Media Spin and the Hidden Poverty in America

masadi,

.... you didn not answer my question in 34 about the chronically poor .... and by the way, have you ever held a real job other than doing ``social research`` (whatever the heck that is ) .... i mean a job that actually adds to the gnp that can then be distributed to the ``poor`` that you seem to care about so much ........... if you have ever hard one you will realize that it is not that hard to get ahead in this country ......... in 1978 a farmer paid me 500 dollars for helping him put up a fence in four days - it blew my mind !........ 500 dollars for digging post holes ! ....... today any idiot (documented or undocumented) can make a 100 a day mowing yards or cleaning houses ........ you should try it - it might give you an appreciation for real work instead of whining about the evil rich .........

........ tomorrow i will go out and look for the poor again ......... maybe this time i will go up to flint and stop by at the union hall to shoot pool with the guys who have been getting paid 80000 a year for the last year to do nothing (they call them job banks in this part of the country )

Re: #28 by Pardesi

Pardesi <<< Southern Bubbas, working for Japanese manufacturers, get half of the hourly rates and no union protection, and they vote republican. The spoiled northerns vote democrat, who claim to protect “working class” people. >>>

Both democrats and republicans try to outdo each other to keep the current system going, so your point is lost. Manufacturers are moving to the south to take advantage of no union protection, and in the north unions represent very few as it is. Over all less than 14% of US work force is protected by unions.

Pardesi <<< What some of the folks do not realize is that capitalism is an on going refresh process, where old and inefficient processes have to die and new more efficient ones replace it. There is nothing wrong with 10% or so relatively poor people. Food stamps and Medicaid protect these people from starving while they are working on their renewal strategy. However, if they are morally corrupt to waste their food stamp dollars on beer and potato chips, they do deserve to starve. >>>

It is an ongoing system of corruption and concentration and waste where the rich get richer and the poor, poorer. There is everything wrong when the official poverty figures place over 37 million (and the unofficial almost double that) in a country of extreme wealth. Most of the poor that go without adequate housing or food, work and most are single women bringing up children. The rates of substance abuse among them are not different to those among populations of the non-poor and the programs you talk about and vastly inadequate in covering their needs. There is further no efficiency in capitalism. If the lower price produce you get today is recalculated figuring in the ``cost`` both human and material of all the competitors who were ``killed`` along the way for this low cost to emerge, it would figure out to be much higher than that in a system managed for production based upon human need.

Pardesi <<< While one can always find faults with any system, a better economic model has not been worked out yet. Soviet model has failed and so has Taliban. Time will tell whether Iranian model can build a more equitable, open and productive system when they run out of their oil. >>>

Like I said before, any system would be better than this BS that has resulted in the top 1% controlling more wealth than the rest of the 99% combined and where people, the vast majority live a couple of paychecks away from being homeless, most having zero or negative net worth. My points are well made, you points are based on the official (illiterate) mythology of the US mass media.

#31 arjun writes <<< I`ve volunteered at food banks and I can tell you for a fact that people don`t go hungry if they know where to get the food.. >>>

Oh so now the hungry like being hungry! One of the most absurd, idiotic, uneducated and inhumane comments thus far (besides the illiterate comments by hamidm, those are priceless). No one is disputing that there is more than enough food in the US to feed all its poor, enough is wasted to feed all the hungry people three meals a day, the point that is lost on this damn fool is that the system where extreme wealth and poverty coexists side by side is set up in a way that ensures that these poor do not get the services that are their right as human beings. Take their slavish dependence on their jobs and living pay check to pay check away and the vast majority of Americans (the so called free people) will fall through the cracks to add to the already huge numbers that don`t have access to food.

#26 hamzaad, you sob, if you cannot form a decent argument to counter the article, keep you horse Sh** posts away from this thread. The only ``nonsense`` is what you typed in that pathetically retarded post.

Here we have social research that uncovers problems with this system and solutions, public solutions are quite easy but will never be attempted because it would take away from the monopoly of power that the elite enjoy and what kind of responses do we see by many idiots on here, one damn fool gives examples of his plumber and roofer and how they have made it big, the other talks about an encounter with a prostitute, and tahmed sahib ignores all the evidence in the article and tells us to check poverty in Africa! Stupendous, I am amazed. Little wonder we see unchecked misery in our parts of the world, due to the default and flow with the drift attitude of damn fools like these (tahmed included).

masadi mian,


...... don`t you think pardesi is right when he says :``While one can always find faults with any system, a better economic model has not been worked out yet` ?

....... and have you ever considered the possibility that 10% of the population will always be ``poor`` if we assume that any population`s ability to ``become rich`` follows some sort of a normal distribution ? .......... how many people can run a 4 minute mile ?...... not too many, but most of the under thirty crowd should be able to run it in under seven minutes ..... however, we all know that there will always be that 10% that will find it hard to waddle in under 10 minutes ........ there will always be waddlers and slackers and those who feel they are entitled to a good life without having to work for it like the rest of us ................

Re: # 27

Wow.........the Jehadi kid goes to the enemy land............orders for a whore and enacts his fantasy of raping after conquering Amrika...........

#27 by zeemax on April 2, 2006 1:25pm PT

`These are those people who wait for it to knock on their doors and lay it in their laps rather than going after it.`

Then there are these, who overstate what the `poor/unsuccessful` might be feeling! Nobody sits around, `waiting for opportunity`. They are just happy/lazy with their circumstances. There is a whole community/industry which serves the blue-collar citizen of this country. These people slide in and out of poverty over a course of several generations, driving trucks, voting racists, consuming alcohol and watching WWF. The relevant question is why should a islamist/foreigner like masadi give a squat about these people. The answer is, he doesn`t. He is a twit who thinks he found the answer in a medieval book and can`t wait to badmouth everything else that he deems against that book.

The concern for poor is just a facade. He is not that stupid to be caring about these kaafir heathens.

#18 by kaptain on April 1, 2006 11:58pm PT

check out the double chin on the lady with the ``we want food`` sign..

I`ve volunteered at food banks and I can tell you for a fact that people don`t go hungry if they know where to get the food..

swing by a food bank in fairafax county during thanksgiving..the turkey they serve is better than what they serve at silver diner...

#27 by zeemax on April 2, 2006 1:25pm PT


Hamidm is right. America is a land of opportunity. But only for those who can grasp it


comrade masadi confuses equality of opportunity with fairness of outcome..

he needs to tell us why the saudi princes have luxurious yatchs while saudi per capita income has fallen...

Aunt K and her husband S moved over to America abotu 3 years ago with their 2 teenage kids. They grew up and lived in the village in Punjab all their life. The village Aunt K grew up in became part of Ludhiana and her parents land was sold by the square foot...unfortunately it happened when she was college age...meaning the money wa splnety and no one felt the eed tosend her to college. She learned to say yes , not, and thank you by 10th grade along with how to sign her name in abc.

Uncle S was even more interesting creature...he is famous for sleeping every afternoon for 3/4 hours day for whole of his life...that was during his high school classes, exams and later on his work in the farm. Hardest work he ever did was drive the tractor to plough the fields about one month in a year....as things happened Aunt K and Uncle S were made for each other...both got ultra lazy by the time tey reach 40`s...when they came to california at the age of 45- 50 years, they were hopeless....they had no skills, no knowledge of language and on uncle S`s part no ambitions either...he was happy for first 3 months eating his paranthas and sleeping all day long...he loved air conditioning.

All relatives who were already settled here, thought there is no way these two can settle here. home prices were rising and these two slobs have never really worked in life. by Aunt K was ambitious inspite of her middle age, over weight and lazy outlook...she decided she wants her own house like her sisters some day...she started working a paper factory folding and packing paper......it was hard work for her....8 hours and she will be on bed for next 12....after few weeks she pushed uncle S to do soemthing too...it was suggested only thing he knows is driving tractor....so may eb he shoudl upgrade his skills and learn how to drive truck.......his driving license is another story...he never gave a test written or otherwise but some how got one....some generous brother gave him the job.....soon he was driving truck without reading the boards on the highways...he drove mostly by his reference to the landscape....rather than road signs....but it worked....soon both started workign 12 horus a day...few months alter it was 12 hours, 7 days......they got little slimmer and healthier but complained continuously of the tough life of america while recounting stories of their aishfull life in India.

few months ago I heard they bought a house...it was $420K....two high schoolers, lazy bumbs looks well settled after 3 years....they like their home....girl is married, boy is finally learning to drive the truck along with dad....aunt K thinks day her son starts driving truck, she might retire from the paper factory...that is more than hamidm or anyone of us could expect for ourselves...now uncle S is very happy about america...he does not want to go back to Punjab....he says it is peaceful and trouble free here...koi kutt khana nai ...apna kamm karo te araam karo. he says it is hardwork but it is worth it.

is their any moral of this story?...dunno...I was not thinking about any moral while writing it...yeah the same way masadi was not thinking about quran while writing this article.;-)

#23 Hamidm

Excellent post.

Southern Bubbas, working for Japanese manufacturers, get half of the hourly rates and no union protection, and they vote republican. The spoiled northerns vote democrat, who claim to protect “working class” people.

What some of the folks do not realize is that capitalism is an on going refresh process, where old and inefficient processes have to die and new more efficient ones replace it. There is nothing wrong with 10% or so relatively poor people. Food stamps and Medicaid protect these people from starving while they are working on their renewal strategy. However, if they are morally corrupt to waste their food stamp dollars on beer and potato chips, they do deserve to starve.

While one can always find faults with any system, a better economic model has not been worked out yet. Soviet model has failed and so has Taliban. Time will tell whether Iranian model can build a more equitable, open and productive system when they run out of their oil.

#4 by hamidm2 Re: # 1

Hamidm is right. America is a land of opportunity. But only for those who can grasp it when it comes. Fair enough. It`s just that a lot of people miss that opportunity altogether. These are those people who wait for it to knock on their doors and lay it in their laps rather than going after it. America is competitive. The ones who can run faster get the prize. Others are left behind. Is that fair? I don`t know. But their system guarantees poor people and rich people.

The diversity of America dawned on me during a six-month sojourn in B`Ham Alabama. Suitably inebriated, I left a message on one of the services that I wanted a tall girl because I liked to do it standing up. I got so many messages that it is unbelievable. Needless to say I checked all of them out. To cut the long story short, one of them was just simply beutiful. Half-Cherokee and half-WASP. Lived in a real run-down neighbourhood. When I went to pick her up her mother shouted at her. I only found out her age when the bar refused her drinks. She had looked older to me because she was ....ahem ... well developed, and she warned me she was a jailbait but I couldn`t care less. As it turned out the next morning, when I gave her twenty bucks for the cab because I was too far gone to drive, she said her step-brother was coming to pick her up but she could use the money anyway for a urine test because she was scared her step-brother had got her pregnant. She AND the step-brother did it all for a urine test.

That is America too.

#13 by masadi on April 1, 2006 9:34pm PT

`There is no Quran mentioned in this article, so whatever conclusions you are drawing are based on your own preconceived stereotypes. The people who benefit from this system, the tiny elite have no motivation or desire to end this suffering by millions, that is why you see a more or less stable poverty rate regardless of economic cycles or the person in power, that was one of the points of this article as well.`

masadi genius,

Thanks for informing kaka that quran/allah and other nonsense was not on your mind when you wrote this article!

However, kaka has been talking about rich people (ha ha!) like hamidm and kaka who do not see significant problems with the current system. Why should such people do anything about the poverty that you described.

On the flip side, do you think kaka and hamidm could be poor people who are too lazy to understand what ails their middle class ways? In that case, why incite fear and insecurity about their cosy ways? What benefit is it of you? Jihad, is it?

The thing is masadi, you have been trained in mouthing inane bakvaas which makes it hard for you to ask simple questions. That might be aother reason you are an islamist..

Re: # 24

mohar

.... wait till bubba moves back to the trailer park when gm files for bankruptcy - you should be able to pick up his 4000 sq ft house for abut 350 ........ i am sure somone will berate you for profiting from bubba`s misery, but don`t worry about it because bubba had a good time while it lasted and as long as they don`t take away his big screen tv and his lazy boy he will be okay - the price of chips and beer is not expected to go up significantly ..........

Re: # 4

May be I should move in next to hamidm`s plumber - Everybody seems to have a big house up there.... in norther VA - they ask you for an arm and a leg for a 2000 sq ft townhouse.....

.............bubba`s life .......

...... bubba lives in macomb county, michigan, the home of the reagen democrats ......... he belongs to the uaw and has worked for generous motors for the past thirty years ........ every day he gets up, has his breakfast of eggs and bacon (somimes he has leftover steak from the outback steakhouse) and sets off to work in his one year old eight cylinder suv (bubba is a republican and doesn`t care about the environment) ................ on the way to work he picks up a newspaper which he is going to read forty seconds out of each minute (he puts a piece of trim on a car and it takes him about 15 seconds to do it - so he has about 45 seconds to rest before the next car comes down the line) .......... six years ago some indian engineer (goddam those indians !) had tried to rebalance the line to make bubba work 50 secs out of a minute (some japanese crap called `takt` time) ........... anyway, bubba was too smart for the chinks and indoos and he had his committee man file a grievance and that was that ....... six years later, he still has time to read the paper, and sometimes he can also finish the crossword puzzel .........mrs bubba thinks he is an intellectual ........ but he comes in every weekend to finish his work and collect time and a half; sometimes he gets double time .............. so he works two - three tops - hours a day and makes about 80K a year plus full health care, dental, vision and a great pension plan ..............

....... his wife works on the line at the chrysler plant across town and she also makes 70K a year ........ they live in a 4000 sq ft colonial with a three car garage and also have a cottage up-north that they use in the summer - sometimes bubba goes up there snowmobiling in the winter with his buddies .........last year one of his friends, billy, had too much to drink and smashed into a pine tree at sixty miles an hour - it was really sad, but the funeral was beautiful ..............bubba also has a 40 thousand dollar motor home, a cottage and a thirty foot searay that he loves to race on the lake ........ bubba loves to hunt and his company, generous motors, shuts down the plant for the deer hunting season ......... he also likes to fish, but they don`t shut down the plant for that so he has to call in sick once in a while when the salmon are running up north .............

....... but bubba has always been considered as part of the poor blue collar working class that is being exploited by the capitalist pigs that run corporate america ....... michael moore even made a movie about him and his ex-boss roger ...................now america hating muslim preachers like maulana masadi and frustrated communists like saminasha are taking up the cudgels on his behalf because, finally after almost thirty years, the gravey train is coming to a halt and generous motors is going broke ......... bubba is sorry that he voted for reagen and bush when the times were good ......... but now the bank might take away his motor home, his cottage, his beloved searay and, god forbid, his two kawasaki snowmobiles ........ bubba is truly sorry and promises to vote for the democrats in the next election .......

Re: # 9

``This gradation of society is not designed by the rapidly disappearing middle class or the poor, it is designed by the elite at the very top, which Mr. ballukhan effortlessly absolves of all crime and why? So that their official mythology of `protecting the American people` by fighting a `war on terror` can be pursued. ``

I have hit the right nerve of Asadi saheb.............He sometimes acts like an apologist for the Islamists despite his Hadith bashing stance against the mullahs............because he started making too many assumptions in reading on what I hold and what I do not............I obviously pointed about the need to turn monolithic categories of `poor` or `Elites` into infinitely stratified layers of relations of power.............I pointed towards the fact that there are layers of power `Elites` within the the category of `poor`..........that is why Asadi`s theories are turning into an attempt at propaganda based upon stereotyping and name calling of the US society.................it is time to deconstruct these polarities of `Elites` versus `Poor` in order to see the disbalances within the relation of power tend to be contextual in a social relations.........I doubt Asadi would understand any of this I am trying to tell him..........

....and Let me repeat again for his benefit- America needs to look carefully and devote more energies on its poor, the discrimination aginst black and other minorities, racism etc. , but it also needs to kick the butt of these theocratic thugs like OBL and his clones who have illusions of theocratic grandeaur ..........to think that middle class does not use cheap labour is a patently false statement because every small enterprise run by the `non elite` middle class entrepreneur is based upon exploitation of the cheap labour of those below them in the ladder................and these enterprises make up almost half of the service sector...

I hope Asadi is also joining issues with the anti arms lobby for all the defence spendings of countries like including those of the likes of Pakistan, Iran and others which spend money for their poor in pursuing the theocratic aims of their government like the ``coming of the mahdi`` or ``making a strong Islamic nation....................