NYT: "Welfare as we knew it" more children go hungry...

[maryf]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/opinion/26fri3.html?_r=1&th&emc

Quote from editorial: “It’s important that the most hungry, poor and direly troubled Americans not be denied a proper place in line with the financial moguls, auto executives and others pleading for taxpayer help.”

[ikojo]

1. In a country with billions to hand over

to bank executives (who should have financed their own bailout what with the bonuses they've received over the years) for children or anyone to go hungry is a shame.

Of course when THEIR families go to apply for assistance THEY will have to lay their whole lives bare for some bureaucrat to comb over and determine their worthiness for aid. Of course neither bank executives nor billionaire sports team owners are forced to lay their lives bare when THEY receive a handout in the form of a bailout (bankers) or tax money to build new playgrounds for millionaire athletes (sports teams owners).

Having experienced hunger as a kid and as an adult (it's almost impossible to get any kind of assistance when one is single with no kids) I know the pain these people feel. I also know the intense anger it creates, particularly when watching the news and seeing all of the handouts to the rich and well heeled.

[maryf]

2. Absolutely, ikojo!

You truly point out the unfairness of the entire system; the haves are never questioned, the have nots are forced to go through an inquisition. No wonder so many poor opt out of the system in one way or another! Thanks for a most mindful and heartful post!:applause:

[wellstone dem]

3. That is so true!!

If we compare the verification and paperwork needed to apply for food stamps or cash assistance or child care assistance and that which has been required of the bank executives, or even the rest of us who file for income tax refunds, it is astonishing. We spend millions if not more verifying the income and assets of people who receive $90 or $100 in food stamps, and we can't even require the financial institutions to reveal how they spent their TARP.

[bobbolink]

11. WOW-- EXCELLENT comparison!

You have hit the target.... you need to be in Congress!

:applause: :patriot: :applause:

[Stellabella]

21. It's more than a shame, it's a sin.

I'm sick to death of the uber-rich crushing this country under their well-shod feet. It's time for a revolution. The money is there - we just need to take it back. Nobody needs $10 million or $200 million a year.

The best times in this country were times of high taxation. The 1950s, which only white people think was wonderful, was a time of 90% tax rates on the wealthiest Americans. And nobody whined about it.

[maryf]

22. Thank you Stellabella!

I was just discussing with another person that the only tax that makes sense is a progressive income tax, property tax and sales tax unfairly burden the lower incomes, Hey if ya make a 10 million a day, is 1 million so bad? (at 90% taxed) I couldn't spend it.

[acmavm]

4. Since the first caveman figured out that if he picked up that piece of tree

limb and whacked his neighbor in the head out of greed and the need to bully, humanity has been dealing with those who have a proclivity to prey on others, especially the weakest amongst them. We now have a name for it, it is called 'the predator class'. They see themselves as special, as more deserving, and being a class of 'elites' who, by virtue of their family connections, bank accounts, and their possessions are the only deserving members of society with the rest of us having been put here to serve and obey 'our betters'. They are basically useless appendages to the body of society. They do no actual work, they make demands from the rest of us. They start wars but 'their kind' don't do the fighting, they just benefit. They buy up companies, loot the assets, and then close them down (after getting a BIG tax break) and put the employess out of work. They gobble up the financial corporations and then use them to commit fraud (as in who did all the financial finagling on 911? Who's scheme was it to sell bad debt and gamble on bad mortgages? Who put our country in the financial septic tank?) The same lying sticky fingered cowardly thugs who bush** called his 'constituency'.

They plan to keep it this way. That's why we now have Marines ready, willing, able and (most importantly) assigned to 'peace keeping' duty in this country. That's why the military has designed weaponry that can fry our asses from a block away.





This is no different.

[maryf]

5. Our strength is in our numbers,

If we keep spreading this message you so clearly relayed, we'll be 300 million to their 3 million; we need to be the press, our words become the front line weapons...Thanks so much!

[acmavm]

7. And you've hit the nail right square on it's head! WE need to be the media.

NOt the professional liars and those in the pockets of the people that are our country's worst enemies. Make no mistake, they ARE our enemies, they ARE responsible for taking all the good out of our country and replacing it with self-serving ugliness and diversions that benefit themselves and split US apart. The predators are geniuses at divide and conqueor. They play on our prejudices and shortcomings, they use our poverty and need, all to their advantage.

We need to teach our young. You know, I've always felt that the dumbing down in our schools had more to it than meets the eye. It was a perfect way to create a class of slave labor and a way to provide millions of out-of-word lower class citizens who have no alternative but to join the military, and keeping them stupid so that they can't fight back. So that they don't see the injustice and turn on those who set up this system.

Put Sinclair and Zola back in the classrooms. Put in Terkel too. We need to start reinforcing the need for the spirit of community, of fighting for justice, of motivating our citizens so that they feel the need (and the understand that it is their duty) to demand that the least of us are treated as equal citizens along with the shit stains in the House and Senate who have come to think of themselves as some elite aristocracy as existed during the Roman Empire. We need to remind them that we are THEIR bosses, they work for US. We need them to open the storehouses and the granaries and give what the US hordes as 'surplus' or sends overseas to the hungry in our own country too. We need to ensure that if we have women and children who are homeless that they are not doing their jobs. Hell, maybe we should initiate a policy of paycuts for our 'representatives'. A citizen's review panel (or panels, one for each state).

It is time we got smart, found our courage, and fought back. Electing Obama is not the end of the battle. Just the start.

[maryf]

8. "we should initiate a policy of paycuts for our 'representatives'"

I like that! Another thing as "the press" that we need to do is remind the people that "representatives" are just that! They were elected to represent our needs and desires, not to decide for us what we need, but to listen to us and legislate accordingly. They can't listen to us if we don't speak! We all need to start voicing our demands for ourselves and for the disenfranchised who have been silenced...

Bullseye again here! "You know, I've always felt that the dumbing down in our schools had more to it than meets the eye. It was a perfect way to create a class of slave labor and a way to provide millions of out-of-word lower class citizens who have no alternative but to join the military, and keeping them stupid so that they can't fight back. So that they don't see the injustice and turn on those who set up this system." Thats what NCLB was all about in a nutshell! Not only to create slave labor, but even to drug the dissidents, those who speak out, or are "different". There is a codicil that says the schools can demand students be drugged if found to be ADHD, bi-polar, etc., and who's decision is this based on. Teachers as well!! I've not seen enforcement yet...How far from the OP can I get, lol, but watch out for mandated vaccinations too, for students and staff...
Regarding education, the only students learning critical thinking skills to any degree are the elite, and so they can consider further ways to oppress, IMO.

[bobbolink]

12. "We need to teach our young. " I hope you saw the homeless school study guides

that MaryF posted a while back... TREMENDOUS resources!

From your keyboard to the monitor of the goddess! :hi:

[midnight]

6. Welfare to work.... Maybe a policy to employ for the bankers.

It’s important that the most hungry, poor and direly troubled Americans not be denied a proper place in line with the financial moguls, auto executives and others pleading for taxpayer help. Most immediately, a temporary increase in food-stamp benefits is needed. It fits logically in the next stimulus package, for each dollar spent on food stamps generates $1.84 in economic activity.

[bobbolink]

13. "for each dollar spent on food stamps generates $1.84 in economic activity. "

Wonderful quotation... can you find the source for that??

Thanks! :hi:

[maryf]

15. Don't blush, Bobbie!!!

Its in the article, Sometimes out of context makes me miss things too!! :pals:

[bobbolink]

17. I'm ending the year as I began it... feeling foolish.

Some things never change. :rofl:

Thanks! :loveya:

Would you consider posting this at GD? I think it deserves wider readership!

[maryf]

18. Never a fool!!!

Just too much goin' on to keep track of every line! I'll think about cross-posting it maybe :loveya:

[classysassy]

9. Justice

everyone of us need to write or email our congress critters and remind them,they will be asking for our votes in two years,either they do the right thing or we will send them home.

[bobbolink]

14. Please help us support the action that you are recommending!

It's sooo very important!

Thanks! :applause:

[JeffR]

10. The fatcats use threats and innuendo to press their case

"If we don't get help, thousands will lose their jobs!"

"If we don't get help, out failure will pull down the entire economy!"

It's the newest variation on an extortion racket they've all been playing for years. It used to be:

"If you don't lower our tax burden, we'll have to offshore our operations!"

And politicians and citizens alike have been falling for this for a long time, with the eager assistance of the media, most of which is owned by... big fat corporations. It boggles the mind that so few people seem to be able to connect the dots, when the dots are so big and so obvious they almost connect themselves.

[maryf]

16. Hear, hear!

Right on the money, Jeff R.!

[Cronopio]

19. "If you don't lower our tax burden, we'll have to offshore our operations!"

It's not a real threat - let them.

1. They're doing it anyway, even with the tax breaks.
2. Forcing corporations to choose which side of the fence to play on - i.e., making them declare their taxable revenues in the same country they declare their losses/tax writeoffs - is a net gain either way for the U.S., tax revenue-wise. Either they pay their share of the taxes or relinquish their tax writeoffs.
3. If they want to relocate to a capitalist dictatorship like China, it's their funeral. If their company is based in China, the Party effectively owns their company.

[maryf]

20. But it hurts the workers...nt