Hating the Poor for Not Being Poor Enough - and another way to help the homeless

[proud2BlibKansan]

The conservative war on the poor continues unabated. Yesterday, the First Lady had her picture taken twice. First by a man on his cell phone captured in turn by a AP photographer. The original AP caption for the picture reads "First lady Michelle Obama, right, stops to have her photo taken as she helps to hand out meals during her visit to Miriam's Kitchen in Washington, Thursday, March 5, 2009. The center provides meals, case management services and housing support to nearly 250 men and women in Washington." But that picture of a poor man with a cellphone taking a picture of the First Lady has set of a firestorm of conservative hate for how can a man getting a free meal have a cell phone. How dare he have clothes on even? Damn it that man should be near naked before he dare get a free meal.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/3/6/19537/23218

I first saw this article here on DU yesterday. I shared it with my friends and one had a great idea. He has a prepaid cell phone he no longer uses. He is going to go out and buy some minutes for it and donate it to a homeless person. And he asked his friends with prepaid phones they no longer use to do the same thing.

So I am encouraging DUers to do this too.

Also if you have an old cell phone you don't use anymore, battered women's shelters need them. They can all dial 911 even if there is no service plan on the phone. I have been donating old cell phones to women's shelters for several years now. They really appreciate it.

I am so sick of the hate from the right (check out the piece on the above link by Andrew Malcolm, Laura Bush's press secretary. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/03/michelle-obama.html

The only way to combat this crap is to rise above it and do something that makes a difference. So please if you have an unused prepaid phone, give it to a homeless person.

[Warpy]

1. What they don't realize is what that cell phone means

In the first place, it was either donated or something he had before his job was offshored and he fell into destitution.

In the second place, he keeps it going while he's working low paid, part time, dead end jobs to feed himself because it's necessary for current or future employers to be able to get in touch with him. It's a telephone number that doesn't have to be connected with an address. Do the math: $630 a month for a cheap studio apartment or $30 for just the cell phone.

I can't believe the hard hearted, mean spirited cruelty of people on the far right fringes, all nice and comfy in their walled suburbs and who just don't manage to connect the dots and figure out that homeless people aren't born that way, they're made that way by the class war against working Americans. If they're still employed doing something, they have the means to keep things like cell phones and even storage lockers for the few possessions they managed to save after eviction.

Something like 70% of homeless people are employed. The class war against working people has just ensured they don't make enough money to afford one of the most basic human needs: shelter.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. I also wondered if it was even his phone

How do we know that he didn't borrow someone else's phone to take the picture?

But yes this is just proof that conservatives are selfish bastards.

[varkam]

3. Oh hell - it's not even just the far right fringes.

Just wait for a story to pop up on DU about how someone used to have it so good and are now homeless - you'd think we're organizing a lynch mob.

[Cleita]

4. Before the era of cell phones, having a phone to get calls from prospective

employers really could be a problem for the unemployed. I had a neighbor in his fifties, who because he lost his job also had his utilities and phone turned off and was almost about to be evicted from his apartment. He was having a hard time being hired to begin with because of his age. DH and I let him use our phone and shower, another problem for homeless people looking for employment. He got a job in the nick of time to save his apartment because of this or he would have ended up homeless as well.

[Warpy]

6. No shit. My period of homelessness was before cell phones

so I know the logistics problems all too well.

Fortunately the period was very brief and the crash pad I ended up in had a working pay phone.

The suggestion in the OP to recycle used cell phones to battered women's shelters and to the other homeless is a great one.

[Cleita]

7. I've always given my old cells to the local battered women's shelter. n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. Good for you

They really do appreciate it and not many people know to do this.

[SeattleGirl]

8. It's not just the people in their walled suburbs who get nasty.

I don't know how many people I've heard call in to people like Thom Hartmann, people who themselves are barely making it, ranting and raving about the "lazy" people who "don't want to work", who want "handouts", etc.

And THEN they start defending the very assholes who have helped put this country in the mess it's in.

It's absolutely fucking nuts, listening to these people.

I think they've been swimming in the koolaid, not just drinking it.

[Cleita]

11. Although I've always been a fan of Stephanie Miller going back to the days

when she battled Baye Buchanan on the CNN show "Equal Time" every day, I have found a new appreciation for her lately. She makes fun of those idiots who call in to her radio show with their stupid nutty talk. She makes foaming at the mouth fools out of them.

:hi:

[SeattleGirl]

23. She makes toast of them, doesn't she?

And the funny thing is, a couple of them are regular callers. She rakes 'em over the coals, and they just keep coming back for more!

:hi:

[Ocracoker16]

12. maybe they will drown in the koolaid someday

[muffin1]

5. These repukes are heartless.

How dare he have a pre-paid cell phone! How dare poor people pay for a bag of chips with their food stamps!
I just do not understand.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. As I once heard Jesse Jackson say,

"Republicans think that rich people don't have enough money and poor people have too much."

I still recall a John Stossel "exposé" in which he interviewed people standing in a line to receive free surplus commodities. He had this smug "gotcha!" look on him when the people in line said that they owned VCRs or a Walkman. He then said something about how they'd be considered rich in Bangladesh. (Well, a) They're not paying Bangladesh prices, and b) You could get a VCR for $30 even then, and a Walkman-type device for $15.)

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. An idiot right winger on one of my local blogs

posted a piece this week by John Stossel that claimed conservatives donate more to charities than liberals.

It was too easy to find plenty of links proving John Stossel is an idiot. Shut that right winger up real quick. LOL

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. Oh yeah, that one comes up a lot

What are the links that disprove it?

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. Here is what I posted:

Stossel claims that the minimum wage supposedly hurts low-income workers, that it is a myth that women earn less than men and he wrote a column praising oil companies for price gauging after Katrina, claiming that oil companies' use of a natural disaster to profiteer was somehow patriotic and heroic. So I am not going to believe anything he says on any topic.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/john-stossel-is-a-patholo_b_21903.html
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bgoodsel/post911/2006/02/john-stossel-is-idiot.htm
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1133

[wellstone dem]

10. In the "old" days at least there were pay phones

Now, if you don't have a cell phone, there is nothing you can do in an emergency, to get a job, to call your kids. You can't apply for many jobs anymore without internet access and a phone. Fortunately the public libraries have stepped forward to provide internet access, but you can't even use the pay phone anymore, because there aren't any.

[Vanje]

14. His cell phone is his ticket out.

Thats his best connection to potential employers.

A pay-as-you-go phone isnt expensive.
Mine cost 14.99 (its shitty!), and costs as little as from $10 / month for minutes.

So many people upgrading to I-phones, and the like are casting off some pretty decent little instruments.
I would certainly hope that the homeless have cellphones.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. Yes it is amazing how inexpensive those prepaid phones are

and they often have cameras on them :)

[Ocracoker16]

17. Great idea about donating cell phones to the homeless

I hope people here at DU will consider donating pre-paid cell phones to the homeless. I know many homeless people who have cell phones. They use them to keep in touch with their employer, their case worker, their family, and many other important people. I know a man that is a participant in a 12 step program and the cell phone allows him to keep in touch with his sponsor when not at meetings. It makes homeless people feel safer, because they can call 911 in an emergency.

I am angered by the comments of these conservatives who show such hate of the opressed in society. They have to find opportunities to complain that certain people aren't needy or poor enough. To combat their negativity, I will donate a phone and I hope other DU'ers will join me.

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. Thank you!

[pa28]

20. And notice what they are serving.

It should be cold gruel . . . right? I'm sure there was plenty of outrage about that too.

Conservatives in their now outdated bizzaro-world still cling to the idea that helping the poor is wasteful and the wrong kind of socialism. One gasbag Conservative commentator recently said that John Thain's million dollar office redecoration subsidy was good because it was stimulating the economy. That's the "right" kind of socialism.

Poor guy with a cellphone = bad, $10k wastebasket at taxpayer expense = good.

Anyway, it's a nice idea to organize distribution of used cell phones. You need a phone number to get employment.

[Ocracoker16]

22. There was outrage at that too

They served mushroom risotto which they characterized as being some kind of gourmet dish. What a bunch of bullshit. At the soup kitchen where I work we serve that about once a week. Why? It is an easy dish to prepare. It is similar to tuna casserole. The ingredients like rice and chicken broth are very cheap.

[proud2BlibKansan]

24. Just shows how stupid the right wingers are

Call it mushroom shit and they would probably approve of it.