The Hyperbole Of Hate: Soup Line America

FROM DU: People Are Doing Strange Things To Save Money (Dumpster Diving, No TP)
The economy is taking a toll on average Americans. With gas prices up dramatically, everything else has been sucked into the whirlpool of rising prices of almost all products: groceries, airline tickets, clothing, soap.....toilet paper.

Several web sites have appeared to give suggestions on how to survive in this Turbulent Economy. One is called "Dumpster Diving" and it gives tips on how to find perfectly good food, or slightly good food and have a delicious meal. Other web sites show you how to be Chic & Homeless, by giving tips on how to live in your car. To stay clean, you go to a Comunity College into the Locker Room & clean up, or get a membership at a health club for use of the shower.

Here are some of the things I've picked up on recently, where people have changed their lifestyle to accomodate the New Harsh Reality:

--You see many more people looking scruffy, unshaven. Carrying large black plastic bags that rattle. Those bags are usually filled with pop cans and soda bottles, which can be returned for small amounts of cash.

--I've heard that some people have stopped using toilet paper, or they use rags to wipe themselves with. This is actually not a strange practice; in China they do it all the time. They have a handkerchief which they use to dry themselves with, fold it up, and put it back in their pockets.

--Some people have an odor about them. One man that I run into regularly, smells like a campfire.

--People don't use their washer so much. I went into a laundry mat recently, and the washers were stuffed with so many clothes that it was just this swirling dirty mess that hardly moved around. Those clothes did not come clean.

--People are eating a lot more Top Ramen. For weeks, months at a time.

Any observations? (cliss)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364

My Response:

"The poor we will always have among us".

Anyone reading your message--including myself--has enough money for a computer and some manner of phone hook up or cable (which means they can also afford an apt.) Even those at an Internet cafe have a hook up elsewhere, so perhaps things are not as bad as you're trying to paint them.

I know of no place in America where, if you knocked on a church door-- or nearly at any house--and said you were starving, the people there wouldn't fix at least a peanutbutter sandwich for you, or give you an apple or handful of crackers... That's not often possible in countries where there is true 'starvation'".

I went on to refute the oft-repeated accusation that this was all George W. Bush's fault (such blaming was, of course, the intent of the post in the first place), and I could have easily pointed out that anyone able to afford a car in which to 'live', airline tickets, or a health club membership (!) isn't, by most of the world's standards, 'poor'.

They immediately painted me as a heartless Freeper--said I got my opening quote from the 'Compassionate Conservatives' (actually, Jesus said it...) and went on to whine 'Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me'--until I asked how many of THEM we're eating Top Ramen Noodles tonight?

I said:

"Oh, and can any ONE of you here describe...

YOUR hand-me-downs, YOUR garbage for dinner, the bridge YOU'RE sleeping under???? If what she (the OP) said is true, all you lined up at the library waiting to use the Internet--instead of in your comfy homes--give me a shout out now!"

"That's what I thought...

You guys are waiting to take your kids to soccer practice, to go to your bookclubs, pull in your driveways with your late model cars---and all but you vegans will have meat to eat tonight for your dinners...

Betcha got the weekend off AND 4th of July. Gotta take a vacation? Take your kid to band camp? Have time to post here all day?

GOOD FOR YOU---It'll keep me laughing ALL day!"

Those stupid, shameless hypocrites. They want everyone to think that George W. Bush has 'ruined' this country--and all before they turn on their plasma TV's, barbeque on the new grills on their outside decks, and use the Photoshop programs in their snazzy new computers to deface the likeness of our President and his staff.

As the new music blasts out of their IPODS and they drink a latte in the 'picky' ('progressive' and icky) coffee shops up here, they just can't quite pretend that they need a tin cup!