A continuation of a discussion started in http://commonsensejoe.blogspot.com/2008/12/global-warming-cap-and-trade.html
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MsAnthrope has left a new comment on your post "Global Warming: Cap and Trade":
Native American's have a saying " Do not judge a man until walked a mile in his moccasins." So until you have worked two jobs just to barely eat, keep a roof over your child's head, and shoes (NOT $100 sneakers but corrective shoes for a birth defect) on their feet then don't tell me about what the poor should do.
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There are many types of poor. Some are temporary due to unfortunate circumstance. Some because they do not plan ahead. How many people live on credit cards and pay-check to pay-check, yet still take an expensive vacation every year? Or bought houses bigger than their needs?
I applaud than man who has two jobs to take care of his needs. That is the type of person who should be benefiting from government programs as food-stamps He may be benefiting from medicaid. But if he earns too much, his medicaid is withdrawn, making it impossible to improve his and his family condition.. If they government allowed him to earn more with a gradual reductions of benefits, both him and society would be better.
There was a case of a New England state, where women would take home work to earn extra income. They were paid on a piece basis. They could work on their own time, between watching the children and doing chores. But the government calculated that the were being paid less than the minimum wage. So they prevented the women from doing this work, thus depriving women of extra income with no option to replace that income.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
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14 comments:
"That man" happens to have been a woman, who never received a dime in child support or ANY government benefits. No credit cards either.
Gender doesn't matter.
And if she was poor she should have been able to receive government benefits.
Joe you really need to turn off the right wing TV and radio and free your mind from right wing extremist brainwashing like Limbaugh, Fox, Coulter, Hannity, O'Reilly etc that you obviously listen to regularly considering your posts and choice of subjects....they have apparently really messed up your mind to the point where you can't think straight anymore....
1. The Indian adage you quote concerning walking a mile in one's moccasins before you judge the comportment of someone else, is just simply that, don't judge someone else's life or condition until you've lived it yourself.... well since none of us I imagine have been really poor for long periods of time, we have no right to judge the poor, so we should not.
However one thing we can say for certain is if someone is poor it is not because the person wants to be poor but because the person has no choice due to either tyrannical conditions of the society like in China or Cuba or the USA under Bush and Republicans... or someone is poor in a just society, like in a Carter or Obama controlled America, or socialist controlled Europe, Canada or Japan because he or she is incapable of being self sufficient due to psychological reasons.
This has already been demonstrated by numerous sociological studies that one can easily find in the library or the Internet.
If you look at all the cases of poor people closely you will find that they are poor for a reason ...nobody wants to be poor, nobody want to suffer and struggle, if someone is poor there is a reason for it and in the large majority of cases it is due to an unjust society...in a just society there are very few poor and the one's who are poor are because of severe psychological or physical handicaps and they are few in number so society can handle them at little cost.
Right wing extremists would like us to believe, like you apparently believe, Joe, that people are poor because they are lazy, that they deserve to be poor because they refuse to work or spend all their money on beer and cigarettes ....in my whole life I've never met one person like that and I'm sure you haven't either because it is simply not true, it is purely right wing extremist propaganda.
I know of poor families that take expensive travel vacations or go skiing or buy organic food etc that they can't afford, but they do it for their kids, they don't want their kids to grow up deprived or to have less chance of getting a top education than the children from rich families...they go into debt knowing that they'll never get out of it... but its because they love their children and want them to have all the advantages richer kids have...this is normal and even to be admired.... the poor people you talk about who spend their food stamps or income on beer and cigarettes don't have kids and for the most part severely handicapped psychologically, or if they do have kids, they are relatively rare isolated cases and these parents are probably psychologically impaired and its not their kids fault they have bad parents like this ...furthermore these isolated cases costs very little to society so we shouldn't care about helping them too, even though you think they don't deserve it..its for the kids.
Right wing extremists always try to find the isolated case of the poor person who doesn't deserve any help and blow it way out of proportion...probably less than 0.001% of the population is poor because they are simply lazy... most of the lazy people have plenty of money.... 99.99% of the poor are poor because they didn't have the same financial conditions, parenting, education, or genetic makeup, etc., necessary to be successful in just societies and in tyrannical societies they are poor because of tyranny.
I know a women who decided to work as a grade school teacher because she did not want to be a financial slave to her husband, she makes a very low income because public school grade school teachers are poorly paid in America ...and because her first husband cheated on her and her second husband abused her verbally and sometimes even physically... she divorced them both (the first for cheating on her and the second for abuse)... and she gets little in alimony for the kids because her first husband is a grade school teacher also and makes little money and has another family to support... and the second is just a real asshole and would rather go to jail than pay her what he should so she has lost countless dollars on lawyer's fees, lawyers whom have had no success so far because he's a criminal type making most of his money on the black market and declaring nothing... thus she gets very little in alimony from either of them though she is raising their children.
She works after school too for supplementary income yet because she wants her kids to have the same advantages as the rich kids, she is way over her head in debt... she smokes cigarettes and probably could manage her money a lot better but she is alone, working two jobs raising 2 kids in a small apartment where she sleeps in the living room so her kids can each have their own bedroom...she constantly complains of the "whores" that live off their husband's income who go to the hairdresser once a week, take vacations to Hawaii and the Caribbean every winter who have maids come in once a week to clean their houses etc., she rarely buys anything for herself with the exception of cigarettes which she is addicted too...yet she doesn't envy these rich women whom she says are miserable because they don't love their husbands anymore...yet stay with them anyway so they don't have to work or because they are afraid they won't find work... she says would rather be free from sexual slavery yet in debt than live with someone she can't stand to be around.
Somehow I can't blame this hardworking good mother for being poor and in debt because she smokes and manages her money poorly cause she just doesn't have the energy or time to manage her money correctly because she's working two jobs and giving her kids all the advantages she can, which takes a lot of work too, if you want to raise kids right and she does.
You and other extreme right wing types want to blame her for smoking and spending too much money on her kids but we on the left feel she deserves a break since she got unlucky with two incompatible husbands...
you on the right say its her fault for choosing the wrong guy so she deserves her poverty and no help from society but we on the left say its not her fault and she deserves help to raise her kids despite the fact she smokes and can't manage her money.
People like her cost a rich society maybe 100 million or so per year, that's peanuts compared to the trillions we give away in corporate welfare for earmarks, no bid contracts, free pollution permits,etc
In a free just society we shouldn't worry about the poor deserving it or not, we should just help them because they are poor, whatever the reason, because it costs so little to a rich society... compared to the welfare we give to the military, banks, big oil etc.
You are on the right have your priorities all backwards you worry so much about whether the poor deserve help or not, which cost only millions...yet you never talk about waste and corruption by big oil, the military, corporate corruption in general , etc that costs our society trillions and trillions no wonder America is bankrupt after 30 years of Republican rule! It's only common sense to be much more worried about the irresponsibility of the rich and powerful than the poor!!!
Comments on the poor were limited to the United States, indicated in comments of the originating post. Many governments/societies create conditions of poverty that can not be escaped. That is why so many try to come to the western democracies.
What you do not understand about the right is that they are not against giving assistance to those in needs. In fact, the people you mentioned are giving millions to charity and individuals. (http://www.cnsnews.com/Public/Content/article.aspx?RsrcID=38880)
What the right is against is attitudes and policies that keep people in poverty. The great society gave incentives for young girls to have children out of wedlock. That created a generation of women and children stuck in a cycle of poverty. When you punish someone from working by taking away their benefits all at once instead of a sliding-scale, you punish work. When you overtax business, you punish people who create jobs the poor need to get out of poverty.
The United State is a mobile society. Some people are born into poverty and climb their way out. Others spend their way into poverty. Gambling, drug and alcohol addiction have moved many from the middle class into poverty. Some use the credit cards paying only the minimum. To help some in poverty, giving them money will not help because they will just spend it. You need to change their attitudes and habits.
Some in poverty just need a starting hand. Micro-loans across the world have help thousands of woman and their families out of poverty in their areas (though compared to the western democracies they are would still be considered the poorest of the poor).
Give it up Joe. You know nothing about being poor or what someone will do for their children. When you bring your 3 day old child home from the hospital with casts on both legs up to the knees and a referrel to an orthopedic surgeon. Major medical bills soon follow. Three surgeries in 5years this will make you poor. It wasn't alcohol, drugs or gambling.
As I said, there are many reasons some people fall into poverty. Medical bills are one of them. Not having adaquate medical insurance is a problem. Having childern you can not afford is another. Can you find statitics on how people become poor?
Unfortunately, too many are born into poverty.
Joe, I checked your link and it was Rush Limbaugh buying a car for a women because she was too poor, this is not how you help the poor, it even contradicts what you said earlier about teaching a person how to fish rather than giving them the fish (which is the adage of the Peace Corps by the way)... first of all you have to understand something about the poor, they hate charity, it is humiliating to receive something for nothing, this is what the extreme right wants to do , humiliate the poor by just helping the poor with pure charity. What the poor want are decent paying jobs, fair pay for the work done, and a chance for their kids to get an education so that they can become entrepreneurs, leaders in government etc.
You want to know how the poor become poor? it's easy, the answer is exploitation by the rich and powerful who control the military and the police so that the poor can't fight back and demand their rights, like forming unions, etc.
American corporations producing with cheap Chinese labor are more responsible for breaking up unions in China than the Chinese government, which wanted to allow unions but American corporations pressured them to say keep unions illegal so they could continue to benefit from slave labor.
The poor are kept poor by lack of education primarily and lack of health care second...this is why they should both be paid for by collective taxes and not privatized.
You on the right want to call free health care etc charity, to humiliate the poor, we on the left call that a right because the poor are not compensated for pollution they did not cause, polluted rivers and streams, polluted air global warming, etc.
or natural resources stolen from them that they got no compensation for like oil and gas and minerals and
Give up your crusade against the poor Joe and concentrate your blogging energies against the rich and powerful who abuse their powers and keep the poor down by police brutality, lowering minimum wages, breaking up unions, fighting against free higher education and universal health care, nationalizing the banks and oil companies, corporatising the media etc.
The poor do not want charity they just want and equal chance at opportunity and that's what society should be striving for, under the left we make progress under the right we go back to exploitation and humiliation of the poor.
Stop propagating the myth put forth by Republicans that the poor are poor because they drink, smoke , have children they can't afford and are lazy...that is just BS and propaganda and you know it. It may apply to a few isolated cases but it represents no more than 0.0001% of all the poor.
For example those who worked to get Obama elected did infinitely more for the poor than Limbaugh buying that car for that poor women.
Well you missed the poin about Rush, as usual. It was just an example of him being kind. Showing you the conservatives are not all just greedy people.
Again, let talk just about the U.S., where the military is not preventing unions etc. Yes, the poor in other nations have problems that they can not overcome as long as live in those countries with their current government.
Funny how repubs scream that "Government isn't the solution" in good times, but then turn around and whine, cry, and pout that "Government IS the solution" in bad times. They gave hundreds of billions to Wall Street and the bankers, but by god "It's the unions!" that sank Detroit, even though not a single auto CEO testified to one complaint about their union deals.
Let them obsess on Casey Anthony and Blogoyavich. They're already a minority party and will remain so for at least a decade; much longer if they think WORKERS are the enemy of capitalism when its the CEOs who have cost us tens of trillions with no accountability.
Look. Let's all admit that ANYTHING that a conservative says is hypocritical. Remember, ol' Rush himself lived off food stamps (fraudulently) in Kansas City after being fired from two radio stations, and when caught, refused to pay back the benefits. This is the same Rush Limbaugh who sought out the ACLU to defend him in his felony controlled narcotic drug dealer scam recently. Just like O'Reilly and Hannity, these guys are psychotic wackjobs.
No one supports corrupt politicians, and if they started handing out mandatory minimum 50-year sentences for their crimes, it might deter some of that crap. But the repubs are JUST AS guilty as the Dems. In fact, more so. Can you say "Jack Abramoff"? Just to name one. And now they want to get the "story out" on blagoavich (sp?) but that wasn't their tune when Scooter Libby was outing CIA agents.
Joe I am just talking about the USA!... most of the poverty in the World, since WWII anyway, is a direct or indirect result of American corporations stealing resources from third world populations, destroying their land and environments in the process, as well as, imposing military dictatorships to protect their "investments" which is more accurately called resource theft.
Before WWII European colonization, primarily the British and Spanish, was the main force of criminal activity in the "new world" but since WWII the USA has dominated in criminally exploiting the world's poor. We live in an accelerating global economy thanks to progress in transport efficiencies thus American corporations can mine minerals ores in South America at a fraction of the costs it requires in North America, because of the unions in North America demanding higher wages and better working conditions. So American corporations go elsewhere where they can finance dictatorships, their police and military, to crush violently union organization and to force foreign workers into slave labor and dangerous working conditions thereby increasing profits for management and investors...the evidence is overwhelming and easily available on the Internet if you make an effort to look.
This process of crushing dissent and unionization overseas has had as a consequence of making American labor more expensive compared to Mexican or Chinese labor, thus allowing the right wing Republicans to scream that the USA is no longer competitive...which is now true..but it didn't have to be that way we could have allowed democracies and unions to flourish in South America and Asia and the Middle East instead of crushing them with our CIA and military...allowing their labor to be equal to or even more expensive than ours, allowing unions here to even further demand higher wages and even better working conditions... yet the losers in that case would have been wall street and bonus fat CEOs because corporate profits would have been more directed to the workers than to the managers.
The American people lose when the Chinese and Guatemalan and African and Iranian and Saudi...people lose...it is all connected...you need to read a little history from Howard Zinn and watch Democracy Now to educate and inform yourself, pollution from Chinese coal factories travel the ocean and hit the shores of California...you can't talk about American poverty and not talk about World poverty because its all connected...right wing propaganda tries to blind you to that fact, keep you ignorant...don't let yourself be so easily fooled Joe, use your common sense, it's easy to see its all connected, by improving working conditions and salaries and the environments abroad we improve the same at home!!!
Well, Zaine, it was some Republicans in congress and a couple of Democrats who tried to stop the original bailout to Wall Street. Although Bush is a Republican, he has shown he is not a conservative. I do not know about your allegations against Rush, but I am sure the amount he has given to charities (no mentioning his income taxes) has more then reimbursed any government aid he has taken.
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