Whining about waiting in line
So John McCain is left to address Phil Gramm’s remarks that we have become a nation of whiners who are merely in a mental recession?
What exactly is a mental recession? Well, let’s do a little comparison of a mental recession with an economic depression.
Below is a photo (courtesy Yahoo!News) in which we see people queued up… waiting.
Now take a look at a photo (courtesy National Park Service) in which we see another group of people queued up… waiting.
The difference?
In the first photo, the people are waiting to buy the latest iPhone (circa 2008), while in the second photo, the people are waiting to be given something to eat (circa 1930s).
First photo = mental recession.
Second photo = economic depression.
First photo = nation of whiners.
Second photo = nation of those eager, but unable, to provide for their families.
[tag]phil gramm, nation of whiners, mental recession, obama, john mccain[/tag]
Filed under: Culture • Democrats • Economics & Taxes • Politics • Republicans • Rusty
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Here’s a news story from 2004, when things were much better for the working poor and homeless than they are now:
Louisville’s shelters have seen more than twice the national average increase in food assistance requests, 32 percent, with a rise of more than 18 percent in the distribution of baby formula. Hospitals are now pointing parents toward food pantries, although donations from last year are down, partly because corporate sponsors have pulled their support. Thirty-seven percent of those requesting assistance are turned away for lack of resources. Families are financially at a loss for food after managing to meet the demands for other monthly expenses.
As for shelter, according to one city official, “There is a waiting list of over 13,000 households for Section 8 housing and limited Shelter Plus Care slots. There are no Public Housing units available,” which accounts for the anomalous 25 percent decrease in Louisville for family housing requests as compared to the national average increase of 68 percent. It is well known in the state that the waiting list is years old; many homeless Kentuckians have been so for longer than a year, even gaining employment while sleeping in shelters.
A third of the people living in Louisville’s shelters are working, with an average hourly wage of $6.30. With this wage, one would need to work 87 hours a week to meet the rent rate for a modest apartment. The disparity is not isolated to the working homeless. Twelve percent of Louisville’s population lives below the poverty line, and one in twenty-four children enrolled in the Jefferson County public school system is homeless…
You reckon those 1 in 24 children are whiners?
How about the single mom trying to work 87 hours a week to come up with rent? What a wuss, Whining about her situation!
Your photo comparison makes for a funny joke and if that’s as far as you’re taking it, good enough. If you’re wanting to make public policy on your joke, though, then that’s not a wise plan, seems to me.
The people know that things are tough and getting tougher, that things need to change.
I think the people also know that McCain is not going to deliver change, since he’s surrounded by those who think we’re in a mental recession.
I’d say this is yet another nail in the coffin of the McCain presidency.
Contrary to the stereotypes of the homeless as mentally ill or drug-addicted men, most homeless in Kentucky are young mothers, elderly women and unaccompanied children. A 10-year-old Louisville boy explained, “We’re not bums. We’re just regular people going through a rough time.”
The situation is expected to worsen in the coming year as the state budget is further skewed toward “growth stimulation” of industry and tax cuts for the super-rich at the expense of basic social insurance.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/dec2004/kent-d24.shtml
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/Story?id=5252472&page=1
Half a million homeless veterans living on the streets in 2006 (and again, things have gotten much worse in the last two years):
http://us.oneworld.net/issues/shelter-housing/-/article/half-a-million-us-veterans-homeless-2006
You reckon those vets are whiners, too?
If this were truly just a goof – a joke – I apologize for responding so seriously. It is a funny comparison.
But I live too close to too many poor and homeless friends, children, neighbors and church members and realize that times are getting tougher for the poorest in the US – and too often that is effecting children – to find much humor in the poverty problems our nation and world are facing.
The policies of the last 50 years have been bad. The policies of the last 25 years have been worse. We need change. I don’t know if Obama will deliver the right sort of change but it’s almost certain that McCain won’t.
Dan,
You seem to be making the typical liberal mistake, when presented with the juxtaposed items as I have done, to immediately jump to presenting the reality of the extreme case for the downtrodden. Certainly the homeless and unemployed exist now and certainly the economy is down. Nothing in my post denies this.
Yet you miss the point of my post, which was to contrast a society which, due to a worldwide economic depression, had to resort to waiting in line for their next meal, with that of a society which has enjoyed standards of peace and prosperity previously unheard of and, consequently, has the luxury of waiting in line for a new iPhone. The poor of the world dream of coming to America where “even the poor are fat”. I’m not saying we don’t have people in desperately dire straits… I’m saying take a trip to the mall and take a look at what people choose to wait in line for to buy.
There were still people living high on the hog in the Depression days, too.
Yes, there are alot of people hurting – my family is struggling with high gas and food prices just like most other families. However, I have to say that I understand Sen. Gramm’s point. I am a legal assistant at a smallish firm. Our pay is above average for the area in which we live, the firm provides fully paid health insurance and pension and profit sharing plans. Recently, my co-worker, who lives on the same street I do in a nice community (we are both purchasing our homes), told me she considers herself to be poor. I was shocked and responded “You can’t mean that”, to which she replied, “Yes, I’m one of the have-nots”. She was dead serious. I went back to my desk and just sat there for a moment, thinking, Lord, if someone in her situation considers herself to be poor, we’re in real trouble.