The poor is not your enemy. Open your eyes!

Originally posted by intelligenthoodlum33
I have to head out to work, so if I don't reply immediately, I'm not ignoring ya.

Say NO to divide and conquer!

I'm with you!

So, after reading through the OP and the retrenchments afterwards, I am to sympathize, indeed embrace as brothers all poor people. The exclusion of the rich and the phrasing of the OP mean there are enemies with money ( I concur wholeheartedly), but people who are lazy and ignorant and routinely vote for and promote corrupt crooks seeking to take what little remains of my own hard-earned and not very large income, they are to be celebrated? The problem with the OP is one of generalization. It assumes all poor people are the same. They are not. And I agree with Ghandi, a society needs to provide for it's weakest members. I may well qualify as lower class income-wise right now myself( if I am middle class it's on the low end-probably statisically where I would get ranked anyway)... but I am not part of Ghandi's equation I assure you. Society isn't responsible for me, I am. I do my part as best I can in 2 charities I work hard for, one for abused women, the other for orphaned children. But though I work full-time, I cannot afford to go back to school and finish my post-grad work and hopefully contribute even more to our society which I really wish to do. Perhaps one day I will be able to, I certainly intend to. Yet if I view lazy, healthy welfare abusers as the enemy I am the bad guy. If I pose the possibility that single mothers with 3 kids from 3 different fathers getting 3 separate child support checks monthly shouldn't be getting my tax dollars additionally to that (hello? personal responsibility calling? Ah, still no answer...) I am thus 'uncaring' and not on the right side. These are real portions of 'the poor' as well. And it sucks that people who truly ARE in need of a helping hand, or even those in need of lifetime assistance due to real ailments get lumped in with them. But I'm the bad guy, the uncaring evil middle classicist. All my fault. I suppose that rings true in today's mess of a world. However I view it the other way, those who scuffle along playing the woe-is-me card to get the last drgs of my income should be joining my team, not the other way around. I'm not the problem in my humble opinion. They are-and I don't need to side with them, they should be joining my team. So go ahead OP, continue accusing me. I've got broad shoulders, what say you pile a few more deadbeats on them and see how long it takes til I collapse.

Without the poor there is no rich.

This is the tragic constant of capitalism.

Originally posted by SucksMulder
Without the poor there is no rich.

This is the tragic constant of capitalism.

How completely idiotic-do you REALLY want an entirely LCD society? I mean I guess we all need to not just have equal opportunity, we need equal outcome too! So now, everyone with an instrument gets to be 1st chair on the New York Philharmonic, not just the highly trained and gifted soloists who earned it. And hey, I want to play in the NBA so LeBron needs to sit a game so I can get my 15 min of fame. Not to mention, that guy down the street with 2 nice new cars should give me one since mine is 10 years old and finally getting a bit of rust. And while we're at it, all pilots should be the same, so whether it's a bush pilot yahoo, or a seasoned military/commercial liner vet, they all get paid the same now. All works of art will henceforth be valued equally, Piss Christ will have the same value as Starry Night and The Night Watch.

I'll go you one better, without competetion, there is no excellence, only an endless morass of LCD mediocrity.

reply to post by intelligenthoodlum33


Your words "We all need some kind of help sometimes. It isn't a sin...it's a fact of life. Some people actually do take advantage of the system, but should we throw out the baby with the bathwater?"

Answer: You design a system that prevents people from starving by providing the most basic assistance;
- like 26 weeks of unemployment, not 99 months
- like foodstamps for those who need them to survive, not for an entire subset of society who are using them as a second US currency and who have never cashed a paycheck.
- like matching jobs with people and requiring them to work if work is available and offered, not an entire subset of society sitting on the bench because the work available does not suit them.
- like keeping Medicaid solvent for those who need it like the elderly and disabled, not drug addicts and those who are perfectly fit but have been "declared legally disabled" ( I personally know four people who are as fit as anyone who got themselves on the disability roles and are collecting checks every month).

To those of you who think I'm cruel I would say you are nieve. There are two classes of people who are getting benefits in this country - those who deserve it and those who are gaming the system.

You bet those who are gaming the system are enemies - of all of us. The only way to make the system work for everyone is to make living on the government dime the last possible resort and a fail safe for survival - not a close alternative to working.

Much of the money from foodstamps goes to businesses. The profits off the food sold keep a lot of people working. There are a lot of jobs that count on the poor, and very few of them are government jobs. That program is a good program and shouldn't be eliminated. Most people getting foodstamps are working, unless disabled, but aren't getting enough income to pay expenses. We have created this society by exporting the jobs to China and other countries. If we don't fix that problem this won't go away. The consumer based economy doesn't work, bring back those outsourced jobs.

I believe that people with foodstamps shouldn't be able to buy Lobster or Prime rib. They shouldn't be able to buy Soda Pop with it either. I don't see any problem with shrimp and some reasonable priced fish and even most deli meats and cheeses though. Some of the real cheeses and meats have chemistry that helps people make energy and an aged meat or cheese is usually consumed in small amounts. I know a lot about foods, not nearly as much as some people but more than most. I know that nutrition is not just vitamins, minerals, and proteins. There is much more that we are not shown.

What is wrong with tang instead of drinking Soda Pop? What's wrong with the poor making homemade soup from a soup bone. Homemade beef barley veretable soup is cheap and one of the best sources of nutrition. The poor could be healthier and then their medical bills would be less. Cooking homemade soup in the summer indoors may not be good if it's hot but in the winter it also helps heat the house and add moisture to the air.

We got a bread maker and cut our cost of buying bread down to a third. If everyone did this, there would be massive layoffs around the country though. I try to buy locally made breads when we buy bread to support the local economy.

Getting rid of the foodstamp program is a mistake. If the poor quit eating as much than our countries economy will crumble and prices in the supermarket will skyrocket. People never look at the whole picture anymore, all they see is what they think effects them.

reply to post by SucksMulder


and socialism, communism, feudalism, plutococracism, fascism .

reply to post by HabiruThorstein


Bravo to you HabiruThorstein. that was one of the most well phrased replies to the class warfare argument I have ever seen.

I will definitely look for more of your work.

You are so right. The notion has somehow gotten lost that being on welfare, disability, medicaid, foodstamps, etc. should be a temporary endeavor and not a desired outcome. Those folks should be doing everything they can to get back in the work force unless they are the elderly or handicapped beyond the ability to work. There is a whole subset of society who thinks being on welfare or being handicapped is a carreer choice. They need to get off the bench and back on our team.

Originally posted by SilverStarGazer
I'm almost afraid to stick my toe in here but here goes nothing...

Tomorrow I go for my interview at social security bc I'm applying for long term disability. I have been unable to work for 4 years, but bc of pride and stigmatism I've refused to apply up until now. I don't receive any other aid no food stamps etc. I had a job from age 16 on. I worked very hard and made a decent living in human services. When my health problems started, I was in denial. I kept working and pushing myself bc I refused to be a burden to anyone, not my family or my country. I've really struggled over the last couple of years and I've come to a point where I can barely get out of bed, my savings is gone and I've got nothing left to sell. Even though I know I paid into social security all the years I worked, I STILL feel guilty about receiving a government check. The STIGMATISM surrounding it is palpable. I see the looks people get at the grocery store for using an EBT card. It really bothers me. I guess bc I used to be one of the people who judged, who sat on the other side of the line and complained. I'm still pretty upset about the whole thing. Maybe part of it is just being mad that my body has given out on me way too early. Maybe it's bc I'll never get to go back to the job I absolutely loved. But the biggest part is being looked down upon and being lumped into a category of lazy people with their hands out. That's not me... But it doesn't matter bc I will be judged anyway. Hell I'm even judging myself. Maybe it is easy for some to kick back and live off everyone else, but speaking as someone who has to get a check, it's not easy for us all.

And if one day I am able to go back to work, believe me I will, bc to me this is like a prison sentence.

I feel your pain. I am going deaf and it was hard having a retail sales job so I ended up quitting. I got turned down by SS disability because, according to them, I can still work. So...I employed myself and now help animals, which is perfect, because I don't deal much with people. I barely make enough to pay bills and feed myself.

Do I think I'm poor? No. Actually, I think I'm lucky because I found something that makes me happy. And it has nothing to do with money. I have judged myself because of all the people who have judged me but now I look at how unhappy they are and realize they have no clue what life is really about.

Good luck to you and you will be in my thoughts.

reply to post by SucksMulder

it is a tragic consequence of reality.

To have a reference for one,there must be the opposite.

There is a gross imbalance in the world today.

That is capitalism.,a game that kills.

reply to post by intelligenthoodlum33


As long as "the poor" continue to remain ignorant and support the Progressive destruction of my way of life, as long as they continue to buy into the lie that someone owes them something by virtue of their existence, they will be my enemy. Having said that, don't misunderstand that to mean that I wish them any harm, or that I feel ill will towards them. My hope is that they will wake up and take control of their own circumstances instead of waiting around with their hand out for the tyrannical, plundering hand of big government to take from me and give to them.

As someone who was lucky enough to be brought into this world with absolutely nothing, I can tell you without a doubt that being poor is awesome. You get made fun of in school as if you personally have some kind of control over your family's financial situation. I don't know if we have any psychologists here or not ( Wait a minute, we have plenty of people who know everything, that's good enough!) but would any of you care to guess what the kind of lifestyle does to a child? It doesn't make one feel completely hopeless and damn near make you hate just about everyone, I can tell you that much.

I am much younger than many of you so I'm very aware of the fact that in your minds I probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about but the truth is, I probably care as much about what you think I do or do not know as you do about what I think I do or do not know. None of that changes the fact that I can claim to have personally grown up living well beneath the poverty line in a much more recent time than many of those of you who would make similar claims and therefore should, in theory, have much more experience of such when considering modern times. With that knowledge I can confirm that it is indeed true that, as someone growing up in such situations, it does seem like about a good 1/4 - 1/3 of the poor do purposefully abuse the system. However, that portion does not equal half, and certainly cannot compete with the "majority" that so many of you have claimed to believe intentionally abuse the system. Unless you have personally lived in a poor environment in the last 10 years, you cannot accurately attempt to make such claims.

The fact remains that something truly does need to be done about the scum who abuse the system, both on the very poor side and on the very rich side. Many of you seem to ignore that the ultra rich are taking much more of your money than the considerably small portion of the ultra poor who are "screwing you over." Your government wants you to hate the poor because they need someone to distract the morons from their own actions.

I'm not going to lie, my parents aren't very smart so they didn't have much of a choice but to work for chump change but they DID work. Neither of my parents used tobacco products or alcohol because they believed that it was a sin and for some reason they still cling to that damn bible no matter how bad of a hand life has dealt them. So they were working poor who were only poor because they were very stupid, and they were indeed very stupid. I fail to see how that makes them bad people or how it would make their offspring bad people but I can tell you without a doubt that society acts as if I am a bad person when I've done nothing to make them believe such. It almost makes me hate everyone, which would mean that TPTB would be having it their way in that the poor and middle class are too busy hating each other to worry about them.

What we need to do is make a true effort to eliminate poverty in this country rather than toss insults each others way. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you to an extent. If someone doesn't care enough to help themselves then let them rot. However, we need to offer them a way out. We need to make much more of an effort to educate and train our poor, or to be fair, everyone entering adulthood. Trust me, when I became of age, which wasn't that long ago, there wasn't any kind of program out there or anything that would help me transition from a teen living in poverty to an adult who is able to adequately provide for himself. Nothing to help me or people like me figure out how to get a good a job or anything... I was on my own, left to rot if I wasn't as intelligent as I am. That is what needs to change because most people are not as intelligent as me and are unable to make such a transition without help. We need to push the poor, we need to train and educate them or else things will only continue to get worse.

But what do I know? I'm just an "entitled libtard right-wing nut job" according to the internet...

Well I have an accounting class to get to so goodbye for now.

So with America currently 17 trillion in debt and unemployment high. 1 trillion a year spent on entitlements presently, less employed to pay taxes. How do you sustain the growing entitlements? The math just does not work. There is no war on the poor. Nobody hates the poor. The best social program for the poor is a job. Politicians talk about helping the poor but math gets in the way. Ultimately they can not help the poor until jobs are created so that tax dollars can go into programs to help the poor. Eventually ( very soon) people depending on entitlements will be completely SOL when the money tree dies. Jobs are the only way to help the poor in the end.

Don't complain about how things are,consider how much worse things could be.

We pride ourselves at being above "animals",but it must be taken into consideration,what an animal is.

I spend a lot of time outdoors,I don't see animals hoarding more food than they will ever need.

I see animals forming symbiotic relationships,sometimes predatory out of necessity,it depends on the available resources....

Anyway,rich or middle class in this world would really scream if the poor were completely removed from the system,because one of them would become the lower class,actually both would become lower.

UnBridled capitalism doesn't work by it's very nature.

There is a better place in between somewhere.

I don't know much,I don't have much'I don't want much.

I know this system has been around for eons,I don't need a giant chunk of it,having more than one needs simply inhibits mobility.

I need more coffee.

Good call friend~

The economic systems of the world in fact depend on the social stratification for there to be a class with more or less...

So it goes that anyone has opportunity; but surely not everyone gets a chance!

Thanks for jewels of wisdom*

∞LOVE
mayallsoulsbefree∞

reply to post by Anundeniabletruth


That was an absolutely awesome post, my friend. Some people refuse to buy into the divide and conquer doctrine, but others will fight tooth and nail to continue it.

I can only hope those people represent the minority of society, just as the people who 'abuse' the system is the minority.

Thanks for sharing your story and wisdom.

It's funny to me how I always hear people say that "nobody on welfare WANTS to be on welfare," that "they are ashamed," "their children are ashamed," etc. Certainly that may be true for some people; but in my experience, there are many people who simply regard this as a fact of life, and actually look at YOU funny if you say you aren't on food stamps or WIC or something. I live in a city where many people get various types of assistance, and my job entails my interacting with numerous such individuals. I have yet to encounter a single person who will pull me aside to quietly relay personal information. Rather, they will all but shout on the top of their lungs, without a trace of anything but matter-of-factness, that their boyfriend just got out of prison, they just got evicted from their apartment, receive food stamps, etc.

So, with this in mind, I would say the poor are indeed my enemy. But really, looking at the big picture, it's really the mentality of such people, and TPTB that allow it to keep happening, that are the enemy. The people are really just a product of their environment, if you will. I'm sure that many have never really given a second thought to what's considered normal for them. THAT is where the problem lies.

The poor will always be among us. It is a testimony to the development of our humanity and compassion as to how we deal with that.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

Now we could demand employers hire more people and pay higher wages...but guess what that does? That causes the prices of everything to raise. Suddenly, your status as a "middle income" worker is dropped through the floor when a burger costs $10.00 or $5.00 for a loaf of bread.

To me, the answer is removing a bunch of twisted and hypocritical rules, laws and regulations and allow people to do whatever it is they need to do to earn a living. Some rules, laws, registrations and certifications are not there for any reason other than to reduce competition for the big boys. For some rather mundane "professions", you have to have so many thousands of hours of training (costs money) you have to take a test (costs money) and you have to pay for registration and certification and licensing...more money. Some folks, who might be rather good as whatever field cannot front end these costs and therefore cannot participate. This reduces the number of would be competitors.

I have said it before, there is a need for some regulations, but the problem is, they are generally applied with way to broad of brush strokes...common sense has left the building ages ago.

I believe it should be fine for a person to buy a cheap cart, a cheap grill and sell cheap hot dogs along the side of the road without being tormented by regulations.

I think if a person wants to be a door to door in home masseuse, they should be able to do that with a minimum of training, licensing and insurance.

I think if a person wants to grow legal food mushrooms in their basement, they should be able to do so without interference or overly oppressive regulation. (or even the other ones for that matter)

If a person wants to dry, cure and peddle herbal remedies, they should be able to without big pharmacy companies destroying them and preventing them from operating

I won't even go into the "fringe" things that the tobacco and alcohol lobbies keep illegal. But even that, I think if a person wants to make moonshine or grow weed...they should be able to. The whole underlying truth about these things lies in corporate lobbyists...not "for the good of the people".

To me, it's not about "giving the poor a fish"...it's about "teaching them how to fish for themselves"...let a man (or woman) do whatever they know how to do to make a living...it's that simple.

reply to post by intelligenthoodlum33


I have a hard time believing that people still hold on to political parties so wholeheartedly after all we've seen in the past 50 years. The disinfo, the lies, the propaganda. Why can't people do their home work and not vote for the parties but for the candidate they want. I wish people could forget labels. Those superficial labels that create division. We are so caught up in the our own individual live (why shouldn't we) we forget we're part of ONE big community.

reply to post by XLR8R


I agree, wholeheartedly. I don't get it. Is our programming that strong? Is it that hard to see that these labels serve an agenda?

Is it too late to change our perceptions or are we doomed to only get worse until we resemble our worst nightmares?

Will I ask another question? Kiddin