As I was reading the blog I stumbled across, I couldn't help but to be shocked. I could not believe the way someone seemed to be so heartless, so hateful, and make so many generalizations and stereotypes towards the poor. I was especially shocked when he said that most poor people were stupid and lack moral character.
Yes, it's true that many are poor because they were lazy and or ignorant. It is also true that some are low in moral character. For many, however, the story is different. Some people survived devastating situations in which they lost everything they owned, such as a hurricane, earthquake, or fire. There are others who were born into poverty. Generational poverty is hard to erase. If your mother is poor, your father is poor, and their parents were poor, it is very difficult to break the mold. If an individual does not have the drive, opportunity, or insight then the cycle will continue, and poverty will continue to be their reality.
These are Bill Cosby's very words about the poor black population. He says they are "detrimentally promiscuous, disinclined to education, unappreciative of good speech, determined to saddle their kids with weird names, and bent on blaming the white man for all their ills." This is sad because he is putting all poor black people into this description. Some poor black may have shunned education, but there are some who are educated but have endured obstacles that have stopped them from reaching their full potential.
When former President George W. Bush and his mother went to the Superdome with Bill Clinton to go visit victims and "show that they care" Barbara said "these people were underprivileged anyway, so things are going very well for them." She also mentioned that the thought of many of these people coming to Texas was "scary". I wonder what's scary about these poor, helpless people coming to Texas. Perhaps they don't fit in with the beautiful scenery, or maybe they will make Texas less appealing to tourists. Statements like the ones she made really make me shake my head.
The treatment of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, Bill Cosby's words, the blog I stumbled across, and Barbara Bush's words all show how American society views poor people. When you think about poor people, maybe you use derogatory terms such as hobo or bum, or maybe you use the term "homeless". The term poor people is also used to describe not just people without a home, but also people who do not have enough money to feed their family. Whichever group you think about, it is clear that American society does not value the poor. The poor is looked at as a group of people who are a waste of time and space. America says the poor wouldnt be poor if they were not so lazy to make something of themselves. America says that poor are stupid and ignorant;if they would not have shunned education, they would have had the good life. America says why should we help the poor.. at least right away, we have more important things and people to worry about. Some say it directly while others make you read between the lines.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
This is a blog I happened to stumble across at http://welcometotheasylum.com/articles/poorpeoplesuck.htm
Poor People Suck
It's about time someone called "bullshit" to the notion that poor people are somehow noble. They aren't. I know that there's a misguided romantic notion (especially among leftist dipshits) that the poor are just like the middle class, and that they're only poor because of life's cruel turns and twists. This notion has been crammed down our throats by movies, television, popular music, and leftist news sources for the last 30 plus years. One particularly egregious example was the horrible movie "Dutch" starring Ed O'Neil (Al Bundy in Married with Children) back in the early 90's. Nobody actually saw the movie, so let me just say that at one point O'Neill and this kid are sleeping in a homeless shelter. Predictably, the shelter isn't filled up with junkies, druggies, alcoholics, or other assorted bums (unlike real life homeless shelters). Instead, the homeless are portrayed as good, hard-working people who have somehow been screwed by the system. In fact, the homeless, poor, and destitute are almost universally portrayed as more noble than those of us who have actually made the right choices (in the face of ridicule), applied ourselves, and achieved something in life. In these movies, bums always have some piece of advice which shows their superior wisdom and moral superiority.
In real life, the opposite is of course true. While there are a few exceptions, poor people in America are almost always lazy, stupid, of low moral character, and are in the position they're in because of deliberately making the wrong lifestyle choices (while telling the rest of us not to be "judgmental"). Poor people eschew things such as education, hard work, achievement, and the nuclear family. Poor people hang around other losers, thus condemning their numerous bastard offspring to a life of poverty and misery. And although in America, people can work their way out of poverty and make something out of themselves, they are unfortunately filled with the poisonous philosophy of failure and are given a victim mentality by those around them from the day they are born. They are told by their friends, neighbors, parents ("baby mamas") and others that it's society's fault they're poor, and that the "man" is there to keep them down. As a result, only a small percentage of the poor actually challenge their lot in life and try to change things. Most of them make the same bad choices their parents made and end up with 3 children (from three different sexual partners) by the time they're 20.
Last week, when I heard that Japanese real estate billionaire Genshiro Kawamoto was going to loan out several of his multi-million dollar homes to homeless families (with an emphasis on single mothers), my bullshit alarm went off. The first thing that came to mind was whether or not this alleged do-gooder knew that poor people have low moral values and low regard for other people's property and would likely trash the place. Surprisingly, the next day I saw a report in which Kawamoto specifically said that he didn't care if the families caused damage to his homes. At that point, I felt that a small victory had been achieved. At least there was one person in the world willing to admit to the news media that poor people have a penchant for damaging things due to their low moral values (although that wasn't exactly how he put it, that's what he was admitting). Still, I could not figure out why a billionaire would do such a thing. If he truly wanted to help poor people, he could open schools that taught young people living in poverty how to become successful. He could have provided free lunches or lottery tickets as an incentive to the poor to show up for classes on what behaviors make one successful (hard work, delayed gratification, impulse control, and a respect for education) and which ones condemn you to a life of poverty (drugs, bastards, gambling, baby-daddy hookups, sloth, etc.). From there, he could have easily weeded out the losers from the serious people and funded college scholarships for them (combined with lessons on how to dress, speak, and act in order to be successful). If I ever became a billionaire, that is exactly what I would do.
But since Kawamoto did none of this, I was extremely skeptical as to his motives in lending out his homes to be trashed. Surely a man as successful as he is KNOWS what causes poverty and how to help people get out of it. This week, I learned the REAL reason for his actions. According to neighbors and former tenants, Mr. Kawamoto isn't the kind-hearted George Bailey he's making himself out to be. In fact, according to his neighbors, it seems that his real motivation is to get poor families to move into wealthy neighborhoods, trash their houses, let the yards go to shit, increase crime, and ultimately LOWER THE PROPERTY VALUES IN THE AREA SO THAT HE CAN BUY UP HIS NEIGHBORS' HOUSES AT A BARGAIN PRICE (then sell them at a handsome profit after kicking the poor people out of his homes).
Yes, it appears that Mr. Kawamoto has a history of some not-so-benevolent actions towards others. In the past, he has given tenants at his Los Angeles properties a mere 30 days notice to get the fuck out, because he wanted to sell the property. And although I have no problem with what Mr. Kawamoto does with his own property, it is extremely disingenuous for him to be portrayed as Mother Fucking Theresa for doing something that on the service seems odd to begin with (and in reality is extremely devious).
I won't bother to go into detail about the single moms who will be moving into Mr. Kawamoto's houses. Their stories are about what you would expect (one with five kids, one with several from different men, etc.). All of this just goes to prove my point about the poor. It is their lifestyle (and their unfortunate mentality that America won't let them succeed) that keeps them poor and condemns their children. And that is perhaps the most morally reprehensible thing a poor person can do: breed.
Finally, when confronted with claims from (white) people living in the multi-million dollar neighborhoods that will be negatively impacted by his scheme, Mr. Kawamoto replied, "The people who don't want to live near Hawaiians should move."
Yeah, Mr. Kawamoto... You'd like that, wouldn't you
It's about time someone called "bullshit" to the notion that poor people are somehow noble. They aren't. I know that there's a misguided romantic notion (especially among leftist dipshits) that the poor are just like the middle class, and that they're only poor because of life's cruel turns and twists. This notion has been crammed down our throats by movies, television, popular music, and leftist news sources for the last 30 plus years. One particularly egregious example was the horrible movie "Dutch" starring Ed O'Neil (Al Bundy in Married with Children) back in the early 90's. Nobody actually saw the movie, so let me just say that at one point O'Neill and this kid are sleeping in a homeless shelter. Predictably, the shelter isn't filled up with junkies, druggies, alcoholics, or other assorted bums (unlike real life homeless shelters). Instead, the homeless are portrayed as good, hard-working people who have somehow been screwed by the system. In fact, the homeless, poor, and destitute are almost universally portrayed as more noble than those of us who have actually made the right choices (in the face of ridicule), applied ourselves, and achieved something in life. In these movies, bums always have some piece of advice which shows their superior wisdom and moral superiority.
In real life, the opposite is of course true. While there are a few exceptions, poor people in America are almost always lazy, stupid, of low moral character, and are in the position they're in because of deliberately making the wrong lifestyle choices (while telling the rest of us not to be "judgmental"). Poor people eschew things such as education, hard work, achievement, and the nuclear family. Poor people hang around other losers, thus condemning their numerous bastard offspring to a life of poverty and misery. And although in America, people can work their way out of poverty and make something out of themselves, they are unfortunately filled with the poisonous philosophy of failure and are given a victim mentality by those around them from the day they are born. They are told by their friends, neighbors, parents ("baby mamas") and others that it's society's fault they're poor, and that the "man" is there to keep them down. As a result, only a small percentage of the poor actually challenge their lot in life and try to change things. Most of them make the same bad choices their parents made and end up with 3 children (from three different sexual partners) by the time they're 20.
Last week, when I heard that Japanese real estate billionaire Genshiro Kawamoto was going to loan out several of his multi-million dollar homes to homeless families (with an emphasis on single mothers), my bullshit alarm went off. The first thing that came to mind was whether or not this alleged do-gooder knew that poor people have low moral values and low regard for other people's property and would likely trash the place. Surprisingly, the next day I saw a report in which Kawamoto specifically said that he didn't care if the families caused damage to his homes. At that point, I felt that a small victory had been achieved. At least there was one person in the world willing to admit to the news media that poor people have a penchant for damaging things due to their low moral values (although that wasn't exactly how he put it, that's what he was admitting). Still, I could not figure out why a billionaire would do such a thing. If he truly wanted to help poor people, he could open schools that taught young people living in poverty how to become successful. He could have provided free lunches or lottery tickets as an incentive to the poor to show up for classes on what behaviors make one successful (hard work, delayed gratification, impulse control, and a respect for education) and which ones condemn you to a life of poverty (drugs, bastards, gambling, baby-daddy hookups, sloth, etc.). From there, he could have easily weeded out the losers from the serious people and funded college scholarships for them (combined with lessons on how to dress, speak, and act in order to be successful). If I ever became a billionaire, that is exactly what I would do.
But since Kawamoto did none of this, I was extremely skeptical as to his motives in lending out his homes to be trashed. Surely a man as successful as he is KNOWS what causes poverty and how to help people get out of it. This week, I learned the REAL reason for his actions. According to neighbors and former tenants, Mr. Kawamoto isn't the kind-hearted George Bailey he's making himself out to be. In fact, according to his neighbors, it seems that his real motivation is to get poor families to move into wealthy neighborhoods, trash their houses, let the yards go to shit, increase crime, and ultimately LOWER THE PROPERTY VALUES IN THE AREA SO THAT HE CAN BUY UP HIS NEIGHBORS' HOUSES AT A BARGAIN PRICE (then sell them at a handsome profit after kicking the poor people out of his homes).
Yes, it appears that Mr. Kawamoto has a history of some not-so-benevolent actions towards others. In the past, he has given tenants at his Los Angeles properties a mere 30 days notice to get the fuck out, because he wanted to sell the property. And although I have no problem with what Mr. Kawamoto does with his own property, it is extremely disingenuous for him to be portrayed as Mother Fucking Theresa for doing something that on the service seems odd to begin with (and in reality is extremely devious).
I won't bother to go into detail about the single moms who will be moving into Mr. Kawamoto's houses. Their stories are about what you would expect (one with five kids, one with several from different men, etc.). All of this just goes to prove my point about the poor. It is their lifestyle (and their unfortunate mentality that America won't let them succeed) that keeps them poor and condemns their children. And that is perhaps the most morally reprehensible thing a poor person can do: breed.
Finally, when confronted with claims from (white) people living in the multi-million dollar neighborhoods that will be negatively impacted by his scheme, Mr. Kawamoto replied, "The people who don't want to live near Hawaiians should move."
Yeah, Mr. Kawamoto... You'd like that, wouldn't you
Monday, April 27, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Hurricane Katrina: a disaster waiting to happen
We all know about Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, and the devastation and destruction that came along with it. Somewhere near 1,800 people died and thousands were injured physically as well as mentally. What some people don't know is that Hurricane Katrina didn't hit New Orleans, it actually just passed by. The reason the destruction was so great is because the levees that were supposed to protect by preventing flooding broke. The sad thing is, the levees were never finished in the first place. Essential pieces that were needed to complete and secure the levees were never put in place.
It is a common misconception that all the people who were in New Orleans and felt the effects of Katrina have themselves to blame. People think this because they decided to stay even though they were warned of the storm and were told to leave. Although some people did choose to stay because they underestimated the power of the storm, many stayed because they had no other choice. If the inhabitants did not have a car or the money to leave town (poor and underprivileged), the warnings were useless. All the people in this situation could do was find higher ground and pray that they would be okay.
An issue the media caused in its reports of Hurricane Katrina was making it appear that only black people were the victims. Latino, Filipino, Vietnamese, Native American, and white people alike were hit hard by the storm. Therefore, it isn't so much a race issue as to the United States slow response, (as it is commonly portrayed) but it is largely a class issue. Remember, the people in affected areas did not have the money to leave the area and potentially save their lives.
It is argued that if this Hurricane would have happened in an upper class society, The United States government would have been on the scene quickly to lend a helping hand. People use the example of the Wildfires that occurred in California last year. The population in affected areas were largely middle and upper class citizens. Response time was quick and the situation will not go down in history as a national disaster.
A day before Katrina happened, former president George W. Bush went to a meeting with meteorologists from the National Weather Service who warned him of the danger the city would be in if a serious enough hurricane hit. Bush listened thoughtfully to their words, but did not act upon them. So, it's not like Bush could use the excuse of not knowing, because he knew full and well what would happen to these people if something like this was to happen. After the catastrophe happened, Bush lied on national television, saying that nobody could have predicted it.
It's such a pity and a shame that the government took five whole days for it to take action and help out people in its own country. It's a shame in America, something like this was happening. When the evacuees were taken to the Superdome, the living conditions were horrendous. There was no running water, no food, there was no where to clean yourself or use the restroom. There were thousands of people all crammed living in proximity. Temperatures sored and the smell of decaying corpses and human waste filled the air. People died from contamination and other factors due to poor conditions.
America is supposedly one of the world's richest nations, if not the richest. America does what it wants and what it see fits to do with its money. America spends billions of dollars sending people into space. America spends billions of dollars fighting the war in Iraq. America could have very easily stepped in and been down there the next day giving out food and water, and medical attention. Instead, the United States government abandoned its duties while other countries came the rescue. Israel, Canada, and Mexico are among the nations that helped the United States when they needed it most. Since the United States has a foreign aid program dedicated to helping out foreign countries in need, there should have been no problem getting down to affected areas to give aid to people in their own country.
We see how much destruction and damage happened; 80% of the city was under water. But imagine if Hurricane Katrina actually hit the region..... It is very well possible that none of these victims would have survived. The thing that is most saddening is that to this very day, the levees still aren't complete. So that means that the people who are currently living there are worse off than the people who were there four years ago since the unfinished levees are now broken. You would think that after a tragedy such as this, people would have learned and it would have became top priority to fix the levees, but obviously that is too much to ask.
Watch how Bush was warned about Hurricane Katrina: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEpdx0uPDxg
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