People who are poor are people first, not poor first. People who live in poverty are not 'them'. They are not 'those people.' People who are poor are, first and foremost, part of 'we', part of 'us'. The values of people who live in poverty are not any more different from Dickey's values, or mg's values, or Dani's values, or my values, than are each of our values from one another.

The well-healed, narcissitic, jerk who walked into my community mental health clinic last Monday and laid-off 9 well-qualified, experienced and dedicated true public servants with no notice and no severence pay, without regard for the indigent people we serve, in violation of all ethical guidelines in allowing no opportunity for psycholigical termination for clients, no transition plan for extremely psychologically fragile people who are poor and mentally ill, is a thief and a scoundrel who stole from this community in general and the mentally ill in particular out of greed. He doesn't recognize as such. Hey, he's sorry, but it's business, you know? Whether he recognizes it or not, it is valueless greed. The state of North Caolin is ultimately responsible for designing a lousy reformed system of care, and then grossly underfunding even that lousy system, and inviting in private companies with no legal or moral obligation to actually serve the community. jWhat are his values, really?

The poor father of three with a felony drug conviction from 10 years ago and bad health for any number of reasons, may steal to have enough food for his children. He, however, feels like a conflict about it, about the need to put basic survival over his values about not stealing.

I don't know why I am bothering to post this. It is like 'talking to the hand.'



It really is gonna take a revolution.

Janie