From: jfr@RedBrick.COM
Newsgroups: ba.politics,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections,co.politics,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.democrats.d
Subject: Re: Ignorance - Was Re: VOTE, BABY, VOTE!
Date: 13 Nov 92 03:34:37 GMT
Organization: Red Brick Systems, Los Gatos, CA

In article <1992Nov12.180043.3531@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary) writes:
>>  Still, things
>>  got even better after the War when former soldiers were GIVEN
>>  (yes, GIVEN) things like the GI Bill which they used to put
>>  themselves through school and purchase homes. 
>
>I never said giving things away as always a bad policy. I've just been 
>pointing out the existance of the gifts. (We do both agree that this
>benifited the soldiers, right?)
 
  AH-HA!  Yes we both agree that the GI Bill benefited the soldiers.
  However, I content that it also benefited society as a whole.  It
  did this by generating home sales growth of major proportions, 
  which in turn led to suburbanization and the growth of whole
  industries (chain supermarkets, malls, etc) to support that move.
  All of this benefits society by allowing it to prosper.

  And indeed, in a previous post, you wanted to stop giving away
  things where only one segment of society is benefited.  
>
>Sure, and two of those desires (to which the rich are _very_ subject
>as well as the poor) are laziness and a desire for comfort. If
>someone has a comfortable standard of living, he isn't (usually)
>inclined to work. Conversely, if he's unhappy about his standard
>of living, he has an incentive to do something about it. It seems
>to me self-evident that suffering causes people to act, and remove
>the casue of their suffering. (At least, this both makes logical 
>sense and matches my personal experiences.) If you eliminate all
>the bad things that go along with poverty, you also eliminate the
>strongest motive to escape poverty.

  Are you going to sit there and suggest that the trivial amount of
  money paid to welfare mothers to feed their children (about $370
  a month plus rent) somehow "eliminates all the bad things that
  go along with poverty"?  Are you living in some kind of sheltered
  dream world, Frank?  I haven't been to Boulder but maybe there 
  just isn't any poverty there.  I would suggest you get out of
  your white castle and take a drive to Los Angeles and visit
  South Central LA.  Or the Bronx in New York City.  Or downtown
  Detroit.  You are simply incredible.  

  Of course, Reagan did a GREAT service to help the poor by eliminating
  federally funded child care centers so that the willing-to-work poor
  mother (and most families on welfare are headed by a single or divorced
  woman) can place her young children into competent care centers while
  she works or looks for work.  No, instead, lets keep them on the dole
  and then, after a few years, bitch about why they aren't working
  without acknowledging that we made it impossible for them to work.
  Right, great service indeed!
>
>>  ...Most of them would work if there were
>>  jobs.  There aren't any.  The choice is simple.  Heartlessness
>>  or helpfulness.  I think your concept (that heartlessness may
>>  be a better way to "help" them) is so devoid of intellect OR
>>  emotion  that it clearly shows you for what you are.     
>
>Perhaps living in proximity to the Berkeley, CA homeless for five years
>has given me the wrong impression (I rather doubt that group is "typical"...)
>But I think most of the homeless (the real extreme of poverty) will
>work _only_ as much as they have to in order to survive.

  I think you are fucked up in the head, Frank.  First of all, if you
  doubt that the Berkeley homeless population is typical, how can you
  then generalize without any further knowledge.  Well I lived for  
  20 years in Los Angeles, right next to Bel Air, and I'll tell you,
  I found the rich to be idle, shiftless lazy bastards who spit on
  other people.  Of course, this is based only on a SMALL sample  
  (of about 6) and I am sure it is NOT representative, but what the
  hell, we need to make generalizations so why not!  AMAZING!

>I'd generalize this, to say people (everyone, not just poor people) tend
>to work _only_ as much as they have to, to obtain some standard of
>living which they consider tolerable. I don't find this conclusion
>deviod of intellect: It seems a very reasonable one to draw from
>my expreience. Is it "devoid of emotion"? Possibly, but at least by
>training, I consider that an advantage: We ought to be considering the
>world as it exists and how it works; _not_ how the would "should" be,
>or what would make up happy _if_ it were true. Unpleasent, emotionally
>disturbing facts are still facts, and concepts based on emotion instead
>of fact don't solve very real problems. 

  I too think people would prefer to work only as much as they have to.
  Based, however, on significant contact with many homeless people,
  not the alcohol addicted homeless or the mentally insane homeless,
  but the genuine down on their luck homeless without jobs or shelter,
  which make up the vast majority of homeless people in Los Angeles,
  most would take a job, any job, if it would get them off the streets.
  Unfortunately, they are caught in a web.  Its hard to get it together
  to even LOOK for a job in Los Angeles if you don't have a car, don't
  have a place to sleep at night and take a shower in the morning 
  before you go looking for work, don't have a place to do laundry
  so your clothes are at least reasonably clean (if you even have
  enough clothes that you can clean one set while wearing another).
  These are also disturbing facts that you seem willing to ignore 
  because you don't like the idea that you (and all your reactionary
  buddies of the past 12 years) might share SOME (even the remotest)
  responsibility for this travesty.  But you do, and indeed, if you
  have any faith whatsoever, I expect you will be judged by your
  maker when you arrive in a not very charitable manner.  But that,
  as you say, is between you and your maker.  In the meantime, the
  people of this country have decided that it is time for a change.

  Bill Clinton is the man elected to make those changes, and I daresay 
  that what you think will not count for much over the next 8 years 
  or (hopefully) more.  The rich ARE going to pay, and I am going
  to enjoy the feeling of knowing that you are losing sleep over it.
  Get used to, its about to happen.

  Jon Rosen