I worked with “Fishtown” men back in the late 70’s and early 80’s doing commercial construction to pay my way through college. Now I encounter the Fishtown men by representing them in Court. A good portion of the Fishtown men then were “white trash,” drinking from paycheck to paycheck and going through the serial relationships. But there are two things I did notice about them then and compare to the Fishtown men now.
Back then, it appeared that most of them worked. They may not have been bright workers, they may not even have been good workers. You would not have wanted to turn the “means of production” over to them as they would have wound up in the parking lot with a keg of beer and bucket of chicken. But they did work. Today, far too many of them are drinking and drugging not from paycheck to paycheck, but from disability check to disability check. They have no interest in working and once they get that check, they probably will never again rejoin the labor force.
Back then, it was mostly the younger Fishtown men who were most irresponsible. It may have taken some time for the life lessons to be learned, but as they got older, they got more responsible. You would see that they had settled down and were raising families. I sensed that many of them felt they had wasted their younger years. Today, as I stated above, as they age, they are not learning the same lessons and applying them to their lives. They are content to collect disability, and fuel the welfare system with an ever larger crop of bastard children.
It’s just that the welfare state went after the blacks first; they’ve been this way since the mid-1960’s. They started going after the whites about 20 years ago, and have largely succeeded.
White or black, if you fall into the pit, or are born there, there is little hope in getting out. And that is by design.
ART CASHIN: The Unemployed Are Now Going On Disability And It's Costing The Government Billions
I think they went after the Indians first. The federal government provided everything for those people, perhaps out of guilt. That "assistance" absolutely destroyed them.
I appreciate your points about Fishtown men "then and now". I shudder to think about 30 years from now when my kids are my age.