I'm with Favog: this woman's apartment in the projects looks pretty decent to me, not a "slum" as she describes it, and anyway, if you have enough money to buy a massive flat-screen TV, who are you to bitch and moan about how poor you are anyway, and how the taxpayer isn't subsidizing a good enough apartment for you?
Via the Times-Picayune, Favog tracked TV Lady's adventures, which included participating in a protest yesterday at New Orleans City Hall, in which she and fellow loons screeched "racism" at gummint officials over plans to demolish certain housing projects. They also attacked police officers. Understand, it's not like these public housing residents aren't being provided for. There are more than enough public housing slots to go around. It's just that the government wants to demolish particular units, and rebuild newer mixed-income housing in their place. Which may or may not be a good idea -- I tend to think it's a good idea, seeing as how the whole Great Society-style idea of concentrating the urban poor in housing projects didn't work out so well for anybody -- but good grief, when society provides you with what's on photographic and journalistic evidence a pretty good place to live, and the money you save from not having to do like most people, and pay for your own housing frees you up to purchase luxury goods ... well, sorry TV Lady, but you get no sympathy from me.
Here's what the Times-Picayune said about the projects demolition in its editorial endorsing the city council's vote to proceed:
Despite the heat and rhetoric swirling around the planned demolition of New Orleans' four largest public housing developments, the City Council's decision today is straightforward.Opponents of demolition simply don't make the case for delay.
For all the arguments this week about the needs of poor people, the truth is that these mammoth old complexes had failed as decent housing long before Hurricane Katrina and the flood of August 2005. Mayor Nagin understands that and has talked about the need for redevelopment.
The City Council ought to be able to come together around a plan that will provide poor New Orleanians better and safer homes. It's that simple.
The replacement of St. Bernard, B.W. Cooper, C.J. Peete, Lafitte and other big complexes with smaller mixed-income developments and scattered single-family homes was envisioned by the Clinton administration. The mess left by floodwaters changed the timetable in New Orleans, but the transition from old to new has been ongoing for a decade or more.
The council shouldn't buy into groundless arguments from protesters and some Democratic leaders in Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Mary Landrieu. The facts simply don't back them up.
[snip]
Opponents of demolition do nothing to help their case when they present former public housing residents whose claims of abuse by the system are patently unbelievable. One resident Tuesday described her subsidized rental near Bayou St. John as a "slum." But the apartment, half a double, is newly renovated and nicely appointed.Also lost in the clamor from opponents to demolition are the voices of other public housing residents who want the old complexes to be torn down. Former Lafitte resident Emelda Paul, who now lives in the Fischer Senior Village, described the squalid conditions of her old complex during a hearing in September. "People want to come home, but we can't have people living in the same conditions they were living in before Katrina," she said.
She's right, and the City Council should listen to her.
This controversy raises a thorny question: what's the difference between the deserving poor, and the undeserving poor? That is, are there poor people who don't have much, if any, claim on society's resources, and how can one distinguish them from the poor who do?
(Yes, I know, the undeserving rich, corporate welfare, overpaid CEOs, blah blah blah. That's another subject. Let's stick to this one for now.)
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just throwing this in the mix...i'm disabled. sometimes i've been able to work, sometimes i haven't. some disabled people are completely disabled, cannot work-and disability does not pay well enough to live on without other assistance. do we condemn people because they take the assistance and manage to save enough to afford a few of the finer things that people who can work take for granted? do you have to "pay" for receiving assistance by not having anything nice in your life? most of my nicer things are gifts, but my computer i saved up for for over a year. my ssi and ssdi come to about 634 a month. my food stamps where i used to live came to 15 a month-which is just silly. i've recently moved and will reapply in this state, and see what happens. since i am disabled, i take several medications-not all of which are covered. between a hundred and two hundred dollars every month goes to medicine-it just depends on whether i get sick on top of being sick, if you know what i mean. my rent comes to around two hundred, and yes, i do have a cell phone, so i have a cell phone bill every month. it's very, very tight. even when i can work i can only manage part-time. do you think that just because someone is poor they don't "deserve" nice things if they can manage to save up for them out of the meager amount they have left over? i also sponsor a kid in chile, which comes out of my account every month-22? i forget-plus 25 additional on her birthday and 50 at christmas-because i understand there are people needier than me out there. i contribute 10 a month to the aclu-because it's a cause i believe in. am i supposed to tuck my head under and not give and not try to find ways to enjoy my life just because i am disabled and poor?
some people act as if they think poverty is a lifestyle choice...wake up. it isn't. it's just another way of blaming the victim so you don't have to feel bad that there ARE victims out there. the lady with the big screen tv probably saved up for god knows how long for it, whereas someone with a decent job and a savings account could just put it on their credit card and go on their way. would you feel better if we all lived in shacks and wore burlap, tugged our forelocks and bowed? what does it take for people to allow other human beings the simple dignity of true equality? because thinking of people in terms of "deserving" or "undeserving" of ANYTHING essential is obscene.
I like what Geezer said. I want everyone to notice that in the Luke passage, it doesn't say "give only to the worthy" nor does it say "give as a loan and make them pay it back."
The good Samaritan that rescued the man left for dead on the roadside never considered whether or not the man deserved to be beaten or robbed. When he paid for the man's care, food, clothing and lodgings with a promise to pay more to the Innkeeper when he returned, he didn't tell the beaten man it was a loan to be repaid.
The concept of "undeserving poor" assumes that any human being can somehow be undeserving. Jesus felt and taught otherwise. Jesus never chose the people He healed or brought back to life based on whether or not they "deserved" His help or His healing. He never made anyone that He helped pay Him back either. Nor did He check up on them to see if they "sinned no more" if He forgave them. (Remember the fallen woman that people were going to stone? He never checked up on her to see if she actually went and "sinned no more.")
That we distinguish between "deserving" and "undeserving" poor is egregious in the extreme. They are HUMAN BEINGS, of COURSE they deserve our help! To segregate them is passing judgment on them and as you judge, so shall you in turn be judged. I would not wish to be judged and I will not judge between the poor. They are in NEED, we can and should help them. End of story.
"My point is that the idea of an "undeserving poor" cannot be allowed to obscure the real problems faced by a growing number of Americans who, having played by the rules and bought into the Protestant work ethic, find that their employer no longer plays by those rules.
Job security does not exist for a growing segment of people. They play by the rules, and they lose."
EXACTLY!!!!!
We need to stop talking about the "deserving" or "undeserving" poor and ask why corporate welfare and deregulation is still going on. Both must stop. NOW. The only "undeserving" are the corporate fat cats that are STILL getting tax subsidies, like the recent one the congress (including the Democrats!) gave BIG OIL for the next FIVE years!
Corporations and businesses need SOME regulation because the lack of it since the Reagan era has allowed the businesses to play by their own rules; rules that harm Americans.
To give us some context for Cruncy Con's original question,
maybe it would help to also define the "deserving" and "undeserving" rich.
This is why I don't think in terms of anecdotes. They tend to polarize people around high-flying, romanticized emotions and get them to ignore the statistics and more important philosophical aspects of the issue. Unfortunately, anecdotes are an easier sell than reason.
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