When you are poor and have an iPhone....

[davidthegnome]

57. What an ignorant "statetment"

It's ironic that, in this society, if one is born into wealth - say, a great inheritance, nobody gives a shit that they have an iphone, three houses, a butler, an offshore tax haven. We don't glare at them and say "How dare you spend your money that way!" On the contrary, society serves them. When they enter a restaurant, no one is ever going to look at them askance because they can't afford decent clothing (can I take your coat and kiss your ass at the same time, please?). No one will ever deny them a job for being wealthy (your dad and I were frat brothers! Welcome aboard!). No bank will deny their loans (can we please give you more?), no case worker will make them jump through hoops. Business, society, education... healthcare... everything caters to - and ultimately serves the wealthy. Wealth is no virtue in and of itself, it is no indication of anything other than wealth itself. Yet somehow society treats it as if it were the ONLY virtue.

Yet all the same, even if they never work a day in their lives, they are rarely if ever judged for spending their money on things they don't need.

Some times people who don't have much money can buy things that look nice. We shop at Catholic Charities, at the Salvation Army, at Walmart (it's evil, but it's cheap), at secondhand stores. Some times people who are poor even get gifts from people who are not as poor. Even electronic toys that they might enjoy playing with. God forbid that they should have anything more than a pot to piss in.

You know, if our noble, Godlike, overwhelmingly awesome beautiful and glorious worshipful "job creators" more generally paid a living wage, or had a little charity and generosity within them, maybe people wouldn't be so poor that they could not afford an iphone. If the Koch brothers, for instance, spent a little less money lobbying for big oil and the Republican machine - and paid their workers a bit more, maybe we would have fewer people who would end up needing food stamps, welfare, or medicaid.

The left is being seduced by the right, into being angry at the wrong people. For every dollar spent on food stamps, how much do we spend on corporate welfare? For every dollar spent on healthcare, how much do we pour into military projects that never bear fruit? Food stamps are awful, somehow, but the politicians who spend thousands of dollars on a tax-payer funded dinner? Eh, who gives a shit.

How about that fifty thousand dollar a plate dinner where Mitt Romney called half the American people "takers"? How about grand old Bush, Mr. "My favorite people! The Haves and the Have Mores! I'm going to give you guys enormous tax cuts, start a war, and cut the hell out of our safety net! Woohoo! Jesus loves me!"

If you can afford to bitch about people on welfare, maybe you don't really understand poverty and should stop bitching. If you can afford to grumble about people who need food stamps, maybe you aren't hungry or near starving. Maybe your family has plenty of food - that's great, but shut the hell up about those of us who are struggling.

The wealthy (with some few exceptions) seem often to be far more guilty of greed, ignorance, selfishness - and frivolous spending, than any amount of poor people. I could go on for hours, even days, about their crackpot theories and notions of who deserves what. I could go on at the same length about their sense of entitlement, the stupid, frivolous things they buy, the way they treat their employees, the way they treat the environment, the way they treat the world. Hell, I think I will. If we're going to be mad at someone, shouldn't it be the people who have destroyed our economy, led us into a trillion dollar, illegal war, evaded paying taxes, collapsed the economy of the whole damn world... I could go on and on.

Wealth is neither virtue nor sin. At the same time - there is nothing wrong with being poor and needing help. Food stamps are not necessary because of character flaws, but because of poverty. I tell you what, the next time you bitch about someone poor having an iphone, ask yourself if rich people who pay no taxes should be able to have two or three mansions. Ask yourself who you should really be angry at - and why.