>how about this: in the good old days, we helped each other out--barn
>raisings, volunteer fire brigades, building the local schoolhouse.
>We didn't say fuck you, I got mine; we took care of each other. Sure,
>it's bullshit nostalgia, but it resonates with people (look how many
>people donated time, money, and even blood to NYC after 9/11). What
>we need to drive home is that this noble spirit, this (dare I say?)
>truly christian spirit of helping each other out is what socialism is
>all about.
yeah, but is it bullshit? or do you mean something like this?
I was born in late September. My mother worked three jobs and hid her pregnancy 'til Labor Day b/c she was petrified her father would beat the living hell out of her and the married man my mother'd been seeing. Gramps probably would have. I found my aunt's diary when I was little. It was full of stories of my grandfather's abuse. He would drag everyone out of bed at 5 a.m. b/c he didn't like the way the floor had been mopped. He'd lock my gram in the attic. In so far as we leave out that part of the story--patriarchal authoritarianism--it's starry-eyed nostalgia. As would be leaving out the fact that my gramps' behavior had not a little to do with the fact that he was ashamed of the fact that he couldn't hold down a job (plant closings) and that my grandmother was the main breadwinner. My mother and my aunt were fortunate to have access to people who modeled another way of life and encouraged them to pursue other interests that allowed them to break the cycle of abuse: for my mother it was reading and for my aunt it was the violin (gramps was a fiddle player in that fine Appalachian tradition)
But the rest: My mother discovered that being unwed and pregnant wasn't the anomaly she'd imagined. Another aspect of the nostalgic past we should be happy to shed. My family was poor. My grandparents only had indoor plumbing for two years before I was born. I was brought home from the hospital in a wicker laundry basket and a dresser drawer was my bassinet. (When I was little, I thought this meant that they simply pulled the drawer out and placed me in it, like a sock drawer left open on a hurried morning. :)))
What happened, though, was that a network kicked in to help my grandparents and my mother. No matter how they felt about the situation, everyone showed up to help in some way. People made themselves available to take care of me when my mother went off to work.
Similarly, I've spoken of the Sunday jamborees at the rod 'n' gun club. My grandfather used to call the auctions and square dances. The auctions were to raise money for whoever needed it: our neighbors, who'd lost a home to a fire; my cousin who had cancer; my gramps when he had cancer; relatives who'd lost jobs in plant closings
In _All Our Kin_, Carrol Stack talks about how this ethic of sharing works among the poor in her research. People are obligated to help others whenever they come into a little of their own. If you win a couple hundred in the lottery or manage to get "up and out" with a decent job, you can expect people to come knocking, looking for some money. If you can afford to buy a new sofa, you don't auction the old one off at eBay, you give it away to someone who needs it. You help others when you can do so and, in turn, you can expect the same when you're in need. Stack and others call this a kind of shadow economy and, while we might be nostalgic for it, what we can't forget are the conditions which made such an economy necessary. one thing I'd add, and people frequently leave this part out, Stack says one of the reasons why people are stuck in poverty is that they don't take on more "middle class" values (help yourself and no one else. you get money, you save it). Other studies have addressed the difficulty people of color going to college and moving into professional jobs: they are constantly being called on to help their families with time and money.
somewhat related note: I don't recall Stack finding what I've observed, but in my old 'hood, the kids 'earned' money off each other. heh. There was a store called the 'Dent and Bent' where you could buy cast off groceries. They'd go there, buy a case of candy at rock bottom prices, then they'd sell it to their friends for the price they'd pay at the corner store. If you worked for a fast food joint, when you head off to work, you take orders for food. At work, that gang would let you take all the food home (unpaid for) and then you'd sell it to your friends at slightly discounted prices. heh. At least in my neighborhood, which was called the "east side ghetto," but was mainly full of the working poor, this ethic of sharing seems to have fallen by the wayside.
Kelley
"We live under the Confederacy. We're a podunk bunch of swaggering pious hicks."
--Bruce Sterling