4 Things Politicians Will Never Understand About Poor People

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A article that go against some prejudices...
http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-things-politicians-will-never-understand-about-poor-people/

Good article, maybe I should look at that website more not the first time I've seen something great from there.

no argument from me here. Well, less sure about the drugs part. Do rich people really think we're all drug addicts?

Odd since they are usually the ones doing lines of coke on their yatchs during their prostitutes and champagne parties.

It is classical denial. Instead of realizing that the economic system is malfunctioning they blame the victim and claim that the poor are poor because they are lazy or some such.

I am not in favor of giving the poor Something for Nothing but like everyone else they deserve an even break. It is the interest of all of us to see that they get it.

ruveyn

It is the same in Britain. Politicians think that if you are unemployed then you are automatically lazy, scrounging, workshy etc. What annoys me more is that they say these things at a time when jobs are really scarce and they must know that is the case.

There is also a large majority of poor people in Britain who are working and these people do not get any voice. Politicians think that if someone is working then they are fine. They do not realize that a lot of them cannot afford the rent because of the overpriced property market that politicians help create.

They complain about the unemployed using up all benefits and yet most benefits goes to working people who need help to pay their rent.

For the most part he uses, reason instead of emotionally filled drivel. Save, of course, for the long chains of expletives.

It would be nice to hear reason instead of the emotional drivel I hear these days.

Who doesn't do drugs these days, between all the street drugs, prescription drugs, over the counter drugs and ones they don't think about like caffine or cigarettes and alcohol(I have repeatedly heard people say 'I don't do drugs, I just drink and smoke cigarettes.' or 'I don't do drugs just gotta have my coffee in the morning.' I don't know that there are too many people who can accurately say they aren't using at least one drug, or don't use so much as an aspirin if they get a headache.

Federal policy on drugs is unrealistic and even hypocritical much of the time in my opinion considering the population they are trying to apply it to.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 21 Feb 2013, 3:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Actually most of the benefits go to the politicians and their cronies.

ruveyn

I agree with all of these.

1. Back at the university, the sororities would have "Soup Days" when they would have nothing but cold broth and day-old bread for 24 hours to "learn what it is like to go hungry". The fraternities would have "Skid Row Nights" when they would sleep on the sidewalks in front of their frat houses for one nigh to "learn what it is like to be homeless". Then these people would go back to their communal living spaces and brag about how much they identify with the poor and the homeless.

You have no idea what it is like to be poor and homeless unless you are poor and homeless, and you have no idea how your status will ever change. Those rich kids were fooling only themselves, and no one else; now they're in charge of this country...

2. There are programs to rehabilitate addicts, alcoholics, ex-convicts, prostitutes, schizophrenics, and veterans with PTSD, but there are no programs to help a clean, law-abiding, sane, and able-bodied person out of poverty when he or she has simply had a run of bad luck - the assumption being that if you are poor it is because you are an addict, an alcoholic, an ex-con, a prostitute, schizophrenic, or suffering from PTSD or some other mental/emotional disorder.

3. I met some pretty intelligent folks while I was homeless, and I've met more while volunteering at the shelters. Many poor people even have university degrees, but have not had that one break that makes starting a career possible; and with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from school loans, there is very little chance that they will ever break put of poverty.

4. I know people working 3 jobs who still live in by-the-week hotels

I really like what I am seeing in this thread--a bunch of sensible adults posting as sensible adults, free from the polarizing positions that so often get taken up in here.

It's good to remind ourselves that the extremes that get posted regularly in here are not entirely reflective of the people who write them.

The problem is that logic is only ever applied to the inhereted impoverished and never the inhereted privileged.

thats the double standard with money, if you come from a family with it you are never judged.

She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge
She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College, that's where I caught her eye.
She told me that her Dad was loaded
I said in that case I'll have a rum and coke-cola.
She said fine and in thirty seconds time she said, I want to live like common people
I want to do whatever common people do, I want to sleep with common people
I want to sleep with common people like you.
Well what else could I do - I said I'll see what I can do.
I took her to a supermarket
I don't know why but I had to start it somewhere, so it started there.
I said pretend you've got no money, she just laughed and said oh you're so funny.
I said yeah? Well I can't see anyone else smiling in here.
Are you sure you want to live like common people
You want to see whatever common people see
You want to sleep with common people,
you want to sleep with common people like me.
But she didn't understand, she just smiled and held my hand.
Rent a flat above a shop, cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool, pretend you never went to school.
But still you'll never get it right
'cos when you're laid in bed at night watching roaches climb the wall
If you call your Dad he could stop it all.
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do what common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view, and dance and drink and screw
Because there's nothing else to do.
Sing along with the common people, sing along and it might just get you thru'
Laugh along with the common people
Laugh along even though they're laughing at you and the stupid things that you do.
Because you think that poor is cool.
I want to live with common people, I want to live with common people

Not all poor people are unemployed but a lot are, not all poor people are drug addicts but some are(which can be an effect or the cause), not all poor people abuse the system but some do, and then there is the last one about not being able to have real "sympathy" for the poor unless you've been poor yourself and the implication of that being? How do they quantify what "true sympathy" is? Having lived most of my life in a broken down rust belt inner city, I've seen "the poor" as individuals not some monolithic group you can make blanket statements about, some are good some are bad and this is true for "the rich" or "the middle class" or whoever. This is a mistake that each side seems to make. This isn't a country were you 100% rise and fall on your own merits, I wish it was.

Thomas, for once I think we're in complete agreement.

(Scary, huh?)

No matter how hard they may pretend to be poor, rich people simply know that with a single phone call, they can be back in their mansions, wearing fine clothing, eating gourmet food, and enjoying the good life far from the "bums and losers" they left behind.

When I serve at the missions, I look into faces that mirrored my own back in the late 1980s - a time during which I had no idea if (not when) I would ever have my own home to sleep in, more than one set of clothes, and food that honest store couldn't sell any more for being past its expiry date.

Then I look at the fresh-faced kids next to me in their designer clothes and perfect hair, serving up surplus food with a smile, knowing all the time that once they've finished their "public service" sentences, they can go back to their parties, their cocaine, and their trust funds and brag about how awful it was to be so close to such ugly and unfortunate people.

Then they ask me if it was alcohol or drugs that put me there, and they're either shocked or incredulous that I serve at the shelters because I want to, and not because I have to.

LOL I thought of the very same song when I read his post

Here's an alternative to that, which caused a bit of an outrage here.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... nt-1487427