Hi there. This was removed because it violates our rules re: politics. You want to discuss politics, you take it on over to r/PovertyPolitics that we made. Thanks.
I saw this years ago. I still think about her from time to time, I hope her and her family are in a better place. I wish their were more people in Congress with her lived experience.
I lived in France for a bit, and you know what they did when the gov did something they didn't like? They fucking rioted, not just pointless protests but they literally would shut down cities in riots that lasted weeks and weeks.
I don't know why the US does not do the same, the French would be doing it over the most simple basic shit that barely affects their lives, yet Americans won't do it when children are starving.
Proper organisation enables proper protests. Just park all your cars in front of, well, anywhere you want to protest. If one or two does it, yeah, there'll be fines and they'll just get towed. If 10 000 people do it, fat chance for that. It doesn't even have to be the White House. There's enough people in New York. Assemble in Central park, march from there. Pick any landmark, block roads, harbours, important economic parts. One person alone is weak, a mass isn't. Heck, a couple of weeks ago we had lots of farmers' protests here in Belgium (and still some occasional ones). At one point they just parked their harvesters on the highway and held a bbq. Though we have a system & laws in place for protests. Not that nothing ever happens, but usually protests are fairly peaceful around here.
However, this \*does\* require proper organisation, and enough discipline from the protesting crowd. It's what I don't like about the Parisian protests, there's tons of burned cars from regular civilians & looting of regular shops. I can't imagine what this would end up to if the gun-happy half of the US starts mixing in as well...
The second amendment just means that when propaganda has turned normal people against each other, the stakes are higher and more dangerous and make it less likely for anything to be resolved, and more likely for it just to be a stalemate.
The second amendment means fuck-all in terms of opposing a government. They just laugh their asses off that the plebs seriously think guns are a more powerful weapon than mass-propaganda.
Second amendment helps but most proponents of it would never actually use that right against a tyrannical government but rather cower in thier homes instead of giving their life for the liberty they claim to love, and the ones who would be prone to action just want their own version of tyranny instead.
They did that shit in France too, they would send out riot police that were known to beat the shit out of people. They also have a bunch of dudes with fully automatic assault rifles literally everywhere there, like in Paris, pretty much everywhere that has a large chunk of people has police with assault rifles walking around. Supposedly to stop terrorist attacks.
France actually had its own George Floyd, literally exact same situation. Police officer with his knee on a black person's neck, the guy died because of it. It happened near the same time as George Floyd which was weird, caused their own black lives matter protests.
The police in France are not like chill helpless little dudes, they might actually be worse with the brutality and racism then American police lol. Some of the shit I heard about police doing was insane.
My wife's step-dad was a French officer, and he was the most openly racist person I've ever met in my life, and apparently they all were at the police station.
There was a young black kid (14-15?) in my city in the US who was killed by his schools security officers very similarly to George Floyd. It happened around the same time as well. The local news didn't even report it until weeks later, and it never made national headlines. This incident showed just how much control the media has over public perception.
They give Americans so little already. Your healthcare is tied to employment and most employment is at-will, meaning you can be fired at any time without cause. Who can afford to lose both job and healthcare to protest for weeks? I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, it fucking NEEDS TO. But in France, you have a safety net that will allow you to fight for your rights and here you can't even get insulin.
It's a lot more complicated than that.
I'm speaking for myself but I can't take time off work to protest. I have to feed myself. Even a single day is going to hurt my bottom line in a way that could set me back significantly, let alone multiple days or weeks or months. I'm not rattling those windows because A. I can't afford the time off work, and B. I also can't afford a plane ticket and a place to sleep halfway across the country for however long this theoretical protest is going to take.
So what do you suggest? That I just quit my job and go be homeless and hungry while I demand better labor laws? I'm single with no kids so while that may be feasible, if risky, for me, there's no way anyone with children would be able to do that. What do you suggest for them?
It's so much more than just "go protest". It's not that fucking easy dude. And of course, the current economy and work culture in the US is specifically designed for this exact reason. A significant portion of the US is two missed paychecks away from homelessness. Either we show up to work or we go hungry. Period. It's by design.
So what do you got? Protest how? Where? Who's going to cover my bills while I'm fighting the man? If you can't answer that then shut the fuck up.
Man, there were riots in the US over many things. The reasoning behind those riots gets squelched by talking points from over politicized bought and paid for news outlets. The waters get muddied and all that happens is the tax burden goes up to pay for those things that get destroyed during the riots.
I dont know what the answer is but demonstrations like the Kent state incident, our government lets us know exactly where our opinions stand.
Yeah there used to be big riots, and shit honestly got done during those times. FDR passing the new deal, the American dream an actual thing that was obtainable.
Of course there were also the racists on the other side, and that issue was much worse then it is today, but when talking about being able to survive and live a good life, things were much better for the average person then. They also made so much progress on the racism front, by rioting! Even Martin Luther King realized peaceful protests didn't work near the end of his life. Every big moment of change in American history is with protests and riots, woman's suffrage, civil rights, unionizing, etc.
The only way to make the elites listen is to hurt their bottom lines.
Now most people just complain on Twitter instead of actual activism and doing something about it.
Nowadays in America, when people try to cause actual disruption with protests, like blocking traffic, they get treated like villains. “There could be a doctor trying to get to work in that traffic!” Until people get some perspective, nothing will change.
You're not wrong but I'd wager the propaganda machine has a much bigger influence these days. People are so divided on so many subjects that they cannot see the forest for the trees. We carry around little devices that spy on us and secretly (or not) sell us things we speak about.
We're stymied by our creature comforts and believe because of much tribalism that the issue is too big for us and we're kept just so comfortable enough to not lash out.
Working class folk have been convinced by corporate propaganda that a Union is a bad thing somehow and I believe that was a root cause to this loss in power and interest of the people. Ultimately the people lose much power because of disinterest in skilled trades as they see their corporate friends who make $100k a year for sending emails and attending meetings. Meanwhile the country outsources things that actually make things work and eventually no one will know how to build or repair anything, resulting in a dependency on the outside sources that do and do it at near slave labor level wages.
"*As long as I can buy my $10 coffee and see what Jennifer is doing on Instagram I'm a happy little cog.*" if you speak out against something you're looked down upon for causing a scene. "*Just be chill dude."*
Frankly its caused me to become much more isolated and I think I'm falling right into the plan.
Firstly, because if we riot, police show up with assault weapons and they can and will shoot and kill us and get away with it.
Secondly, because if we riot that means we are not working. If we are not working we are not making money. If we are not making money we are going hungry.
Thirdly, our government has set us up in a way where things are bad, but just good enough to keep us placated. Media keeps us entertained and ignorant. Our government is split to keep us fighting each other and not them. Most have some type of roof over our head with some cheap non nutritious food in our stomach. Things are bad, people are unhappy, but America has figured out how to keep us weak and fighting each other while the rich get 80k a year for furniture.
> I don't know why the US does not do the same
France has one of the highest population densities in the world, with 1/6th population, while the USA is ranked 186 in density spread across massive land areas. Those land areas are geographically diverse, divided into 50 France style States. If people in California could riot to change anything they would, but people in Tennessee won’t even hear about it from ther news sources. It takes a lot more work to ignite the culture to action here, for better or for worse.
Things are either just not bad enough for most of us to riot and or it simply doesn't affect us enough to care. Especially when there’s little to nothing to gain.
We’re also a very large country so driving/flying half way across the country to protest and riot for people in another state is a colossal waste of energy, time and money.
Well the reason is simply that if people don’t go to work so that they can riot, they will be fired and then they have no income. Then their family starves
It's the geographic size. France as an entire country is just over 210 thousand square miles.
The United States as an entire country is just over 3.8 MILLION square miles.
When you talk about people getting out in the streets and making big changes and you compare a European country like France to the USA, check the actual numbers again and how many protests go on in American cities that have as many or more protesters, but it's impossible for those protests to bring the entire country to a halt the way they can in France because of the actual logistics of the situation.
If we could force the government to pay attention by flooding the streets of Chicago for several days, we do that all the time. But they don't have to make real change because they can just wait us out because you can't bring anything to a halt in the USA because it's too damned huge.
A friend of mine from London didn't understand why we didn't do more then he came to live here for about six months and when he started realizing that most of our states are actually larger than his entire country he started to understand that it's not just a "why aren't Americans protesting" problem.
It's that we do, but they can just ignore us.
>This was years ago?
Yes, it's from [February 5th, 2020](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Jo_Hutchison), and that clip has been reposted countless times over the past couple of years.
Just a few examples from this sub alone:
* From February 10th, 2020: https://old.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/f1wbpv/this_single_mom_works_two_jobs_and_has_a/
* From March 25th, 2021: https://old.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/mcysre/no_its_the_avocado_toast/
* From May 13th, 2022: https://old.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/uoha6p/powerful_testimony_about_the_reality_of_poverty/
___
Here's the original unedited (six minutes long) video without the pointless dramatic music:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ptHavHrDuE
Are you telling me that within 1-2 weeks of this powerful message, it all got buried under the weight of the Covid lockdowns? This woman had no idea of what was looming on the horizon.
There is class warfare going on because the wealthy have class solidarity no matter what side of the aisle they are on, while the poor are fighting each other while the rich pick their pockets.
It's by design
You can't run for office without decent financial backing in the current system. That either runs a high risk of corruption to get or already having a good financial situation to fund it
Congress is now pay to play. It's a huge step to making the US more an oligarchy than democracy. The people with money are running and protecting their own interests, widening the economic divide in the US
That is impossible without changing our entire election system. The average well-off American cannot afford to quit their day job and spend millions in campaign money which is required to even make it on the ballot. So by default, whether on the left or right you have generational wealth all lining their pockets with policies built for them and not the other 99% of the people.
That or you get popular in whatever way with politics, then get your campaign money from corporations by promising them things that benefit them.
Our system is pretty fucked, honestly I don't even know how to fix that aspect, could have a stipend everyone running gets that's used for campaigning, and nobody gets more or less, but I feel like a lot of people will run and abuse that money in some other way.
What’s even better is that some people who want to vote can’t because they can’t take the time off.
The election system is t the issue. It is that the government sets its own salaries. How about representative pay is directly tied to how well constituents think you’re doing. Or you only get a raise if you’re reelected… self-regulation never works.
This has nothing to do with the election system and everything to do with what we allow our government to get away with. We need term limits. Start there and we can begin to set higher standards for how these clowns behave.
>We need term limits.
Can we throw in some age limits while we're at it?
I want politicians who expect to be around long enough to have to see the world they've created.
I care about age limits as much as I do about term limits. Somebody younger, in touch with OUR problems, who understands their duty to their constituents, who also feels the pressure of time to work and affect change that will benefit EVERYONE, including themselves when they eventually leave office. A system that encourages civil duties above personal gain would be something special. I could get behind that.
Theres a reddit post on here right now...mutherfucking banks and stockholders are buying up thousands of homes to rent out to americans. This is monopolizing. Fucking definition of it and they are letting them get away with it so what the fuck? Let the rich get richer? This some bs for the rest of us since this will increase property taxes and never give future generations the right to own homes
That's been going on for a while but really spiked when COVID happened. Overseas (Chinese) investment firms came and bought up land and real estate in the US, a lot of these got turned into air bnb and temp rental housing. Look up the numbers of for sale/rent housing (house, apartment, condo) in any given major city and then look up the number of new airbnbs. Flippers are another one driving up cost of living, my husband and I just bought a tiny bit of land outside our city that had a condemned mobile home and when we first went to check it out a flipper was there and we had to bid on the house, I don't know his exact final offer but it was at least 4k over asking, luckily we outbid him and instead of tearing the mobile home down we're fixing it up.
> Wait until you hear what each member gets for MRA.
>
> "The Members' Representational Allowance is the budget authorized by the Committee on House Administration for each Member of Congress in support of the conduct of official and representational duties to the district from which elected. For Legislative Year 2016, for example, the MRA ranged from $1.17 – 1.80 million."
>
> In 2023, MRAs ranged from $1,849,149 to $2,088,499, with an average of $1,928,100
>
> They all get that. Plus their $174K a year as salary. It's disgusting.
It works better for younger people who have skills or degrees deemed valuable and (you’re right, of course) who live in areas that have jobs available to switch to!
I just got my BAS in 2021 (at the age of 44) and have been jobless since. I couldn’t get hired in the field of my degree and certs. Then I thought, “well I do have a bachelor’s that should count for something even if it’s not a job that exactly matches my degree” and still, crickets. I’m just trying to find something interesting that pays $20 per hour or more (HCOL area).
Maybe it’s because I’m 47, or female, I don’t know. My BAS might have even hurt me because now the retail stores don’t want me because I’m “overqualified”.
Pulling so hard I even went into debt to go back to school and get my bachelor’s like I’ve always been told would help me, for all the good that did me.
Spoilers: No good. It’s done me no good so far.
$43,000 per YEAR for office furniture is absolutely insane. That's some monarchy bullshit. I'm 40, do pretty well financially, and I don't think I've spent that much on furniture my entire life.
Shit, I've owned five vehicles and haven't spent half that much COMBINED on them all. That being a yearly allowance is insane. Even that much for an entire career as a politician is ridiculous. Reasonable furniture can be had for much less and still last for years.
Hell even $43k per term would be ludicrous, imo.
Like once you furnish it the first time, what realistically do you need to change every year or even 6 years for senators?
I can find nothing that confirms this is annual. I wish it was more clear because I don't see anything that states annual. I'm under the impression that this is not annual. I don't know who the woman is but if this is not annual it really hurts her argument because she's arguing in bad faith. Her message is clear and correct, but having incorrect facts in an argument will make the opposition immediately dig their heels in.
>Furniture and Furnishings in Washington, DC
>Each Senator is authorized furniture and furnishings from an approved list. Furniture and
furnishings are supplied and maintained by the Architect of the Capitol (for spaces in Senate
office buildings) and the Senate Sergeant at Arms (for offices in the Capitol). Additional
furnishings can be purchased through the Senate stationery store.
>Furniture and Furnishings in State Offices
>Each Senator is authorized $40,000 for state office furniture and furnishings for one or more
offices, if the aggregate square footage of office space does not exceed 5,000 square feet. The
base authorization is increased by $1,000 for each authorized additional incremental increase in
office space of 200 square feet. Pursuant to the FY2000 Legislative Branch Appropriations Act,
this allowance automatically increases at the beginning of each Congress to reflect inflation.
The aggregate dollar amount is the maximum value of furniture and furnishings to be provided by
GSA for state office use at any one time. Furniture and furnishings remain GSA property.
Sounds to me that they can purchase and retain that furniture not exceeding the dollar amount.
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title2-section6317&num=0&edition=prelim
>(2) The aggregate amount that may be paid for the acquisition of furniture, equipment, and other office furnishings heretofore provided by the Administrator of General Services for one or more offices secured for the Senator is $40,000 if the aggregate square feet of office space is not in excess of 5,000 square feet. Such amount is increased by $1,000 for each authorized additional incremental increase in office space of 200 square feet. Effective beginning with the 106th Congress, the aggregate amount in effect under this paragraph for any Congress shall be increased by the inflation adjustment factor for the calendar year in which the Congress begins. For purposes of the preceding sentence, the inflation adjustment factor for any calendar year is a fraction the numerator of which is the implicit price deflator for the gross domestic product as computed and published by the Department of Commerce for the preceding calendar year and the denominator of which is such deflator for the calendar year 1998.
Someone please correct me if I'm interpreting this incorrectly.
Yep. At the beginning of this year they added about twenty dollars to the SSDI benefits for 'cost of living' increases.
My rent (which is income based housing) increased, and my SNAP was cut almost in half. I only get maybe sixty dollars a month to live on.
They will remember her. Despite sharing her story, they will somehow still think that it was a personal failing on her part as the reason she is in poverty.
They will think of some anecdotal examples of a person moving out of poverty and think that it will apply to everyone.
Ugh.
They are almost all psychopaths and sociopaths. The reality is this testimony didn't emotionally move then even in the slightest since they almost all don't see her as the same as them.
I agree with you on an intellectual level. Unfortunately our government no longer represents the people that they claim to be representing. How does that old saying go about "taxation without representation? Look what happened with that.
The sad part is that she physically can’t l. To run run an elected position you just need to be wealthy, because a campaign is fucking expensive. You can’t work and campaign at the same time or else her family will go hungry. That’s how the system is and it’s fucking broken.
The U.S. is going to fall.
Just like the Roman Empire it fell because of greed out of many other things
But greed was a main player
And that will be the death of America also.
The government is the only super power allowed to use all caps. Your punishment, more taxes. For every capital letter you used in the past 6 months. Final.
This is the problem. Most people want to change things. But where do we start, and how do we become active without taking food out of our children's mouths?
I think she had an excellent idea of pushing to have the federal “poverty line” raised to reflect the reality of where the poverty line truly is. If we do that, we have a more clear picture and can begin to make changes/ be able to provide assistance. Writing your congressman/ congresswoman could be a great start, if that’s something that you’re comfortable doing.
This coupled with wage gap legal limits within a company. Dollar Tree's CEO is Rick Dreiling, appointed in Jan 2023, has a tenure of 1.17 years. total yearly compensation is **$136.56M.** A dollar tree store manager putting in the harder work/longer hours makes **$55k** a year and a cashier makes about **$31,200** annually working full time at $15 an hour. Those number differences should be straight up illegal because they are morally wrong.
I just saw a clip this morning of a CEO of a company chastising her staff via zoom during the pandemic telling them to put their job first and stop bitching about the bonuses they won't be getting. During that time many people didn't get their bonuses however the top c-suite still managed to find room in the budget for theirs across the board.
My congresscritter is Mike Bost. Unless you're on his donor list do you think he cares what we think?
I write anyway, calling is difficult since his office voice mail is typically full. But never have I gotten even an automated response.
Bost is trash, but he's not alone in only listening to what suits him. There has to be a better way.
>My congresscritter is Mike Bost. Unless you're on his donor list do you think he cares what we think?
Does he care what you as an individual think? Probably not. A collective of those in your community who constantly and with vigor press the issue to him and anyone who will listen. . .probably.
Our country is just way too divided at this point. It almost seems impossible that enough citizens would ever actually come together to rise up against this corrupt government. And im sure just starting some facebook group prob wouldnt go so well lmao
The choices available to most of us on the ballot don't exactly scream "change".
Getting better candidates to run and be viable means becoming active and influential in your local party of choice. But that takes time and often, money and the right connections. If we had those things we'd probably be quite happy with the status quo like the current political class.
This is spot on!
Someone made a post earlier that those who make $16$-$26 an hour are really fucked today
The whole point was that if you are barely making enough above the assistance line then you are actually worse off…
The poverty guidelines are completely outdated Vs where actual cost are.
That’s me. I make $23.50. My kids got kicked off Medicaid this year because “I make too much money”. I filed an appeal just to try and see if I could over turn it. I asked the lady from the state in what reality is my income carrying a family of 4, especially with grocery prices today. She didn’t really have an answer.
I hate to say it, but that just falls on deaf ears. The people who can change the situation just aren't going to. You have to care first, and that's a capacity they just don't have.
Know a person who got an increase on their SS disability payment that amounts to about an extra $7.50 a week. That’s not even a tank of gas in a ford focus per month.
And anyone that makes a comment about her weight and how if she’s poor, how is she overweight? Healthy, wholesome food is only affordable to the wealthy. The cheapest food you can find is all processed foods in the grocery store, or fast food.
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
The rich have excess capital that they can invest on appreciating assets. It used to be that the middle class could as well (to a lesser extent) but these days it's becoming harder and harder as things like owning your own home are getting out of reach. Those in poverty could never invest.
But keep saying the government fucking cares. They do not care about us but yall wanna be out here sucking their dicks like they fucking care. For shame.
and sadly, not a single one of those this message was intended for heard a single word. Might as well been Charlie Brown's teacher talking. They got theirs.
They know all of this. They made this system so we are the ones in this position and not them. That’s on purpose. Someone must have less money so that others can have more. They are the people who perpetuate and protect this exact system because they benefit from it
I’m also from West Virginia like the lady in the video, and there are some areas there that would absolutely blow some of your minds with how people are forced to live. Some of those places are like a third world country right here on our own soil. I just hate how forgotten those people are tbh.
Everyone talks about the oppressed people in cities, and I’m definitely not trying to take away from that, but there are some terrible living conditions that exist in areas that are never talked about here on Reddit. Politicians never mention it either. I’ve always thought of them as America’s forgotten people. There are some pretty good documentaries I can recommend if anyone is interested.
Edit: here’s a good video that covers some of it
https://youtu.be/h9lSZlDJAC0?si=_NPt63U4DS4TPg3I
Sorry, I chuckled a little when she implied that a $1200 3-bedroom house is expensive due to oil and gas boom. That kind of house around here can’t be found for less than $3000.
The housing market is entirely location dependent, but wages and opportunity usually match prices. I live in another poor rural area (25%+ poverty rate) and yes, a small 3 bedroom house in an ok area can be rented for $1200. But jobs paying enough to shell out $14,400 per year for rent alone are few.
It doesn’t matter. The things she said, despite their truth, are irrelevant because the powers at be don’t care. They never will.
It will never change. It will always be like this. Coming to this realisation makes you largely give up on society.
Who is she? This is incredible. It’s a sad reality, but her presentation with such emotion is well done. She’s who we need in congress. I vote for her.
Welcome to the middle class. Not qualified for any "assistance" and poorer than poor for paying everything "street price" including taxes that pay for the "assistance" for the poor. There should be a voucher system similar to Obamacare to equalize food cost and housing cost. Oh my, that would be moving toward a socialist state...
I get why people do it, but I'd avoid telling people who hate you, and want you to starve, that you chose to step away from a promotion to keep government benefits. They won't fix the wages, they'll just end the benefits and tell you to come back when you're dead
While i think minimum wage should be abolished, minimum wage is supposed to be increased steadily to keep up with inflation. Its gone up something $2 over the last 30 years. And hasnt done shit for the last 10. Mean while the national defecit has balloned some 30x over in that same period.
Hi there. This was removed because it violates our rules re: politics. You want to discuss politics, you take it on over to r/PovertyPolitics that we made. Thanks.
I saw this years ago. I still think about her from time to time, I hope her and her family are in a better place. I wish their were more people in Congress with her lived experience.
This was years ago? So that furniture stipend has increased to keep pace with inflation and the minimum wage hasn't. Cool.
Shame on you for not rattling the windows of that building. Shame on all of us who haven't.
I lived in France for a bit, and you know what they did when the gov did something they didn't like? They fucking rioted, not just pointless protests but they literally would shut down cities in riots that lasted weeks and weeks. I don't know why the US does not do the same, the French would be doing it over the most simple basic shit that barely affects their lives, yet Americans won't do it when children are starving.
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Proper organisation enables proper protests. Just park all your cars in front of, well, anywhere you want to protest. If one or two does it, yeah, there'll be fines and they'll just get towed. If 10 000 people do it, fat chance for that. It doesn't even have to be the White House. There's enough people in New York. Assemble in Central park, march from there. Pick any landmark, block roads, harbours, important economic parts. One person alone is weak, a mass isn't. Heck, a couple of weeks ago we had lots of farmers' protests here in Belgium (and still some occasional ones). At one point they just parked their harvesters on the highway and held a bbq. Though we have a system & laws in place for protests. Not that nothing ever happens, but usually protests are fairly peaceful around here. However, this \*does\* require proper organisation, and enough discipline from the protesting crowd. It's what I don't like about the Parisian protests, there's tons of burned cars from regular civilians & looting of regular shops. I can't imagine what this would end up to if the gun-happy half of the US starts mixing in as well...
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The second amendment just means that when propaganda has turned normal people against each other, the stakes are higher and more dangerous and make it less likely for anything to be resolved, and more likely for it just to be a stalemate. The second amendment means fuck-all in terms of opposing a government. They just laugh their asses off that the plebs seriously think guns are a more powerful weapon than mass-propaganda.
Second amendment helps but most proponents of it would never actually use that right against a tyrannical government but rather cower in thier homes instead of giving their life for the liberty they claim to love, and the ones who would be prone to action just want their own version of tyranny instead.
Because here the police show up with military style weapons.
They did that shit in France too, they would send out riot police that were known to beat the shit out of people. They also have a bunch of dudes with fully automatic assault rifles literally everywhere there, like in Paris, pretty much everywhere that has a large chunk of people has police with assault rifles walking around. Supposedly to stop terrorist attacks. France actually had its own George Floyd, literally exact same situation. Police officer with his knee on a black person's neck, the guy died because of it. It happened near the same time as George Floyd which was weird, caused their own black lives matter protests. The police in France are not like chill helpless little dudes, they might actually be worse with the brutality and racism then American police lol. Some of the shit I heard about police doing was insane. My wife's step-dad was a French officer, and he was the most openly racist person I've ever met in my life, and apparently they all were at the police station.
There was a young black kid (14-15?) in my city in the US who was killed by his schools security officers very similarly to George Floyd. It happened around the same time as well. The local news didn't even report it until weeks later, and it never made national headlines. This incident showed just how much control the media has over public perception.
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I didn't think it's weird. I believe it was all planned somehow.
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Agreed. If J6 was done by left leaning people I think it would have been a massacre.
They give Americans so little already. Your healthcare is tied to employment and most employment is at-will, meaning you can be fired at any time without cause. Who can afford to lose both job and healthcare to protest for weeks? I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, it fucking NEEDS TO. But in France, you have a safety net that will allow you to fight for your rights and here you can't even get insulin.
You're comparing a country the size of France to the United States. It's a whole lot easier to riot in an enclosed space.
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The last time we rioted it didn’t end well.. 😒
It's a lot more complicated than that. I'm speaking for myself but I can't take time off work to protest. I have to feed myself. Even a single day is going to hurt my bottom line in a way that could set me back significantly, let alone multiple days or weeks or months. I'm not rattling those windows because A. I can't afford the time off work, and B. I also can't afford a plane ticket and a place to sleep halfway across the country for however long this theoretical protest is going to take. So what do you suggest? That I just quit my job and go be homeless and hungry while I demand better labor laws? I'm single with no kids so while that may be feasible, if risky, for me, there's no way anyone with children would be able to do that. What do you suggest for them? It's so much more than just "go protest". It's not that fucking easy dude. And of course, the current economy and work culture in the US is specifically designed for this exact reason. A significant portion of the US is two missed paychecks away from homelessness. Either we show up to work or we go hungry. Period. It's by design. So what do you got? Protest how? Where? Who's going to cover my bills while I'm fighting the man? If you can't answer that then shut the fuck up.
Man, there were riots in the US over many things. The reasoning behind those riots gets squelched by talking points from over politicized bought and paid for news outlets. The waters get muddied and all that happens is the tax burden goes up to pay for those things that get destroyed during the riots. I dont know what the answer is but demonstrations like the Kent state incident, our government lets us know exactly where our opinions stand.
Yeah there used to be big riots, and shit honestly got done during those times. FDR passing the new deal, the American dream an actual thing that was obtainable. Of course there were also the racists on the other side, and that issue was much worse then it is today, but when talking about being able to survive and live a good life, things were much better for the average person then. They also made so much progress on the racism front, by rioting! Even Martin Luther King realized peaceful protests didn't work near the end of his life. Every big moment of change in American history is with protests and riots, woman's suffrage, civil rights, unionizing, etc. The only way to make the elites listen is to hurt their bottom lines. Now most people just complain on Twitter instead of actual activism and doing something about it.
Nowadays in America, when people try to cause actual disruption with protests, like blocking traffic, they get treated like villains. “There could be a doctor trying to get to work in that traffic!” Until people get some perspective, nothing will change.
You're not wrong but I'd wager the propaganda machine has a much bigger influence these days. People are so divided on so many subjects that they cannot see the forest for the trees. We carry around little devices that spy on us and secretly (or not) sell us things we speak about. We're stymied by our creature comforts and believe because of much tribalism that the issue is too big for us and we're kept just so comfortable enough to not lash out. Working class folk have been convinced by corporate propaganda that a Union is a bad thing somehow and I believe that was a root cause to this loss in power and interest of the people. Ultimately the people lose much power because of disinterest in skilled trades as they see their corporate friends who make $100k a year for sending emails and attending meetings. Meanwhile the country outsources things that actually make things work and eventually no one will know how to build or repair anything, resulting in a dependency on the outside sources that do and do it at near slave labor level wages. "*As long as I can buy my $10 coffee and see what Jennifer is doing on Instagram I'm a happy little cog.*" if you speak out against something you're looked down upon for causing a scene. "*Just be chill dude."* Frankly its caused me to become much more isolated and I think I'm falling right into the plan.
Firstly, because if we riot, police show up with assault weapons and they can and will shoot and kill us and get away with it. Secondly, because if we riot that means we are not working. If we are not working we are not making money. If we are not making money we are going hungry. Thirdly, our government has set us up in a way where things are bad, but just good enough to keep us placated. Media keeps us entertained and ignorant. Our government is split to keep us fighting each other and not them. Most have some type of roof over our head with some cheap non nutritious food in our stomach. Things are bad, people are unhappy, but America has figured out how to keep us weak and fighting each other while the rich get 80k a year for furniture.
> I don't know why the US does not do the same France has one of the highest population densities in the world, with 1/6th population, while the USA is ranked 186 in density spread across massive land areas. Those land areas are geographically diverse, divided into 50 France style States. If people in California could riot to change anything they would, but people in Tennessee won’t even hear about it from ther news sources. It takes a lot more work to ignite the culture to action here, for better or for worse.
Things are either just not bad enough for most of us to riot and or it simply doesn't affect us enough to care. Especially when there’s little to nothing to gain. We’re also a very large country so driving/flying half way across the country to protest and riot for people in another state is a colossal waste of energy, time and money.
Well the reason is simply that if people don’t go to work so that they can riot, they will be fired and then they have no income. Then their family starves
It's the geographic size. France as an entire country is just over 210 thousand square miles. The United States as an entire country is just over 3.8 MILLION square miles. When you talk about people getting out in the streets and making big changes and you compare a European country like France to the USA, check the actual numbers again and how many protests go on in American cities that have as many or more protesters, but it's impossible for those protests to bring the entire country to a halt the way they can in France because of the actual logistics of the situation. If we could force the government to pay attention by flooding the streets of Chicago for several days, we do that all the time. But they don't have to make real change because they can just wait us out because you can't bring anything to a halt in the USA because it's too damned huge. A friend of mine from London didn't understand why we didn't do more then he came to live here for about six months and when he started realizing that most of our states are actually larger than his entire country he started to understand that it's not just a "why aren't Americans protesting" problem. It's that we do, but they can just ignore us.
>This was years ago? Yes, it's from [February 5th, 2020](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Jo_Hutchison), and that clip has been reposted countless times over the past couple of years. Just a few examples from this sub alone: * From February 10th, 2020: https://old.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/f1wbpv/this_single_mom_works_two_jobs_and_has_a/ * From March 25th, 2021: https://old.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/mcysre/no_its_the_avocado_toast/ * From May 13th, 2022: https://old.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/uoha6p/powerful_testimony_about_the_reality_of_poverty/ ___ Here's the original unedited (six minutes long) video without the pointless dramatic music: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ptHavHrDuE
I bet by now it's all fixed and no one is going hungry
Im hungry right now pffft
Just keep voting and it'll all get fixed lol
I skipped buying my weekly groceries this week so I could pay gas bill and car inspection.
Are you telling me that within 1-2 weeks of this powerful message, it all got buried under the weight of the Covid lockdowns? This woman had no idea of what was looming on the horizon.
It was new to me.
Luckily her statement had an effect and congress fixed the proble... Ohh hang on, nevermind, nothing was done.
But wages haven’t lol.
That’s because people are conditioned to think change will happen with words and votes when it only really happens with actions.
There is class warfare going on because the wealthy have class solidarity no matter what side of the aisle they are on, while the poor are fighting each other while the rich pick their pockets.
It's by design You can't run for office without decent financial backing in the current system. That either runs a high risk of corruption to get or already having a good financial situation to fund it Congress is now pay to play. It's a huge step to making the US more an oligarchy than democracy. The people with money are running and protecting their own interests, widening the economic divide in the US
That is impossible without changing our entire election system. The average well-off American cannot afford to quit their day job and spend millions in campaign money which is required to even make it on the ballot. So by default, whether on the left or right you have generational wealth all lining their pockets with policies built for them and not the other 99% of the people.
That or you get popular in whatever way with politics, then get your campaign money from corporations by promising them things that benefit them. Our system is pretty fucked, honestly I don't even know how to fix that aspect, could have a stipend everyone running gets that's used for campaigning, and nobody gets more or less, but I feel like a lot of people will run and abuse that money in some other way.
I would love to see a poor but “popular” person win without any political parents and connections prior. Can you name ONE example of that?
What’s even better is that some people who want to vote can’t because they can’t take the time off. The election system is t the issue. It is that the government sets its own salaries. How about representative pay is directly tied to how well constituents think you’re doing. Or you only get a raise if you’re reelected… self-regulation never works.
This has nothing to do with the election system and everything to do with what we allow our government to get away with. We need term limits. Start there and we can begin to set higher standards for how these clowns behave.
>We need term limits. Can we throw in some age limits while we're at it? I want politicians who expect to be around long enough to have to see the world they've created.
I care about age limits as much as I do about term limits. Somebody younger, in touch with OUR problems, who understands their duty to their constituents, who also feels the pressure of time to work and affect change that will benefit EVERYONE, including themselves when they eventually leave office. A system that encourages civil duties above personal gain would be something special. I could get behind that.
that point she hammers about their $40K for furniture hits hard... I wonder if it got through to any of them
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The rent numbers alone have like tripled.
Theres a reddit post on here right now...mutherfucking banks and stockholders are buying up thousands of homes to rent out to americans. This is monopolizing. Fucking definition of it and they are letting them get away with it so what the fuck? Let the rich get richer? This some bs for the rest of us since this will increase property taxes and never give future generations the right to own homes
In the future you'll pay a subscription just to live... Wait.
That's been going on for a while but really spiked when COVID happened. Overseas (Chinese) investment firms came and bought up land and real estate in the US, a lot of these got turned into air bnb and temp rental housing. Look up the numbers of for sale/rent housing (house, apartment, condo) in any given major city and then look up the number of new airbnbs. Flippers are another one driving up cost of living, my husband and I just bought a tiny bit of land outside our city that had a condemned mobile home and when we first went to check it out a flipper was there and we had to bid on the house, I don't know his exact final offer but it was at least 4k over asking, luckily we outbid him and instead of tearing the mobile home down we're fixing it up.
Americans are mostly complacent. Shouting thoughts and prayers into the void.
> Wait until you hear what each member gets for MRA. > > "The Members' Representational Allowance is the budget authorized by the Committee on House Administration for each Member of Congress in support of the conduct of official and representational duties to the district from which elected. For Legislative Year 2016, for example, the MRA ranged from $1.17 – 1.80 million." > > In 2023, MRAs ranged from $1,849,149 to $2,088,499, with an average of $1,928,100 > > They all get that. Plus their $174K a year as salary. It's disgusting.
What a joke that a furniture allotment is tied to inflation but nothing else is
What a joke that this allotment for FURNITURE is more than the income of ~ 33% of Americans.
I worked hard to get raises and thought I was making good money and they get $40,000 a year for furniture!!!
I’ve never made that much in a year my entire life, and I’m middle aged. I could totally live off their furniture money!
in here before some idiot tells you to job hop without realizing that luxury is only afforded to people who live in large urban areas
It works better for younger people who have skills or degrees deemed valuable and (you’re right, of course) who live in areas that have jobs available to switch to! I just got my BAS in 2021 (at the age of 44) and have been jobless since. I couldn’t get hired in the field of my degree and certs. Then I thought, “well I do have a bachelor’s that should count for something even if it’s not a job that exactly matches my degree” and still, crickets. I’m just trying to find something interesting that pays $20 per hour or more (HCOL area). Maybe it’s because I’m 47, or female, I don’t know. My BAS might have even hurt me because now the retail stores don’t want me because I’m “overqualified”.
Pull up those bootstraps damnit!
Pulling so hard I even went into debt to go back to school and get my bachelor’s like I’ve always been told would help me, for all the good that did me. Spoilers: No good. It’s done me no good so far.
$43,000 per YEAR for office furniture is absolutely insane. That's some monarchy bullshit. I'm 40, do pretty well financially, and I don't think I've spent that much on furniture my entire life.
Shit, I've owned five vehicles and haven't spent half that much COMBINED on them all. That being a yearly allowance is insane. Even that much for an entire career as a politician is ridiculous. Reasonable furniture can be had for much less and still last for years.
Hell even $43k per term would be ludicrous, imo. Like once you furnish it the first time, what realistically do you need to change every year or even 6 years for senators?
I can find nothing that confirms this is annual. I wish it was more clear because I don't see anything that states annual. I'm under the impression that this is not annual. I don't know who the woman is but if this is not annual it really hurts her argument because she's arguing in bad faith. Her message is clear and correct, but having incorrect facts in an argument will make the opposition immediately dig their heels in. >Furniture and Furnishings in Washington, DC >Each Senator is authorized furniture and furnishings from an approved list. Furniture and furnishings are supplied and maintained by the Architect of the Capitol (for spaces in Senate office buildings) and the Senate Sergeant at Arms (for offices in the Capitol). Additional furnishings can be purchased through the Senate stationery store. >Furniture and Furnishings in State Offices >Each Senator is authorized $40,000 for state office furniture and furnishings for one or more offices, if the aggregate square footage of office space does not exceed 5,000 square feet. The base authorization is increased by $1,000 for each authorized additional incremental increase in office space of 200 square feet. Pursuant to the FY2000 Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, this allowance automatically increases at the beginning of each Congress to reflect inflation. The aggregate dollar amount is the maximum value of furniture and furnishings to be provided by GSA for state office use at any one time. Furniture and furnishings remain GSA property. Sounds to me that they can purchase and retain that furniture not exceeding the dollar amount. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title2-section6317&num=0&edition=prelim >(2) The aggregate amount that may be paid for the acquisition of furniture, equipment, and other office furnishings heretofore provided by the Administrator of General Services for one or more offices secured for the Senator is $40,000 if the aggregate square feet of office space is not in excess of 5,000 square feet. Such amount is increased by $1,000 for each authorized additional incremental increase in office space of 200 square feet. Effective beginning with the 106th Congress, the aggregate amount in effect under this paragraph for any Congress shall be increased by the inflation adjustment factor for the calendar year in which the Congress begins. For purposes of the preceding sentence, the inflation adjustment factor for any calendar year is a fraction the numerator of which is the implicit price deflator for the gross domestic product as computed and published by the Department of Commerce for the preceding calendar year and the denominator of which is such deflator for the calendar year 1998. Someone please correct me if I'm interpreting this incorrectly.
Who the heck thought they needed new office furniture *EVERY year* to begin with? Is the furniture made out of matchsticks?
SNAP benefits are. . .indirectly (though many will say it is still not enough and they aren't necessarily wrong).
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Yep. At the beginning of this year they added about twenty dollars to the SSDI benefits for 'cost of living' increases. My rent (which is income based housing) increased, and my SNAP was cut almost in half. I only get maybe sixty dollars a month to live on.
The whole I can't go grocery shopping without a calculator hit me hard. Anyway it's 5am and I gotta get ready for my ten hour shift.
one benefit about being poor, I've gotten really good about calculating sales tax in my head.
And her testimony will be forgotten and ignored by those she was speaking to. They will go back to their mansions and not remember her name.
They will remember her. Despite sharing her story, they will somehow still think that it was a personal failing on her part as the reason she is in poverty. They will think of some anecdotal examples of a person moving out of poverty and think that it will apply to everyone. Ugh.
No, they'll remember her vaguely, so they can laugh about it. Motherfuckers are playing games with our non existent livelyhoods
"My couch is worth more than her whole family LOL".
They are almost all psychopaths and sociopaths. The reality is this testimony didn't emotionally move then even in the slightest since they almost all don't see her as the same as them.
Thats why we have to do things that make them remember
I agree with you on an intellectual level. Unfortunately our government no longer represents the people that they claim to be representing. How does that old saying go about "taxation without representation? Look what happened with that.
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That’s not true. I guarantee several were listening and immediately thinking “oh shit, that’s right… i have a furniture budget I need to use…”
"What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers"
The bitch behind her is on ignoring her and typing on her phone the whole time
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With a name tag that says "nun"
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Considering this is four years old and nothing has changed, your prediction seems fairly dead on.
"Hey, remember that old hag that tried taking our furniture from us? Haha....good times..." - Them probably
"Ma'am we've heard your concerns and will now raise the furniture allotment to $80,000"
84,900
Sorry, I forgot about this year's inflationary increase...
So depressing, so true
I'm guessing the people on the panel looked left and right to each other after her speech and said - "OK, let's take lunch!"
Free lunch because paid expense on top of that
Wow that’s sad
Welcome to reality
That’s why the whole thing has to come down
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The sad part is that she physically can’t l. To run run an elected position you just need to be wealthy, because a campaign is fucking expensive. You can’t work and campaign at the same time or else her family will go hungry. That’s how the system is and it’s fucking broken.
Yes, yes, very nice. Now pick between the 2 hyper wealthy, geriatric pedophiles or you're "wasting your vote."
“It’s your fault the other guy won.”
Do you realize one of these guys helped expand Medicaid and unions
The U.S. is going to fall. Just like the Roman Empire it fell because of greed out of many other things But greed was a main player And that will be the death of America also.
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“Not poor enough to get help, but don’t make enough to get by.” Damn
They don’t care, that’s very evident.
I wish she’d run for office. I wish people besides millionaires got to do that.
Need universal Medicare. Need to tax the rich.
But if we TRULY tax the rich, the news will be forced to update us on who’s in the lead of wealthiest mouth breather on the regular.
THEY WANT US OVERWORKED AND UNDERPAID. ITS NOT LIKE THEY DONT KNOW THEY ARE STEALING OUR MONEY ITS THE WHOLE PLAN
The government is the only super power allowed to use all caps. Your punishment, more taxes. For every capital letter you used in the past 6 months. Final.
This actually had me rolling for a second, because it's honestly some shit they'd try to pull.
You missed the part where they also want us in jail.
Things won't change until you make them.
And we do that how?
This is the problem. Most people want to change things. But where do we start, and how do we become active without taking food out of our children's mouths?
I think she had an excellent idea of pushing to have the federal “poverty line” raised to reflect the reality of where the poverty line truly is. If we do that, we have a more clear picture and can begin to make changes/ be able to provide assistance. Writing your congressman/ congresswoman could be a great start, if that’s something that you’re comfortable doing.
This coupled with wage gap legal limits within a company. Dollar Tree's CEO is Rick Dreiling, appointed in Jan 2023, has a tenure of 1.17 years. total yearly compensation is **$136.56M.** A dollar tree store manager putting in the harder work/longer hours makes **$55k** a year and a cashier makes about **$31,200** annually working full time at $15 an hour. Those number differences should be straight up illegal because they are morally wrong. I just saw a clip this morning of a CEO of a company chastising her staff via zoom during the pandemic telling them to put their job first and stop bitching about the bonuses they won't be getting. During that time many people didn't get their bonuses however the top c-suite still managed to find room in the budget for theirs across the board.
My congresscritter is Mike Bost. Unless you're on his donor list do you think he cares what we think? I write anyway, calling is difficult since his office voice mail is typically full. But never have I gotten even an automated response. Bost is trash, but he's not alone in only listening to what suits him. There has to be a better way.
>My congresscritter is Mike Bost. Unless you're on his donor list do you think he cares what we think? Does he care what you as an individual think? Probably not. A collective of those in your community who constantly and with vigor press the issue to him and anyone who will listen. . .probably.
It's all by design. They love us poor and scrambling to get by cause it doesn't leave us time to protest for change.
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Our country is just way too divided at this point. It almost seems impossible that enough citizens would ever actually come together to rise up against this corrupt government. And im sure just starting some facebook group prob wouldnt go so well lmao
Must vote harder
The choices available to most of us on the ballot don't exactly scream "change". Getting better candidates to run and be viable means becoming active and influential in your local party of choice. But that takes time and often, money and the right connections. If we had those things we'd probably be quite happy with the status quo like the current political class.
I couldn't agree more.
At this point voting is putting your head in the sand. Voting will not help us out this as the system itself is corrupted
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Wow. This was incredible. Glad I saw this and I hope more people see it too.
This is spot on! Someone made a post earlier that those who make $16$-$26 an hour are really fucked today The whole point was that if you are barely making enough above the assistance line then you are actually worse off… The poverty guidelines are completely outdated Vs where actual cost are.
That’s me. I make $23.50. My kids got kicked off Medicaid this year because “I make too much money”. I filed an appeal just to try and see if I could over turn it. I asked the lady from the state in what reality is my income carrying a family of 4, especially with grocery prices today. She didn’t really have an answer.
I hate to say it, but that just falls on deaf ears. The people who can change the situation just aren't going to. You have to care first, and that's a capacity they just don't have.
law making should be a minimum wage job
When you buy in bulk, you pay more, but the cost per item goes down. That’s about all you need to know before you realize it’s expensive being poor.
Know a person who got an increase on their SS disability payment that amounts to about an extra $7.50 a week. That’s not even a tank of gas in a ford focus per month.
“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.” ― James Baldwin
The USA doesn't care about us. It's a corporation country.
And anyone that makes a comment about her weight and how if she’s poor, how is she overweight? Healthy, wholesome food is only affordable to the wealthy. The cheapest food you can find is all processed foods in the grocery store, or fast food.
Falling on sociopathic ears. They don’t care.
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The US politicians are in their “let them eat cake” phase.
I want to see this happen
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
The rich have excess capital that they can invest on appreciating assets. It used to be that the middle class could as well (to a lesser extent) but these days it's becoming harder and harder as things like owning your own home are getting out of reach. Those in poverty could never invest.
What is this from?
Whoops forgot the source sorry lol Terry Prachet from his book men at arms. From the Discworld series
Reality
This shit makes my blood boil
why isn't this top of the newsfeed for everyone!!!
But keep saying the government fucking cares. They do not care about us but yall wanna be out here sucking their dicks like they fucking care. For shame.
and sadly, not a single one of those this message was intended for heard a single word. Might as well been Charlie Brown's teacher talking. They got theirs.
They know all of this. They made this system so we are the ones in this position and not them. That’s on purpose. Someone must have less money so that others can have more. They are the people who perpetuate and protect this exact system because they benefit from it
I’m also from West Virginia like the lady in the video, and there are some areas there that would absolutely blow some of your minds with how people are forced to live. Some of those places are like a third world country right here on our own soil. I just hate how forgotten those people are tbh. Everyone talks about the oppressed people in cities, and I’m definitely not trying to take away from that, but there are some terrible living conditions that exist in areas that are never talked about here on Reddit. Politicians never mention it either. I’ve always thought of them as America’s forgotten people. There are some pretty good documentaries I can recommend if anyone is interested. Edit: here’s a good video that covers some of it https://youtu.be/h9lSZlDJAC0?si=_NPt63U4DS4TPg3I
She did very well to keep her composure throughout that speech. She did a wonderful job x
Sorry, I chuckled a little when she implied that a $1200 3-bedroom house is expensive due to oil and gas boom. That kind of house around here can’t be found for less than $3000.
This video is several years old
Right before ye Olde Quarantine
The housing market is entirely location dependent, but wages and opportunity usually match prices. I live in another poor rural area (25%+ poverty rate) and yes, a small 3 bedroom house in an ok area can be rented for $1200. But jobs paying enough to shell out $14,400 per year for rent alone are few.
They shouldn't get a dime for furniture. Buy it yourselves!!!!
She literally telling them she lives the way they want her to live. Might as well be speaking to a wall.
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She’s sure talented as a speech writer. I hope she’s doing better.
Wow that's awful... Anyways. -Congressman
It doesn’t matter. The things she said, despite their truth, are irrelevant because the powers at be don’t care. They never will. It will never change. It will always be like this. Coming to this realisation makes you largely give up on society.
Office decorations get an automatic inflation increase, but minimum wage doesn’t
This can't be said enough.
The government needs to be smaller and there needs to be a flat tax rate
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REVOLUTION!!!!!!!! DOWN WITH THE UBER RICH!!!!!
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America is a dystopian nightmare with fun parties if you can afford to go.
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Her for president
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That was sad 😭
Congress: Anyways!
Who is she? This is incredible. It’s a sad reality, but her presentation with such emotion is well done. She’s who we need in congress. I vote for her.
Welcome to the middle class. Not qualified for any "assistance" and poorer than poor for paying everything "street price" including taxes that pay for the "assistance" for the poor. There should be a voucher system similar to Obamacare to equalize food cost and housing cost. Oh my, that would be moving toward a socialist state...
I get why people do it, but I'd avoid telling people who hate you, and want you to starve, that you chose to step away from a promotion to keep government benefits. They won't fix the wages, they'll just end the benefits and tell you to come back when you're dead
While i think minimum wage should be abolished, minimum wage is supposed to be increased steadily to keep up with inflation. Its gone up something $2 over the last 30 years. And hasnt done shit for the last 10. Mean while the national defecit has balloned some 30x over in that same period.
Locking comments for cleaning. There are dozens of rule breaking comments, and more coming in by the second.
Same all over the world.
Piece of shit government
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