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The Shiftless and Lazy get organized

by: StraffordDem

Wed Jul 28, 2010 at 14:46:09 PM EDT
I found myself in a sour mood this morning by news of Chris Dodd trying to cut off Elizabeth Warren at the knees.  I've since been somewhat buoyed by reading this article in the Washington Independent.  The Republicans have gone out of their way to refer  to the unemployed as lazy and shiftless, have said that they are chronically unemployed and have compared them to stray animals.   Well, many unemployed people are fighting back - they're organizing, and according to Annie Lowry, it might make a big difference:


There are more than 30 million people left without work at some point during the course of the recession; 14.6 million are currently unemployed. As many as 4 million people have exhausted the maximum weeks of federal and state unemployment benefits. In each case, Jordan is among these millions, and for an uncountable number of people like him, the experience with income insecurity has led to a political awakening.

Among the biggest sites in the unemployment netroots is LayoffList, managed by Michael Thornton, a native of Rochester, N.Y.  Thornton stared LayoffList in 2008; five months ago, he began writing articles and posting legislators' information. He now receives hundreds of emails and has logged more than a million hits. Thornton is finding that, rather than losing interest in politics since the end of the fight for extended benefits, the unemployed are "energized and motivated" and have started looking forward to the fall.

"Even Republicans say they aren't voting Republican anymore," the soft-spoken former technical writer says. "You have millions of unemployed people out there. If even half of them voted, they could swing a nationwide election."

While extending tax cuts for the wealthy and repealing the estate tax requires no offsets, any and all Federal help to those suffering from the Great Recession is held hostage to the deficit.  Maybe people are paying attention despite the CW from MSM.  
StraffordDem :: The Shiftless and Lazy get organized
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The Shiftless and Lazy get organized | 4 comments
NBC's Dateline this past Sunday (0.00 / 0)
Ann Curry devoted an hour to the plight of the unemployed in Ohio.  Here's a slice of her interview with Gov. Strickland (emphasis added):

On the other hand, he says, there is a lack of political will to help the poor, and he blames what he describes as a radical change in America's attitude over the last 25 years.

GOVERNOR TED STRICKLAND: It became stylish to be selfish. It's almost acceptable to be prejudiced against poor people.

ANN CURRY: Prejudiced?

GOVERNOR TED STRICKLAND: Prejudiced. In some ways, we've lost our way in terms of our moral compass.

How true.

It's a round, round world - Stan Freberg


Rand disciples (0.00 / 0)
have really taken hold in the US - beginning with Reagan, the Fed under Greenspan, and the neocons and Tea Baggers today.  These people fight any and all attempts to regulate markets or business activities, which explains how Don Blakenship, CEO of Massey Energy, can stand in front of the National Press Club and tell government to get off his back.

There is a prevailing attitude among this subset that you succeed through individual effort, persistence, and initiative combined with unregulated markets.  What most of these people fail to realize is that it is rare to succeed alone.  Our government was set up to encourage collaboration.  Old fashioned barn raisings represented a form of collectivism that helped define the generous spirit of American citizens - a spirit that is increasingly more difficult to replicate.  Ask any non-profit or school about volunteer numbers (heard from a friend today that Barnstead canceled Old Home Day because of lack of vols.)

I'm self-employed, so I pay into the unemployment system, but do not qualify for any of the benefits.  But my kids do.  And my neighbors.  And many other good people who have been dealt a bad hand by the economy and an inadequate Federal response (maybe we got what we could, but it wasn't enough.)  

At the end of the day, the people who idolize Rand would have more credibility with me if they had solutions.  But they don't.  Believing that unemployment insurance keeps people from taking jobs that pay less than what they were making at their former job says more about the holder of that belief than the unemployed.

 

"Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world." A. Einstein

[ Parent ]
NH small towns could not run without volunteers (0.00 / 0)
I should know, a lot of my effort here in Northwood has gone to "community organizing," getting people to serve on town boards and committees, making them feel worthwhile while unfortunately some of their neighbors do nothing but criticize.  Of course, the critics wouldn't step forward to do the unpaid or underpaid work that keeps a town operating and providing what services it can with the money it can raise through property taxes, which, by the way, make up 60% of the taxes collected by all state, town and county entities.  
[ Parent ]
"Every man for himself" is the ethic of the predator and the (0.00 / 0)
parasite.  

Perhaps individualism is just a consequence of the fact that some people suffer from a situational awareness deficit.  SAD.

The Shiftless and Lazy get organized | 4 comments

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