Reply #60: My Heart Out To You Dajoki [View All]

[mntleo2]

...it is beyond the pale that such a thing is now happening in droves with the middle class. We had some warnings of this though back in 1198 but most middle class folks were yelling with torches and pitchforks against the one safety net that used less than 3% of the budget at that time they used to cover up the hundreds of billions given away for corporate welfare.

In 1996, many of us tried to tell the Middle Class about Welfare Reform Law enacted into law. This law was not enacted just for the poor, though many middle class people assumed it was when *no* law can be passed for a certain class of people, ALL laws passed apply to all classes. This law says that your family does not matter, and it does not matter if you have a livable wage, only that you work for anyone and anywhere that pays you something. Waitresses legally paid below the minimum wage is just fine with them because they assume she will rake in those millions on the taxable volunteer tips she gets. In NY then-mayor Ghuoliani undermined union paid city workers by replacing them with "welfare-to-work" people who basically worked off their welfare checks at $0.50 and hour in place of union jobs.

A few years ago, while Ghouliani's undermining plan continued under her nose and which she chose to ignore, Hillary Clinton went around the country with Joe LIEberman still touting this horrible law that has permanently plunged low income women and their children :http://visiblevote08.logoonline.com/2008/01/14/gloria-steinem-the-faux-feminism-of-hillary-clinton/ into perpetual poverty. Even Gloria Steinem who endorsed Clinton (why because she has a pair of boobs and a clitoris?), decried this law and pointed out how devastating it was for women of color. Steinem can be slightly excused as the bourgeois liberal she and Clinton have always been, since it is widely known that as is the very reason why this law was passed with the assumption, because it was assumed it would target women of color, but the truth is ...most welfare recipients were/are white.

What does this have to do with you now 12 years later and in the straits you are? Because, as proven by how much these low income women and their children suffered, who were silently in agony while being used as your canaries in the mine while the rest of our country stayed silent, it is now codified and in the law: you do not matter, your family does not matter, this law says raising and caring for them is all "doing nothing!" Thanks to WElfare DEformed all the work you do that is not paid, the elders in your life who took care of YOU and the next generation so they fight in our wars, pay our social security and take care of us when we are old, this elitist, cruel law says you are "doing nothing" and the *only* thing you do to contribute to your community is work for corporations, matter how crappy the pay, no matter how it damages you, no matter what happens because you cannot make enough. They do not CARE if you don't have a home, they do not CARE of your spouse beats the crap out of you and you were almost killed, they do not CARE if you have no heat and you freeze, they do not CARE if you and your kids go without food or an education.

Nope, all they care about is that you work ~ and who gives a flying s**t if you make enough or not?

I am not meaning to chide people who did not understand this, but I will have to say I wrote about it more than once and got nothing but crap for years on this very forum from people who just refused to understand they were next, even though we tried and tried to tell them. Now I am wondering when people will understand this was all in the works over a decade ago and you can thank Rethug and Rethug lites for it all. You might consider who you vote for and you might also point out to your local states people that you will no longer stand for anything more that erodes what little most Americans have. They can choose to stand with you ...or get the hell out of the way because it may not be pretty!

Love
Cat In Seattle

My 2 cents