peep you have a lot more wrong with you than being fat, and it's true. Lipedema changes a lot of the story too, but I don't want anyone else to suffer what I did from misdiagnosis. The young need warned of what can happen even if other medical problems influence their weight so they can be discovered.
You miss out, and if someone doesn't have to, and can get their body in order with a decent lifestyle and avoiding crap American food, do it. My obesity was off the charts. I don't know the exact numbers but I suspect only one in 5 million people hit 700lbs. That's why I use that number. Maybe with the increasing obesity the number isn't as unique anymore. I lost my career, family--they were narcissistic jerks, but the obesity was part of the story, where I was an "embarrassment" they wanted as little do with as possible. There's no coming back from that. Their betrayal can never be answered for. I wouldn't wish obesity on my worse enemy of this degree.
I haven't eaten a hamburger in 12 years except ONE bite of a hamburger patty--too small to affect my kidneys. I haven't eaten a piece of pie in 3 years and pie before then was a once every 6 months affair. So my life already is several "diets" running in tandem. Try gluten free, that removes so many foods it's not funny. I don't believe in CICO, or the diet industry. I still believe we have been fattened up by toxic food, plastics, obesogens, stress, poverty and more.
America is not normal, all we have to do is look at other countries to see that people come by their normal bodies far easier and they aren't beating themselves up to do it or spending 5 hours a day at the gym. Sadly while I agree with the fat acceptance movement at stopping discrimination and protesting some of the evils of the diet industry, they have done a lot of harm slamming the door on investigating why everyone is getting so fat and sick and ignoring the reality of the poisonous environment we all live in today. The young are not doing well and they deserve better. We need truth for healthier lives.
This is part of the upcoming Covid comic zine, which I know is taking me too long to do but remember I am a very disabled woman who is diagnosed with chronic fatigue. You know what is weird this panel was based on a cartoon in my journal drawn in 2020, maybe I thought pandemics always mean economic collapse and war. We could see the early signs couldn't we? They got away with Covid, and all that entailed so why wouldn't they go to town with the financial end of things? I had dreams about the above. I'm sure some New Agers would tell me such dreams are not a good thing and I need to stop manifesting "bad things" but it's what I dreamed about.
I expect the streets to fill with the homeless soon, though it seems they are making the homeless "disappear". Put the picture together, if they are laying off millions of people and the prices have gone this high, where do you think things are going to go? Where is all the money going? Up to the tippy top, someone is profiting off all these out of control prices. Even mainstream news has mentioned the loss of 1.1 million jobs but then took the real news down. One question I used to think on X, was where were the other poor people? Maybe most have had their internet shut off. The real poor people were shut up or shut down, so they could build more astroturf and controlled opposition accounts, with guys saying the homeless were all drug addicts or the poor ate too much avocado toast to brainwash people and make them feel all alone.
The young lady in the video, trying to find a dishwasher/restaurant job probably is in trouble because the restaurants are shutting down. We have lost so many restaurants locally. Some are getting smart and realizing people can only afford take-out and can't afford tips and a sit down place anymore. It's sad her own aunt wants 800 a month from her in rent. That's a bit much for a rented room. Yes many young will realize welfare won't help them. I had no money coming in and got turned down in the 1990s, "you're abled-bodied". She has figured out her college degree is utterly worthless. I'm still in shock the college dreams are still selling. I do find her family pathetic in not sharing food with her. That's white families for you now, sink or swim, they can sit there eating a T-bone while she nibbles at her ramen noodles. That kind of crap wouldn't go down in the Latino or African American families. They still care about each other in most cases.
Hey I had relatives visiting China and England, while I was wondering the streets of Chicago dumpster diving for canned food. Her future is being ruined. She is not building experience. At age 22, I had graduated and gotten my 14 dollar an hour juvenile home job by August. She's doing worse than I was. That age is the make or break age that builds or tears down the future. Potential is now being ruined in America. Consider this, even I had seeds planted in my 20s, that have blossomed into the art shows of my 50s. What are the young going to be left with now?
The guy with the beard has a point, make stuff affordable again. I remember economics class, doesn't more crap sell if more people can afford it? Why don't they want to sell stuff?[because they are secretly dismantling this place? hmmmm] The teacher needs to get rid of the expensive nails and is paying way too much for car insurance. I relate to the African American lady talking about the "run away train". I always spoke of it as being on the edge of the abyss, don't look down or you may fall in. The month becomes nothing but a marathon to pay bills. The bills are all more than what anyone is making. We have cut everything off. I haven't seen a "new" TV show or any network news now in over a year and half, or maybe two. I probably will never have cable again. I watch only old stuff on Pluto. I read news online. I hope he will keep his phone shut off and pay what was left and let the rest go. I pay one subscription around 14 dollars for my Cloud storage which is necessary for our zines and my book illustration projects. I don't know how anyone with kids or who owns a home is supposed to do it. With the air conditioning lady, yes, where is the money supposed to come for emergencies, or repairs or car repairs? The whole system stinks. There is a point where it does not work for people anymore and this system isn't.
The astroturfs and bots berating all the poors outnumbered the rest on X, I got tired of them. Rich people with no clue. Some wisely supported medical freedom but were annoying on other topics. There were always those farm people who preached self-reliant living not realizing us poors didn't have land to grow food on or barns to store animals in.
Yesterday I got a new bill, a premium for Medicare D that used to be 9 dollars is now 78. Some idiot thinks the disabled are rolling in money. I am approaching the place where there is essentially none of my disability check left. Add to that the CPAP monopoly sending me a bill for 422 dollars, they claim that's "WITH" insurance. These bills used to run in the 100s not the 400s. They actually send me a form, when I applied for financial hardship, where they wanted me to sign my entire bank account over, where it said on the form they could take up to 5,000 dollars out of my bank account at any time. I wonder how many old people needing CPAPS and nebulizer's aren't so careful to read this form. Lung problems don't help one discern predators. The form is so bad, it seems fraudulent. I called them up, "Process my financial application but there's no way I am signing my entire bank account over to you, since I could end up homeless if you clean my account out!"
I told them I want emailed from now on, my captioning kept failing during the course of this conversation. I am too deaf to use voice mail jail too. The eye doctor secretary got mad at me because I thought they would bill me and I had no money on me to pay the 17 dollar co-pay, Sometimes I think just pay what you can and let the rest go. I can only do so much. It is a bit ominous how some bills are getting higher.
We had just enough money to get a chicken and some vegetables for our holiday meal, I was glad to have two friends visit in the last two days so that was really nice. One we made art and collages so that was fun. Today my husband made some money to pay my phone bill, his phone got shut off, I'm not sure if we are going to turn it back on or not. He made just enough to go get something to eat tonight. The captioning worked far better on that phone, Sigh. Sometimes when really down and out, I make some strange food, lunch was a masa biscuit, 1 egg, and kidney bean curry for each of us.
It's weird on my social media, I posted videos like this, people either seem to ignore them or the ones with more money tell me the videos are "too negative". I know a lot of people don't like facing things like economic collapse, it doesn't make you too popular at parties. Many don't want to think about this stuff. For some of us the collapse already is here. It's worse for some others, I still got the power on, am housed, and got other basics though food is always a problem.
Some of the reactions were strange, I guess some saw me a doomer. One very "Q" friend has told me that rescue awaits, and the quantum financial system is going to be put in, and we will all be prosperous during the new Trump-led golden age. They are middle class from what I can tell, their family is very close too, I am not so optimistic. The left outside of William Barber and a few words from Bernie Sanders who sadly was a Covid vaxx sellout never mentions the poor and working class even now. The streets are filling with the homeless, no one can afford groceries but none of them seem to care, the extreme identity politics still run the show. Even the church I left, the UUA, only talks about trans people anymore, their magazine shows up at our apt still. you would think there is no other social issue on the planet to be concerned about. The Christian churches all push David Ramsey [still!] and act like packing a lunch for work instead of eating out, will bring endless money to your door. Of course, those programs assume there is decent income coming in. Poor people understand there will be little understanding for our own circumstances in most evangelical churches. David Ramsey won't admit the economy is crumbling. He thinks one can pick off a job off the job tree.
Maybe the healthy can go get a minimum wage job in a group home or nursing home. I did that gambit in the past taking the jobs no one else wanted to survive. I noticed all the wealthy Christians around here, were just telling a woman on my social media asking about financial help, to go take a Ramsey Financial Peace class. We are surrounded by closing businesses. There's a breakfast restaurant that opened up and died within a month.
It's kind of scary to me, watching normal [non-disabled, conventionally good looking] people on all these videos hitting the financial skids. How bad is this all going to get? Why are Americans putting up with it? I guess the billionaires, have perfected the art of misdirection. Will we get another no kings fest without no mention of the economy again? I'm tempted to make signs, "The Economy is Crashing and None of You Care!" for the next one. How about "The Billionaires won and control this protest, that's why none of you mention the Economy!"?
My husband will be going on Social Security for age, but there's some time before it and it feels like we are both limping into the end of the race. Why are things so hard? Life used to be more than drudge, I do try to find fun where I can have it and the art world and my friends add joy to my life, but the sad faces at the grocery store are a bit much to take. Some seem so shut down. It didn't used to be like that.
You know what scares me, is we don't drink, no one smokes, never did drugs, I buy the cheapest food I can--[the same stuff from Aldis], I got clothing from thrift and get what I can from "Buy Nothing" board and there still isn't enough money. I am facing the fact my disability check due to inflation is now almost worth nothing, and yes it scares me. As I have written, my husband doesn't like my ideas about moving to Appalachia, , or a more remote area of my own state, rented rooms or finding somewhere to go. He sees us in another Chicago scenario. I've done things like go on Zillow searching for cheap apartments in my state. They were all HUD apartments which sadly we will still be over the newest cut-off, in very bad dangerous areas or very remote, with no hospital within hundreds of miles. I saw a few studios for the amount of money I was thinking of [700-800] in college towns and apartments that were less than 400 square feet. It is kind of weird they made even small towns expensive. We have gone round and round, "Where should we go?" but we would take the lack of money anywhere we go. It's better to be in an area where you know a few people. Our present apartment is safe. You can't take that for granted now either. I dread getting new doctors especially with my level of medical complexity and don't want to leave my functional doctor behind who has probably saved my life from kidney stuff alone.
One thing I have noticed as I have researched places to go, is a lot of cities seem to be crumbling, and are having serious problems with homelessness, crime, and basically collapse of the infrastructure. You aren't going to see this talked about in the news. Have people lost their minds from being online, where they don't LOOK at the real world anymore and just believe the reality told there. One city I lived in for college, is now taken over by the homeless, it's so bad, I saw videos of this one guy on Youtube, feeding the homeless in that town and there were hundreds of them. My old small town, had a homeless shelter, that got closed, the rich MAGAS drove them out. I think they may be trying to rebuild something else. Things look bad. One town in my county, I considered moving to for cheaper rent, seems to have such a burgeoning crime and homelessness problem I am now not interested in moving there. I joined a local board on social media to see what life was like there. Hmm lets do a random glance today, Oh there's two shootings, looks like some bad stuff is spilling over from a larger town. Some thief is shown at a gas station. I'm glad I investigated this place a lot before moving there. My husband sometimes cynically says, "They've ruined everywhere".
People have enough of their own problems, with everyone sick from the vaxx, they fear for their own survival. I made a list of everyone I know sick or deceased from the Covid vaxxes and it was dozens of people. I lost neighbors, church people, and endless acquaintances and some friends. These numbers are increasing as time passes by too. People are dying a lot younger. I have outlived multiple people I never expected to. I miss old nice neighbors. One I said hello to for years and was felled by a stroke in their early 60s, the lady who lived upstairs from me died of a massive heart attack in 2021. One person I cut ties with may have died. I knew in one case they definitely took the Covid vaxx. I even wonder if death notices are being put up. In some cases, it just seems like people disappear. You wonder "What ever happened to...."
Imagine this across the landscape, I belong to multiple "anti-vaxx" boards where people talk openly about all the people they have lost, some even seem to have whole families wiped out. This level of grief for a society isn't going to be doing good things to that society. I think America as a whole has a PTSD problem from the abuses of Covid/Covid vaxx. Now add in the financial abuses and pressures, it sometimes seems to me, if they press the screws much more the whole society is going to crack up.
I refused to ever touch credit cards again after a certain point and haven't had one in 15 years. However the medical debts now will pile up. Having a company abuse me over sleep apnea supplies is very scary, some of my huge weight gain came from untreated and diagnosed sleep apnea. I have to make the decision to put off some medical appointments so I can catch up on the hundreds I owe in medical bills. I may delay going to the kidney doctor, the ear doctor, I have to see them, so I go down the list to see who or what I can put off. The sleep apnea machine is scary as it uses filters up and goes through masks, but if they are going to charge me 200 dollars a mask what am I supposed to do?
Much of the rest of the world knows America is going down the economic tubes. Even if Trump is deporting people, I am tired of rich liberals who support endless illegal immigration. I have noticed they don't seem to care about poor Americans who are homeless. I still stand by what I wrote about immigration years ago.
Legal immigration has a place, but in a country that can't even take care of its own, we can't take in millions per year. I can't stand ICE's tactics, but how come none of these liberals get the point that one reason Americans can't get jobs or survive is millions from other countries pouring in. They support the H-1B programs and other things that take jobs away from citizens and LEGAL immigrants. There too, you see the liberals protesting against ICE but they never seem to give a damn about the economic damage happening to fellow Americans and citizens. Maybe some immigrants are leaving reading the signs in the wind, this place is economically collapsing and self deporting while they still have somewhere to go. Maybe the news is getting out finally about how hard it is to survive here. People around the world realize things are getting bad here. Read this reddit thread, many overseas realize life is easier elsewhere now:
How is any of this sustainable? One can see the future and it's not too bright. They are making home ownership impossible. They are making having families impossible for the young. Many of the elderly and disabled are ending up homeless.
I myself while trying to plan for the future have been put in an impossible situation, HUD blocks us out even as poor as we are, my husband couldn't make an extra dollar again even working for a newspaper. The other place that we are on the list for raised the rent nearly to what we pay now and there's a time limit on the years the apartments remain "affordable" and then are raised to what they call "market rate rent". Food is insane. This good friend of mine sent me some gluten free foods from a local Trader Joe's she lives near. It is nice to have olives, nuts and rice crackers, foods I can't otherwise afford. I live in a food desert, there's not much to eat here, and no Trader Joe's. The health food store that is some miles away in another town, is going out of business, I suppose because no one can afford to shop there. I did during better times, but the prices rose so high even during working class times, I stopped going there.
Jobs are more insecure. No politician or planner cares about making up for the jobs lost via AI. Some believe AI is a fraud and I've wondered if it is the excuse for deindustrialization and the end of oil. Are you noticing they don't care about the betterment of society anymore? I noticed this, the left doesn't care, the right obviously doesn't care. They aren't even pretending. Everything is about screwing people over, ruining their lives and extracting every drop of wealth for the ruling class. You know it and I know it. Everything is to serve the ruling class. Covid served all their needs and desires as they expanded depopulations and helped to monopolize business as they wiped out millions of small businesses.
I don't think there's another CPAP company I can switch to. Think about that. They have no competitors. They are national, and that is scary! I could be denied care for a very serious disorder, that could bring back weight gain and heart problems. Life is being made worse, and the liberal world was destroyed by Covid. Sadly since more of them took the clot shot, there's more of them dying or getting sick. They only care about identity and corporate sponsored issues instead of the rising numbers of homeless. The right wing world, well, I was long ago tired of them with their reality denying lectures, and hatred of the disabled and up by the bootstraps myths. I know many people will just brush me off, "Oh she's a conspiracy theorist". Hate to tell you but crap we talked about 20 years ago on those boards is all coming true today. Do you think sell-outs like Michael Moore who pushed the Covid vaxx while he made millions cares? Where is that guy? Is he even talking about the economy? Hmm let me go look. Sheesh, just the usual no kings crap. What a disappointment he was!
Notice everything is to serve the ruling class, the oligarchy, the 1 percent. The world society, business, money, culture, is all being formed for their needs not yours or mine and they have plenty of servants to help make it happen. Do you see anyone fixing anything? Do you see anything being done for the betterment of society? All the technological advances are invested in surveillance and control not for alleviating any human suffering.
One thing I have noticed is most of the pundits except some independents on Youtube and elsewhere, never mention the reality about the economy. They aren't even telling people the truth. They are gaslighting even worse then when I wrote about it some months ago. I have a rule for any new pundit I listen to, if they don't admit the true state of the American economy, big potatoes or small potatoes, I don't waste any time with them.
This society changed for the worse when they forced the young into serious poverty. I want to write an article about how the economy may have impacted declining family relationships too. Look for that next. There is a problem with older people who do not care, that their adult children are having worse lives. What kind of life can you build as detailed in the video above, if you are dependent on your parents well into your 30s? What happens to your life if you "work hard" and your job doesn't pay enough to cover your bills and you are always desperate with a hand out. Keep in mind as I have described my poverty sagas, I have a husband who worked all the time for years. Lives are being ruined.
Why do people even believe in this system anymore? I am not sure the young even know what to extent they have been betrayed, they think this is normal to have life always put on hold because everything is too expensive. Blackrock and health care costs will extract the wealth of the wealthy boomers as they die off, and all the nice stuff like our decked out Senior centers, nice restaurants, libraries, parks etc. that we take for granted now, will all simply vanish. We have already lost magazine stands, cafeterias, bookstores, and most third places. Even church has become something only for people with money. Many of the small ones are closing.
It will be the Victorian/Gilded age with the rich being even more powerful. We are reliving the Gilded Age, but on steroids. Go read this book, I am up to page 177 but my eyes are bugging out reading it. They are doing the same to us now. Extracting all the wealth, redoing small crowded "tenements", making food impossible to afford but the bowls of gruel. Time to wake up! Seriously go read this book, here's an online copyHistory of the Great American Fortunes by Meyers. It's my second time mentioning it but it will help you understand what is happening. Many of their ancestors today are directing things. Notice what is done to ordinary people for the achievement of this wealth.
Those younger than me, don't remember the 1970s and 1980s and how different things were, how many vacations one could take, how leisure was part of everyday life. I became a poor adult, but I remember all that stuff, and got to enjoy it. Even family visits were different in the days before working people had to work so many hours. I notice on the video above, even those making 6 figures are pressed to the wall. They often live in very expensive cities and have expectations that increase the money. Their taxes are high, they have to pay huge money on insurance and medical bills. The lady being told to pay 1600 instead of 800 for medical insurance, probably will have no choice but to drop it unless she is a big earner. Some people live on 1600 a month or less. Are these insurance companies dumb? Don't they get that most people simply won't have the money and will drop the coverage? Maybe they will all go out of business. One can only hope.
I did wonder if I don't come up with the 70 bucks a month if I will get dropped. Oh I also have to pay a bigger Medicare premium over 200 dollars, when I say nothing is going to be left of my check, I mean it. If I was not married, I probably would be homeless. I wanted to protect us both from homelessness finding housing in case the worse would happen to either of us but the way American society is set up, they don't care. This place is designed to push you into the streets. This is why we have giant homeless encampments everywhere. Look, if my old small town, which used to be a stable working class place has a homelessness problem, that means things are getting really bad. People don't have the family and social networks that used to protect each other.
I do wonder what the solutions are. One thing I am noticing is we can't depend on the powerful and the famous. Most of the pundits, academics, people like Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, etc, serve the ruling class. They don't want to admit what is going on and the people who pay their salaries or give them deals don't want them to admit what is really going on. I suppose some could work locally and try to build up local networks. I've faced the problem, I can't even find a church that isn't brainwashed by the likes of David Ramsey condemning most poor people to walking out the door, because they can't take anymore shame. Some are fortunate enough to have good friends, I am. I try to focus on them and art to keep my head above it all. I and my husband always have projects. You have to know we do think of what life could have been with economic stability.
I do think people need to admit what is happening and talk about it. That's not too popular. I am glad a few are speaking out on Youtube. I did notice information was "controlled" in talking about the economy, this probably got me shadow banned on X as much as talking about any Covid vaxxes, fat people or conspiracy. I doubt things would be better on BlueSky though, I probably would go over there and be censored for not being a vaxx lover and not supporting trans, and probably would be told the economy is just fine. I notice liberals ranting and raving about ICE, and Trump but still saying nothing about the economy and lying to us and telling us it's wonderful due to a rising stock market. With the liberals, are they all rich? I don't know. Maybe the poor have figured out both sides don't care about us finally.
I think ICE sucks for rounding up citizens and legal immigrants and fear them being used to round up dissenters one day. However I wonder about liberal people who are in such denial about the death and destruction all around us from Covid and maybe it's spilled over into deep denial about the state of the economy. The right wing is going around saying all the homeless are drug addicts even as the job layoffs skyrocket into the millions. The corporations which both of these sides serve seem more hell bent on crushing us all and abusing power to the point you wonder how they expect to stay in business when no one has any money. They use fear to control us all. No one is left alone to live in peace anymore. As I have said to my husband, "I am fine being poor as long as I have a few simple art supplies, library to go to and can get my needs met", but I added, "They never leave us alone". Every step in life is a threat.
Many other people of other countries see Americans as weak and suck-ups for even putting up with this crap. I've seen the posts online, "What's wrong with Americans?" I wonder why American's aren't departing out of the system. In earlier times, people formed communes, religious communities and other alternatives but all the doorways to those seem to be shut and/or cost money. Sometimes I think the elite just decided America the corporation is to be shut down, and that's the process we are now in. That's the only thing that seems to explain all the craziness. I understand the better off people not wanting to look at this stuff, it's not pleasant, but it's reality.
