When Jimmy McMillan for the party of "The Rent Is Too Damn High" appeared on the debate for the New York's Governor's race, people were laughing and make jokes out it. However, you got to give McMillan some credit. He voiced an issue that is one real concern and opinion of what people think. The rent is too high and so are prices on just about everything from gas to food and everything we as consumers buy. Therefore, in reality was what McMillan said really that funny?
For the last eight years we've been hearing about the needs of the "middleclass working folks" but the pleads for the "low income" and the "poor" are silent as if they are people that do not exist. Either your rich or middleclass is what only seems to resonate amongst politicians. In the Senate race the Republican candidate John Raese wants to do away with minimum wages and so do a few other Republican candidates. Paladino wants to take it to an extreme and round up the poor and put them in modern day debt prisoner camps.
Many are quick to tell stories of how they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and worked for meager wages too back in the day. However, we're not back in the day when items were cheaper. Today, products and services are ridiculously high. Senior citizens who have worked hard all their lives are bearing the blunt of it with no cost of living raise. Those making minimum wages are barely able to keep a roof over their head and eat.
Yeah, I remember the back in the day when you could buy a candy bar for three cents, gas was fifteen cents a gallon, and you could buy a steak for a $1.00; an average new house cost $8450.00 and a new car was $1510.00. In the 1940s gas was three cents a gallon. In the 1930s you could buy a stove or washing machine for the same amount it takes to fill your gas tank up these days. Nevertheless, this is 2010 and we're living in the days of pure greed and eliminating minimum wages would be devastating to low-income people.
If times are hard for middleclass folks and they are barely surviving, do politicians ever take into account when making their decisions that is three times harder for those at the poverty level? Yet and still, the GOP folks want to snatch the safety net completely out from under them.
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11 comments:
It's pretty clear to me that a very large segment of our society thrives because a certain population, the poor, can not. IMHO, minimum wage jobs should be what I call "stepping stone" jobs, the jobs you take while you're preparing for a job that pays much more, at least that's what is was for me. Unfortunately, many of these jobs are the best pay many folks can ever expect to receive, and this is just isn't right. We shouldn't accept the idea of a multigenerational, permanently poor group of people because ultimately we're all affected by it on some level.
Jimmy McMillan is right, the rent is too damned high!!!
For whatever reason, despite the fact that so many people in this country identify themselves as good Christian people; the idea of a multigenerational, permanently poor group of people isn't a problem for most people until they find themselves about to become one of those people.
Jimmy McMillan is right, the rent is too damned high!!!
"the idea of a multigenerational, permanently poor group of people isn't a problem for most people until they find themselves about to become one of those people."
Yup, that's true sorta like my dad used to say, "A thief will holler the loudest when someone steals from them, which is another way of saying..."how it feels when the shoe is on the other foot"
"Brother can you spare a dime?"
Republicans won't be satisfied until we're all out on the street, arms extended, hand opened, begging just to survive.
Absolutely true Granny. We've got to look at the corporate control on our society. The voters have let them have their way and they are raping us as a society. They are accumulating all the capital resources by charging inflated prices for consumer goods and ripping off the gov't for services (making war). It's absolutely ridiculous and our politicians are to blame. Hell, if I were a corporate giant I might be tempted to do the same thing. . . no I wouldn't.
Granny-"Nevertheless, this is 2010 and we're living in the days of pure greed and eliminating minimum wages would be devastating to low-income people."
Capitalism breeds and approves of greed. It is about rich and even richer. It is a great system if you are on the rich end of the system. It sucks if you are on the other end.
You see Granny, any economist will tell you that Capitalism rewards the strong, and punishes the weak. That is the nature of capitalism.
Anonymous 7:58:
Nah, rewards the insatiable capitalism punishes the poor is more like it.
LovinLife:
"We shouldn't accept the idea of a multigenerational, permanently poor group of people because ultimately we're all affected by it on some level."
It is some wisdom in what you said because "ultimately we're all affected by it on some level" is the truth.
Reggie:
Amen, the rent is to Damn high and so is everything else in America!
Diapora:
"Republicans won't be satisfied until we're all out on the street, arms extended, hand opened, begging just to survive."
I can picture that with a cup in our hand.
Sagacious:
Yup, we really need to investigate just how much control corporations have over our government.
I read those letters from Ken Lay to Bush while he was governor. They took some of them down, but Ken was actually telling Bush which state laws to pass in their favor.
The Juan Williams saga has surfaced a series of significant issues and observations from a number of concerns and considerations in various Black venues of America. I have no reservations about the nature of Juan's comments from my vantage point as an activist his words were blatant bigotry and troubling given a nation like ours with a tortured legacy of negrophobia of late frequent incidents of islamophobia.
Just as troubling as Juan's words were the remarks of Vivian Schiller NPR's CEO her comments that Juan should consult a psychiatrist were as lethal as the hate speech uttered by Juan Williams. Yet I have yet to observe the Trotter Group or the African -American Online folks challenge, confront and/or publish any commentaries regarding Schiller's venom.
The Trotter Group and the AA Online summit folks both have allowed the Obama white house to used them as conduits in outreach ventures now that Obama's is in a meltdown and the midterm elections are on the calendar YET when Black activists and others are under siege by the character assignations on our mental faculties I have observed nothing but silence and avoidance from the collective clout of the Black media outlets in particular The Trotter Group and the AA Online summit folks.
In the area of civil rights and economic initiatives Black activists have always been on the vanguard and suffered every measure of venom and inhumanity from the majority culture. Our roles have produced as much progress and accomplishments as any sector of the Black community in America.
Again I reiterate why the silence from Black media outlets when whites demonize Black men who dared to have an opinion. When can Black activists expect the Black media to come to our assistance as they did for Obama?????
We hurt to when the hurricane of venom and ridicule rains on us 24/7.
Granny, Thrasher makes some good points. Why won't you respond to him?
Thrasher has said more than enough about Juan Williams on Field's Negro too last a life time and can still recall the two of them going back and forth. I'am just saying.
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