This post refers to a tragic situation that occurred on Daily Kos - I’m not going to rehash it or add juicy links because I’m worried that the person used her real name, and I don’t want to add to her problems by feeding the Google monster. The first thing I saw when I revved up Daily Kos the next morning was another moving plea for help in the rec box, this time by a fairly high profile diarist. I truly empathized with his frustration at having to advocate for himself. His situation sounded horrific: I hope he will find the help he needs, and I’m grateful he’s using his writing gifts to illustrate the impact of a widespread problem on relatively helpless individuals.

The reason I wrote this follow up is I’m concerned that people have to be “amplified” to be heard, or otherwise they are allowed to fall through the cracks. Many people just on Daily Kos are living on the edge. I’ve been mostly unemployed (a little under-the-table work) for three years. I won’t go into my litany of problems (but feel free to read through my diaries if your curious) - the point is that I read diaries and comments from people in similar extreme situations every day. They, too, have been going without help they need for a while. They, too, have gotten to the point where they are going on the web and shouting their problems, hoping that someone, anyone will start listening. All the cries for help create a lot of noise, so people who could help just tune out.

It’s not just a matter of whether you are articulate enough to communicate your problems. I would say most people who participate in the blogosphere have above-average communication skills: they already have a major advantage over the significant portion of the population that can barely read, who can’t advocate for themselves or interest anyone in advocating for them, and are therefore invisible. At this point, though, you have to scream to be heard. You have to have a following as a writer (a “rec box regular”), media contacts, or access to mailing lists that will get the word out. You have to be willing to do shocking things, use profanity, wave huge multi-colored flags. If you want to hold on to your dignity as the one thing you have left, you’re out of luck. The message the world is sending is give us all a good show, or you aren’t working hard enough to deserve our help.

This state of affairs depresses the hell out of me. I mentioned in a comment before that I was wavering about voting for the Democratic candidate in my state (though the Republican in office is beyond awful), because he gave me the impression that keeping people from falling through the cracks wasn’t part of his platform. Good policy is important, and in theory progressive policy helps more people in the aggregate, but I want political representatives who are also willing to address the flaws in their policy. Instead of worrying that people might “come out of the woodwork” to take advantage of programs, a good political representative should be wondering what is going on with people while they’re still in the woodwork and being ignored. The implication is that the system is okay as long as people suffer and die quietly.

It’s up to us, the voters, to let our political representatives know that there are no “acceptable numbers” of people falling through the cracks. It’s up to us to tell our political representatives that we will vote for the one wants to help real people and seal the cracks instead of just orating about policy.

AllisonInSeattle made an important comment that this is one of the strengths of the Red State outlook. People in the largely red rural areas use small churches and civic organizations to try to cover the cracks, even though they often have meager resources as a community. In urban “Blue” areas, people are often isolated, and while they vote for the party that’s promising to do the right thing, that promise is often empty as far as individual lives are concerned.

In sum, I hope the efforts that Kossacks made that today to help people in dire straits will spark a larger discussion about how to reach out to the people who have no voice at all.