OT: New Orleans (VERY long!)

That shouldn't surprise you, Pat. Don't forget -- I AM Irish :-). Besides, remember I are a kulleg gradeate. As for the stars, well, many of them are helping tremendously which is great (that's 31 words, two emoticons and the odd -- ) :-). CiaoMeow >^;;^<

I had to wonder last week when the state of Maryland announced that there were the lowest number of people on state aid since 1995, and our governor made an announcement about how good the economy is and "our fine, hard-working citizens are finding productive work", etc. etc. It was such a "spin" (so obviously political) I wondered about the other side of the story...was it truly because there were fewer poor people, or because eligibility requirements had changed and fewer people qualified for aid?

I didn't have to wait long. About two days later, there was a report in the paper about new numbers released that showed an increase in the number of people living in poverty over the two previous years.

Something didn't jive. As Sara said in another post in this thread, there are always AT LEAST two sides to consider.

Sue

The problem is that this required "work" had to be legislated which doesn't say much for the recipients involved! The "let someone else take care of me" mind set is still there if the recipients have *24* months before they need to find some sort of work. One would also hope that legitimate work could be found within SIXTY months (that FIVE years). CiaoMeow >^;;^<

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I registered so that I could read this very timely article. Here's another one for all of you who think those of lessor means are just lazy bums:

"..could have walked out..." ?!?!?!?!?

To WHERE? With WHAT SUPPLIES? And HOW?

I have made a habit of staying out of things like this but that is an incredible comment that shows NO IDEA of what is needed to be done to "walk out".

How far would 10,000 to 50,000 people have to walk to find decent shelter from 150 mph winds? Rain driven at only 50 or 60 mph is like needles driving into skin. Any debris driven by hurricane wind speed can be *fatal*. Where would these pedestrian refugees find shelter in the areas surrounding New Orleans? Buildings would be locked, hotels and motels and public shelters would be full of local storm refugees. Should they just keep walking through the hurricane? Two to three miles per hour is an average walking speed; sixteen straight hours of walking only covers probably thirty miles straight out at most from New Orleans in any direction, given twists and turns in roadways.

What about the ill, the elderly, the disabled, the young, the pregnant? How far could they walk, how fast? What about the otherwise healthy person with bad knees, or swollen ankles, or blisters on the feet?

What about carrying supplies -- enough food and water for three or four days? One gallon of water weighs eight pounds. I can tell you from personal experience that carrying that water home from the grocery store, a half-mile uphill walk, gets pretty damn tiring on my arms. Can

*you* carry four gallons of water -- thirty-two pounds -- plus food, plus a change of clothes, for a five mile walk alone? Add whatever supplies you might need to carry for a child or an elder, plus perhaps a pet. Even pushing that weight in a wheeled cart is heavy and tiring. I know -- I carry my groceries home every day, a half-mile uphill walk. Even a six-pack of water gets heavy in that short distance.

I live in an urban area -- actually, for lack of a better term, a slum. There are three abandoned houses on my block, one right next door. The population is majority black and damn poor -- per capita income only $12,690 a year vs. the US average of $20, 880 (and the New Orleans average of $17,258). I walk to work because I don't own a car -- half of us in this area don't. We use public transit to get around, or walk to the grocery store, the bank, the post office. We are the urban poor. We are, for the most part, not the shiftless welfare leeches and criminals you seem to think we are. Most of us are working poor, serving your food and selling you your stuff at the store and wiping your asses when you're children or old and/or sick. Most of us also believe that the government doesn't give a damn about anyone but the wealthy, no matter which party may be in power, and we don't spend our lives with our hands out waiting for government help. We just want to hold onto what little we have.

We don't deserve to die.

We also don't need to hear that the people in New Orleans somehow have only themselves to blame for not being able to get out of the way of one of the biggest hurricanes *ever*. And that it's their own damn fault for having the *audacity*, the moral failing of being poor. Saying that makes you sound like nothing so much as a character from a Dickens novel who believes that being poor is a crime.

It also makes you sound god-damned pig ignorant.

Melody

PS: There certainly seem to be a lot of people in more well-off coastal regions who have applied for FEMA help in rebuilding their second homes or vacation homes. Where's the moral indignation at rich people getting interest-free loans and grants by holding their hands out waiting for government help?

Thank you for your thoughts. You said what I cannot put into words. I have been where you are many years ago and I have come close a few times since. I know what you are saying. And I bless you for saying it loudly and clearly.

Dianne

Very well said Melody.

Here's an interesting article written in the National Geographic in October

2004. It gives some insight into why this disaster happened.

A) It is not up to the employers to determine that they are unemployable.

B) States are not allowed to have more than a small percentage (20 percent?) of cases defined as "hardship" cases, which 20 percent likely is filled up very quickly with those who are very clearly unable to work (serious physical disability, e.g.).

So, no, it's not a situation where everyone can just boondoggle their way into staying on the dole. As a result of these fairly draconian measures (among other things), poverty has been on the increase in the US for several years now.

Best wishes, Ericka

Given that poverty is on the rise in the US (not so coincidentally starting about five years after welfare reform went into effect), and that several studies have shown that an appallingly large number of families aren't able to transition from welfare to work that pays enough to make a living wage (they tend to get work, but not work that pays enough for them to stay afloat), I think the answer is pretty clear ;-)

Yep.

Best wishes, Ericka

[wonderful rant snipped for brevity's sake. Read upthread, do]

Standing ovation for you. Thank you so much for expressing all of this so eloquently.

Elizabeth

You might consider actually looking into the facts of the situation. The "welfare queen" stereotype is actually reflective of only a very tiny minority. The reasons most of these folks don't have jobs (despite looking) are that:

1) They have young children and can't afford daycare. 2) They have no education, and no money (or time, or childcare) to get an education (programs to provide educational opportunities for people on welfare to increase their employability were supposed to materialize, but have been woefully underfunded, leaving many illiterate and without high school diplomas). 3) If they get a job, they lose benefits--and most of their jobs do not provide health insurance. So, getting a job means that they no longer get medical care. 4) There is a scarcity of jobs that pay a living wage. 5) Many of the people on welfare *DO* have legitimate disabilities that impede their ability to work.

Furthermore, most *DO* have jobs...but the jobs don't pay enough for them to make it, especially if they need childcare or, say, health insurance.

Mark Rank has researched poverty in America extensively for years and has published some very important works on the subject. His research finds that a MAJORITY of Americans will experience poverty and welfare at some point in their lives, and that it is a myth that welfare is the province of some perpetual underclass. Most people on welfare do NOT come from families who have been on welfare (and most are not black, are not teen parents, etc.).

Best wishes, Ericka

Nicely said. There are many of us that fully agree with you. Lucille

But Dianne, these people ate NOT welfare parasites! These are not the people who were looting (unless it was for food & water and that is NOT looting) nor were they shooting at rescue helicopters & boats. And YES that happened so let's not hear any crap about how those stories were made up!!! I still say that one of the main points of that original article is that by giving the needy "free" money for so many years, we have created people who feel they are owed something for nothing by the government. They don't feel the moral need to earn a living and contribute to society in a truly meaningful way. These people are the "welfare parasites" NOT the people who NEED welfare assistance to help them get their lives back on track or make it through a rough spell. I won't even address the whole minimum wage & child care topic. It's NOT what was discussed in the original article and it's much too involved a topic. CiaoMeow >^;;^<

OK Pat -- another long one is in the works :-)!! I'm talking about walking out AFTER the hurricane when the flooding started. If people had been truly prepared, they would have stockpiled adequate water and food as did Olwyn Mary. From the reports, you wouldn't have had to walk all *that* far to get away from the devastation IF you went west. If the people were too poor to put any food aside, all they had to do was follow along behind the thieves who were doing the real looting and just take food off the store shelves. You KNOW the criminals weren't interested in food! WHY is it so horrible to think there might have been a bunch of people who would take their own destiny into their own hands and at least attempt to walk out? I have heard many stories of people who left in cars -- one man said all he had to do was drive about 8 miles west of town and things were OK -- not wonderful but certainly NOT like anything back in New Orleans. This thread is not about the ill or elderly or pregnant, etc. It's about people who let the government take care of them. As for schlepping supplies, sure it would have been difficult to do with a grocery cart or a wagon but not impossible? Are you saying that trying to do this would have been TOO difficult for anyone to even attempt? Seems to me that there are numerous TRUE stories about people (notably the Jews fleeing the pogroms in Russia) of people doing exactly that! I suppose it was OK for the bitterly poor Jews to drag all of their possessions out of town with them (often in the middle of winter) but it's NOT OK for the poor of New Orleans (be they black or white) to try to do the same thing? Sounds like discrimination to MOI!!!!! No one is calling the poor of America shiftless, etc. as you want to think. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THOSE WHO ****ARE**** SHIFTLESS!! Do you not understand that? Every time I post to this thread, I say that -- we are TRYING to talk about those people who PREFER to stay poor so that someone else will take care of them!!! I was poor myself. I was fortunate and did have a car and a minimum wage job doing unskilled labour and a small baby and an ex-husband who didn't pay child support. I not only lived from hand to mouth but I collected soda bottles to get money to supplement my income. When I got a dollar, I had to decide if I would buy milk for the baby or put gas in the car. If it was time for a paycheck, I let the baby go without milk (try THAT one and see how you feel!!) so that I could put gas in the car and go to work to get my paycheck so I COULD buy milk for the baby. So don't give me any BS about how wealthy I am or how I don't understand what poor people have to live through. So listen up -- this thread is NOT about the poor people who struggle daily to keep life and limb together. It's about that "OTHER" poor who give the hard working poor people a bad name. If you live your life as you say, I would be mighty surprised if you hadn't tried to find some way out of that hell hole because YOU would have known better than to just sit there and wait for the government to come save you! And I agree with you about the government -- they only care about themselves AND the rich. Regardless of what you think, I ain't part of the rich.

Which doesn't alter the fact that there ARE Welfare Parasites who somehow manage to "work" the system. Why does everyone forget about these creeps. THEY are the ones under discussion -- at least by me -- and they give the truly needy people on welfare the short end of the stick!

The author of the article was clearly not referring to some small percentage of the poor left in NO. He was tarring the vast majority with that brush, and you were seeming to agree with him. And, if it's only a relatively small proportion of the poor who were in that situation, then his entire argument falls apart anyway.

Best wishes, Ericka

Ericka Kammerer wrote: ..... The "welfare queen" stereotype is actually

Yes -- I agree and it's THAT minority that I am talking about. Those are the "Welfare Parasites" I am talking about -- the ones who take advantage of the system in any way they can! I KNOW I said that in my original post. That post was long but not THAT long. Have I so misremembered what I wrote that EVERYONE who responds wants to beat me about the head and shoulders telling me all about the "other" people on welfare?? I'll say it again -- I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THOSE PEOPLE!!! Those people -- the ones who are struggling to stay afloat and need help through welfare are NOT the parasites. By definition they are TRYING to help themselves and that is NOT a parasite!