Poverty: Of Which I know Too Damn Much
Submitted by PriceRip on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 6:59pm
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ptHavHrDuE]
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E_JZixPhSk]
Ms. Hutchison Testimony on Proposed Changes to the Poverty Line Calculation
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's Questions on Changing the Poverty Line Calculation
What is it going to take for we the people to finally do the right stuff …
RIP
Comments
Who crashed YouTube? n/t
Scratch that, the problem turned out to be Verizon POS modem overheating - again. It does that several times a day.
The sick joke is that they sent it as a replacement for a modem that was doing that because of old age. SOME "improvement".
But really, people, posting YouTube clips is not the best way to get your point across. Please try adding some commentary under them.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Umm, would guess
without looking at the vids
(I hate u-tubes)
by the lead-in
poverty sucks?
or maybe congress is now able
to admit they are the reason for it?
or someone here has an understanding
of what it is like to have less than
nothing? Just guessing.
question everything
A bit of all of the above ...
… but mostly the last guess. I was lucky to have a genius for a dad. He had a set of clever ways for me to learn (while I was quite young) how economics really worked. Most of my economics colleagues do not like me. But that's ok, because I love to drive them (classical economists!!) nuts.
RIP
I looked for a transcript but couldn't find one.
If there is some more convenient way or time, please try to listen. What she has to say is especially powerful in her saying it, and would lack the emotional impact through written words only. She is a person of great soul and compassion.
You're fighting a losing battle.
As an old curmudgeon myself, equipped with a computer without sound capability, I gaze longingly at the motionless first image of posted YouTube videos, nod my head sagely, and mumble "That's nice."
Of course, I also love when someone posts, with no explanation, a Twitter Tweet that consists of four or five unhelpful words combined with a link to a Twitter video that I can't watch.
It sucks getting old and realizing that people just don't care enough to spend a few seconds writing English words that would make things clear to ancient geezers like me.
Ms. Hutchison nailed it.
There's nothing more to say, she made it perfectly clear.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Fuck Connolly with his "why this hearing is important"
They already know the stats on poverty and starvation wages and medical bankruptcies. They've heard all the solutions and proposals. They just don't give a rat's ass, and this is performative time-wasting, which is why I would gleefully watch them be grabbed by the hair and stoned in the streets. (Disclaimer: I don't condone violence in general.)
I, too, experienced poverty.
I was a single mother in the 70's. I went back to college, which meant I waited tables at night because there was only daytime school. I was a nontraditional student when there were only a handful of us.
We got food stamps and daycare assistance. I qualified for some other programs - my kids got free breakfast and lunch, etc. It wasn't the horrendous process it is today. The caseworker didn't think I was trying to scam the system. I finished my degree and have worked since.
When my kids were in situations where food stamps could have made a small difference, I found that they didn't qualify. Thank you Bill Clinton and then dubya. Each potus makes it harder to survive. Squeeze the poor.
I was fortunate to experience poverty when I did. The world has become very cruel.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
I was in that special hell during the 50s and 60s
As a child I didn't know many of the details at the time. May years later my dad told me that our caseworker used every trick, and loophole to make sure her clients did not go hungry. The scum of the earth would say she scammed the system to help those of us that needed help. A few years after we moved out of her service area she was promoted into a supervisory position isolating her from being able to tweak the system to better serve the clients. I have very special thoughts about her.
Doing good things by thwarting the will of the powers in charge is a game I play very well. It is so very satisfying to get those kind of people removed from their position of power.
RIP
Beautiful
Ms. Hutchison's moving testimony is the most elequent desciption of the real life predicaments that so many in this "great" country live with every moment of every day that I've ever heard. I wish that video could be ran during prime time on every tee vee in the country and maybe wake up some of the dumb bastards out there shouting out that crap about pulling yourself up by the bootstraps nonsense. I've got six grandkids, one is only twelve and lives with us but all the rest of them are struggling in one way or another. All are working either part time or full time at low end jobs, which in this area is about the best a young person can hope for.
They're all doing the best they can but after paying rent, car insurance, utilities, groceries, phone bills, and everything else that living in today's world requires there is never enough. If one thing goes wrong, car trouble, missed work due to illness, an appliance dies, anything at all, they're screwed. I doubt that many of our law makers can even comprehend what it's like to be poor, or if they'd give a damn even if they did.
All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth. John Lennon
Nobody who has enough cares about those who haven't
it's just too inconvenient to face the truth, better lie through your teeth all your life and be an arrogant, rich bastard.
I am done with people who have enough.
https://www.euronews.com/live
It's the point
where you lived in poverty and forget what you lived.
I'm better now, yet so many still live there.
I'll never forget to help.
To do so, would void my experience.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
"What is it going to take for we the people to finally do
the right thing ... "
Whatever it takes, I hope Bernie’s efforts to further the revolution continue to grow.
When I think about the heavy artillery the local and federal governments will pull out of their arsenal to thwart angry protesters, my heart drops. I can though, imagine or hope that the type of conditions millions of people and families suffer from will be a catalyst for meaningful strikes - for example at airports.
What if when campaigning ends, all those giving their $27 to Bernie, redirect it to a fund for strikers? Is it just a foolish dream?
Thank you RIP, for your life-long efforts toward change. And thanks for the Ms. Hutchison’s very poignant address. What a soulful woman.
We have this photo of my Dad's eighth grade class at graduation.
Maybe 25 kids in the photo. (Dad was just so damn cute!)
Taller kids stood, shorter kids went front row, or even kneeled.
And this one boy in the middle of the front row, the only one in a dress shirt with French cuffs, and in suit pants, while everyone else was in Depression era hand me downs, was kneeling. On a white kerchief.
Everyone else had a knee in the dirt.
Dad held out that picture as the reason why he despised rich fuckers, and why he hoped they despised him.
And why he raised me to do the same.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
What a wonderfully spirited dad you had!
I am reminded of what my dad always answered to politicians discussing taxes (whether to raise them or not). His response was, "go ahead, increase them", regardless of his middle-class, hard-working status. He had trouble understanding how parents who didn't have enough to care for their families sufficiently were left alone to suffer.
My grandparents had a friendly job related
relationship with FDR's nephew. He was sent to the "then" Humble Co. Refinery (now Exxon Mobile)to see exactly what a refinery did. My g'pa was a supervisor, this Roosevelt was told to just hang around with the man.
And then, the elections happened. My parents were of the age to cast their first vote. Well...FDR! They never voted for a Republican in their lives.
My grandpa said if you had to pay lots of income taxes, it just showed you made a lot of money that year and should be proud.
Where in this world might you hear ANYONE sitting in a bar, bragging that they paid MORE taxes than the others at the table?
At any rate, the thought of sending money offshore, looking for tax loopholes, hiding cash, was nothing to be proud of doing. Pride came from working, paying, sharing that wealth.
That was a century ago, more or less.
*sounds like your Dad and mine would have had a good camaraderie!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
; )
Thank you for embracing the New Deal
FDR's approach to changing things in the 1930s was so much better than what is being attempted now in the 2020's. Corporate, centrist Democrats are so out of touch that it's unreal to anyone who lives in reality.
"The enemy is anybody who is going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on." Yossarian
The suffering, it makes me cry. All it would take would be to
bring the wars to an end; create our infra structure; free public transit in urban areas; it's shocking how little it would be compared to what we are doing.
Shame on the elites; shame on the oligarchs; shame on the politicians; shame on those of us who won't look and learn.
The rest of us can use the words, what little money we have, and try to march, help those like Ms Hutchison. She is a hero in the best sense of the word.
I'm not going to criticize Connelly because he spoke truth there. Unless he voted against AOC's bill.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
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