Povertarians and Povertarianism

Seen in the blogs:

PelaLusa said...
I loved these quotes in the Van Sun article:

"He [Simpson] believes that the agencies that are in the Downtown Eastside to combat poverty are actually codependent on the poor. "It's their raison d'etre."

"I call them the povertarians," he explains. "And they've created a system in the Downtown Eastside that is going in the wrong direction. It's a hell down here and I got elected to the Carnegie board by the members because I wanted to change the way these people are running things."
December 24, 2007 8:18 PM

See also.

Bob C said:

I must agree with William Simpson with his opinion of the so called service providers in the Downtown East Side. I have worked in and around the DTES for many years and have observed the people who provide these services to the poor become increasingly intrenched in what they do to the point that changing that area is the last thing they want to see. If the DTES was cleaned up and the poor were no longer poor and the addicted were treated then all of those nice fat grants the service provders get from the govenments and social organizations would dry up. Once the money is gone so are their jobs. So yes William Simpson is right when he called them "povertarians".
December 24, 2007 5:39 PM

These are responses to Miro Cernetig's recent Vancouver Sun column.

Now, here is the text of an email from Dag to me, dated March 2, 2007:

I did a Google search to look for povertaria[n], and below is what I found. I think that in a month I can make it one of the most used buzz words in our culture. Look at some of the other things we now think of as given: dhimmitude, infantalisation, philobarbarism, poligion, neo-feudlaism. Some words are better than others. I think "povertarian" has legs. Let's find out this time next month.

Revised March 1. 2007:

Povertarian: 5 pages

Povertarians: 9 pages

Povertarianism: 1 page

Yalla, Dag

Here is what I get today, December 26, 2007, on Google:

Povertarian: 33 pages

Povertarians: 30 pages

Povertarianism: 1 page

So, good work Dag, especially good work considering your typographical trials and tribulations. But we all have to do a little more work on the ism. Yeah, I know, we should be allergic to all isms. But maybe, in this case, we can drop it in every now and then for the old school crowd.

Kudos also to Reliable Sources at the Downtown Eastside Enquirer, who has been doing great and extensive work on the William Simpson story for many many months now, along with a host of other stories on the Downtown Eastside. There's someone working hard and braving the potential wrath of the Gnostic ideologues/postmodern slum lords to get us all closer to the truth about the open wound on the face of Ms. Vancouver.

UPDATES:

Povertarian • one who works in the ‘poverty industry’.

- Extracted and adapted from Schott’s Almanac 2008: conceived, written & designed by Ben Schott published by Bloomsbury on December 1.