Who has seen real poverty?

[fela fan]

Don't think I even made a direct reference. The assumption was all yours. Tut tut, naughty.

But you're right here. I did make an assumption, a wrong one. However if you weren't judging derf, you were making judgments about others.

 

[Voley]

I think he's making the point that you're rather judgemental about the British, ff.

You do seem to talk about 'typical British attitudes' and stuff with the same degree of judgement that you're railing against.

There's an irony there, all right.

 

[tarannau]

Oh come on. Any fule knows that Fela's only British when it comes to football or sports, when he's all 'we' about England.

The rest of the time he's happy to portray himself as unique, despite just being another example of one of the many expats choosing to live elsewhere. Oh and he still feels qualified to speak of the British as a monolithic entity, pronouncing judgements on their 'attitudes' and the media, despite continually showing a lack of relevant knowledge or insight.

You're right about the irony NVP

 

[camouflage]

I'm not talking about being a bit skint and not being able to go down the pub until payday but real poverty.
As many will know i live in a small village in central Java, Indonesia. Here there are many families that live on a lot less than $2 a day. We are talking simple, and often half wrecked, wooden shacks with dirt floors and not much inside.
No running water, no electricity and often, no food.

I just wondered how many on the forum have actually seen this sort of thing with their own eyes and so are able to understand it.

Yah,. I've seen the vast corrugated-iron roofed shanty-towns surrounding Lagos, walked through em etc, sitting in traffic ques while bare-foot eight year olds carrying buckets of stuff on their heads try an get us to buy iced-water, yams, lighters or whatever. As a result I sneer at anyone who lives in the UK and thinks they're too poor to influence their destiny.

 

[fela fan]

I think he's making the point that you're rather judgemental about the British, ff.

You do seem to talk about 'typical British attitudes' and stuff with the same degree of judgement that you're railing against.

There's an irony there, all right.

Well, i am british, so i'm talking about myself too.

But yes, perhaps i'm being hypocritical, i can see that. However, i think it's impossible for us to avoid this, however much we might try. I also think that british people are a pretty judgmental lot compared to other peoples i've met.

 

[CyberRose]

I've never seen "real" poverty I guess, but I've found these accounts from people who have experience real poverty:

We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky

Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

Kinda puts things into perspective

 

[Yetman]

I once saw absolutely no money

 

[spring-peeper]

I've traveled through the southern states and have seen some very poor areas. I couldn't believe that people lived like that the States. It's almost mind-boggling to think things are going to get worse for them.

For "real poverty", I just have to walk around any large city and see families living on the streets. Or go to a first nations reserve.

Real poverty exists everywhere.

 

[pinkmonkey]

The closest to me are just 1 km down the road ...[/QUOTE]

The closest to me is about 100 yards away - bloke living in a tiny cabin cruiser, no heating, (even when it was minus five last week) no electricity and a broken outboard motor. There are about two dozen boaters living like this in London, many of them have drug/drink problems meaning any money goes on that and not on coal and food.
There was also a man living up a tree in a makeshift treehouse not very long ago and a man living in a tent on the marsh (found dead last month at the age of 31).

The main diffference between here and Indonesia is that these people can all get free healthcare if they want it - and that's a big difference. Also in London, theres a handful living like this, in other countries, its millions.

 

[_angel_]

I've traveled through the southern states and have seen some very poor areas. I couldn't believe that people lived like that the States. It's almost mind-boggling to think things are going to get worse for them.

For "real poverty", I just have to walk around any large city and see families living on the streets. Or go to a first nations reserve.

Real poverty exists everywhere.

According to the idiotic OP, no-one in this country can be poor because that only means 'not having enough money to go down the pub' apparently.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Why do people think the above is unique to 'poor' countries?

Having an open house, with relatives and neighbours popping in unannounced (usually around dinner time) was a huge part of my childhood in London. We supported an extended family, including elderly 'aunties' (who of course were not related) and the neighbours provided the local creche.

The rate of migration, property values and the sheer size of London may mitigate against long-term settled communities, but people don't move to Britain and suddenly lose the habits of a lifetime and their culture.

This is the thing. Perhaps immigrant communities have it, but (and I know I may incur the wrath of the liberaliti here) white people in dislocated areas like London generally don't, precisely because their areas are always changing. I've never been that favourable to all-out multiculturalism, precisely for this reason. I see 'alienating the local population' as hardly a good thing.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I've traveled through the southern states and have seen some very poor areas. I couldn't believe that people lived like that the States. It's almost mind-boggling to think things are going to get worse for them.

For "real poverty", I just have to walk around any large city and see families living on the streets. Or go to a first nations reserve.

Real poverty exists everywhere.

Yeah my mate said that the poverty on the reservations absolutely knocked anything he had seen into China into next week.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Here's some pics of the flat my poor (in Chinese terms) have just managed to move into with their life savings

One bedroom: (complete with poster of RD Jr on wall )

Living room:

This is why I sometimes get cynical about the whole 'democracy' thing.

They've gone from abject slumlike poverty to that, have the poor in India made a similar transformation?

FFS many people can't afford a flat like that in London these days.

We are being conned.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

And by the way, they are the poor of China, when I met my wife's dad he was walking along wearing shorts and flipflops and nothing else, walking a donkey on a rope. Their old house was pretty rundown, but I was well impressed with these pictures of the new one.

If their poor are starting to get places like that to live, it shows that they really are racing along, as many poor in Britain would kill for a place like that.

 

[YouSir]

Well, i am british, so i'm talking about myself too.

But yes, perhaps i'm being hypocritical, i can see that. However, i think it's impossible for us to avoid this, however much we might try. I also think that british people are a pretty judgmental lot compared to other peoples i've met.

'I'm being hypocritical, so I'll be hypocritical a little more...'

 

[tarannau]

This is the thing. Perhaps immigrant communities have it, but (and I know I may incur the wrath of the liberaliti here) white people in dislocated areas like London generally don't, precisely because their areas are always changing. I've never been that favourable to all-out multiculturalism, precisely for this reason. I see 'alienating the local population' as hardly a good thing.

What have white people and multiculturalism necessarily got to do with it? I'd wager that long before international migration in significant numbers people were moving from other parts of England and Britain. It's one of the slight ironies of our time - folks moving to London en masse and then moaning that they've not got much to do with their neighbours or it's not as friendly down here.

The price of having a popular capital city I guess. Yet despite all that strong local communities still exist in London - I'm glad to live in one.

 

[isitme]

totally agree with RD about the democracy thing. it's such a fucking lie that britain is one of the richest and freeest countries in the world, i think most people would give up the right to vote for councillors and prime ministers in exchange for a decent house and a job

and no fucker ever voted for our current PM anyway,

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

I'm not talking about being a bit skint and not being able to go down the pub until payday but real poverty.
As many will know i live in a small village in central Java, Indonesia. Here there are many families that live on a lot less than $2 a day. We are talking simple, and often half wrecked, wooden shacks with dirt floors and not much inside.
No running water, no electricity and often, no food.

I just wondered how many on the forum have actually seen this sort of thing with their own eyes and so are able to understand it.

yes and no.

as i i've seen it as you have.

understand it nah and neither do you.

to understand it you have to live it and have a comparitor ie used to earn £100,000 + PA now earn £2 a day.

you claim you understand it what kind of cultureal realtivist ponce claims that...

you're a fucking joke.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Here's some pics of the flat my poor (in Chinese terms) have just managed to move into with their life savings

One bedroom: (complete with poster of RD Jr on wall )

Living room:

This is why I sometimes get cynical about the whole 'democracy' thing.

They've gone from abject slumlike poverty to that, have the poor in India made a similar transformation?

FFS many people can't afford a flat like that in London these days.

We are being conned.

how much is one of those?

 

[tarannau]

totally agree with RD about the democracy thing. it's such a fucking lie that britain is one of the richest and freeest countries in the world, i think most people would give up the right to vote for councillors and prime ministers in exchange for a decent house and a job

and no fucker ever voted for our current PM anyway,

Bit simplistic isn't it? Take RD's China example - there's hardly decent housing and employment for all there. Nor can you effectively compare a country with the same vast open spaces as China to a country as densely populated and popular as Britain.

 

[derf]

According to the idiotic OP, no-one in this country can be poor because that only means 'not having enough money to go down the pub' apparently.

What you have to do is actually read the Op, not pre judge it and add your own version to post.
I was not suggesting that not being able to afford a pint was the only poverty in the UK but saying that wasn't a definition of being poor.
Do me a favour and stick your brain in gear before opening your gob.

The pictures of cardboard cities and descriptions of poverty in major western cities has surprised me. I knew there are some with problems in places like that but had no idea that so many lived that way in developed countries.
It's easy to see how people with substance abuse or mental health problems end up that way but whole communities. That's shit.
I wonder what caused the problem in Greece and who these people are.
I have been watching on Al Jazeera a program about tent cities in the US populated by new unemployed who lost the lot.
Whilst the lack of heath care here is a massive problem at least very few are starving. The biggest bonus for people here is the family bond. There are very few that have no one who will help.

 

[derf]

yes and no.

as i i've seen it as you have.

understand it nah and neither do you.

to understand it you have to live it and have a comparitor ie used to earn £100,000 + PA now earn £2 a day.

you claim you understand it what kind of cultureal realtivist ponce claims that...

you're a fucking joke.

Odd you should put it like that. My last year's income while still in the UK was a touch over 50K. I now live on about 12 quid a week. That's all I need out here.
I should mention we are starting new businesses out here that will produce more but I can't see me spending much more. In fact I'll be busy so probably spend less. The businesses are there to stop me getting board and to add cash to the bank in case we need it later.
(Or maybe another labour government gets in and fucks the UK and my investments totally)
The handy thing for the locals is that these will provide work for them and help at least in a small way.
To many my salary drop may seem like poverty but of course you have to factor in local living costs. I have no expensive habits like boozing but I treat myself to a nice restaurant a couple of times a week with friends.
What gets me is how do you know I don't understand what poverty is. I have mentioned before i live with these people and know them well. You would either have to be blind or stupid not to have a good understanding after so long.