Poverty and the Public Spectacle

It's always someone. In Rome, Christians were "the others" and their torture was a public spectacle, with refreshments for all. For the Elizabethans, it was criminals- the gallows were a place for family picnics and meeting the neighbors. And in America until, really, a few decades ago, it was lynchings, where white communities congregated while black victims choked to death and photographers recorded the spectacle for postcards.
Now, we have the homeless- who are, after all, a subset of "the poor". In the modern iteration, virtual community has replaced real community. Consequently, videos of "bum bashing" replace postcards and personal attendance and TV snacks replace picnics, but the spirit is the same. These spectacles tell us who "the other" is in any particular period, and reassure us that "we" are not "them."
In the modern era, poverty and conditions associated with poverty- obesity, smoking, cultural backwardness, and its terminal phase of homelessness- define "the other." "Bum bashing" is the least of it. Like lynchings, these incidents say more about our culture than about the specific perpetrators.