On Getting Checks from the Government, Or, the Direct/Indirect Problem [View All]

I've seen a lot of posts here lately about how the generations after the Baby Boom have lost their way, have forgotten core Democratic principles. I've even agreed with many of these. But I think it's useful to consider the life experiences of your audiences when you make such arguments.

I'll say it plain: I have never received a check of any kind from the local, state, or federal government. Nothing. No unemployment, no SSI, no tax refund, except maybe that $300 that Bush contrived to bribe us with. Nada. And I don't think I'm the only one.

Now, don't get me wrong. Philosophically, I'm a Marxist, and I mean that in a classical sense. But in terms of actual life experience, the very notion that a government would send me money is just foreign. I've never experienced it. Maybe that makes me "lucky;" I don't know. But I think it has to be part of the discussion, especially since I probably live on indirect checks from the government. It is the problem of the direct and the indirect that we have to learn how to talk about.

I went to graduate school at a public university. Obviously, every check I received there for teaching assistantships and research support was "from the government." But it just seemed like it was from "my job." I teach at a private university, but if I did the math on the tuition contributions from loans and other government support, what I would learn is that some portion (and perhaps a majority) of my paycheck every two weeks is "from the government," though, again, it doesn't seem that way. No doubt this just scratches the surface: without public education, and infrastructure, and countless other social supports, my "job" wouldn't even exist, and etc., all the way down the line. But the way it appears (and again, in the classical Marxist notion of nur erscheinen, to merely appear) is different: I have never received a check of any kind from the government.

It's well and good to yell and scream. It's well and good to upbraid people for their positions. But if you want to get through to people, the idea of the direct and indirect social economic support seems to be the problem you need to hack. I'd rather see people working on how to solve this problem rhetorically than yelling and screaming and upbraiding.