@Nonilex
Ignopring that the money not going to paying the excessive interest will be going into the local economies, as people have money available to buy furniture or better housing.
(1/)Juneteenth? That’s a great excuse to help me out! I paid my phone bill before my loan payment come out. I MEANT to take the money out again and use it for my phone. It’s a lot, about $160 so anything is welcome. anything more is needed for food 🙏🏾🥹
The problems of skewed political coverage in the media becomes so clear at election time:
On the one hand, wall-to-wall coverage of Reform UK, a limited company (masquerading as a political party) run by privately educated men from financial services, whose electoral success is limited;
On the other hand record levels of food bank use, rampant poverty & a health crisis all treated as something that is only news-worthy from time-to-time.... and merely unfortunate
Morning🫡 I'm trying to raise about $80 to buy enough groceries to last me until the next disability check day Any donations are appreciated. Boosting is needed as well. Thank you so much💞
Today in Labor History June 7, 1929: Striking textile workers battled police in Gastonia, North Carolina, during the Loray Mill Strike. Police Chief O.F. Aderholt was accidentally killed by one of his own officers during a protest march by striking workers. Nevertheless, the authorities arrested six strike leaders. They were all convicted of “conspiracy to murder.”
The strike lasted from April 1 to September 14. It started in response to the “stretch-out” system, where bosses doubled the spinners’ and weavers’ work, while simultaneously lowering their wages. When the women went on strike, the bosses evicted them from their company homes. Masked vigilantes destroyed the union’s headquarters. The NTWU set up a tent city for the workers, with armed guards to protect them from the vigilantes.
One of the main organizers was a poor white woman named Ella May Wiggans. She was a single mother, with nine kids. Rather than living in the tent city, she chose to live in the African American hamlet known as Stumptown. She was instrumental in creating solidarity between black and white workers and rallying them with her music. Some of her songs from the strike were “Mill Mother’s Lament,” and “Big Fat Boss and the Workers.” Her music was later covered by Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie, who called her the “pioneer of the protest ballad.” During the strike, vigilantes shot her in the chest. She survived, but later died of whooping cough due to poverty and inadequate medical care.
For really wonderful fictionalized accounts of this strike, read “The Last Ballad,” by Wiley Cash (2017) and “Strike!” by Mary Heaton Vorse (1930).
A 3 year waitlist would be short at this point. Often it's 5+ years, or they close the waitlist for a year or two, only opening it up for a brief window, and then they'll tell you that that advertised 5 years is closer to 7. It varies from area to area, and a lot of people don't seem to understand that. It's not as easy as they seem to think, and if you have to move due to poverty and needing to find something cheaper, you might move out of the area you applied in, so you get to apply and get to the back of the next waitlist.
Housing is a human right, and we need to start treating it as such, not as a fucking commodity/investment.
@MikeDunnAuthor 2nd, almost all Americans have nothing to do with the bad actions of the US government (which is only a tiny minority). The US Fed Gov in Washington D.C. is despised by most Americans.
The US is a nation of White immigrants. Until the 1960s the US was over 90% White with a European heritage.
Even the first immigration law states that only "a White person of good character" can become a citizen.
@MikeDunnAuthor First, the US Fed Gov is only supposed to be a common cooperation forum for their member states.
Social welfare is supposed to be as local as possible, so that the right people get the protection they need - and not some corporate welfare and money laundering operations in a far away capital.
Social welfare is handled by the states, like in Europe where the EU member countries handle their own welfare.
How can you expect the product of your labour to support all the plutocrats & bourgeoisie, the owners, managers, landlords, bankers, etc in the manner that they would wish, & still have any left over for you, the despised peasant.
Today in Labor History May 30, 1899: Pearl Hart committed one of the last stage coach robberies in America, and one of the only committed by a woman. At a young age, she married a man who turned out to be abusive. After watching Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, she decided that the cowboy lifestyle was the life for her. So, she abandoned her husband and caught a train to Trinidad, Colorado (near the site of the future Ludlow Massacre). "I was only twenty-two years old. I was good-looking, desperate, discouraged, and ready for anything that might come." During this time, she may have worked as a prostitute and developed a morphine habit. However, she wasn’t earning much money and decided to rob a stagecoach, along with a companion, Joe Boot. She cut her hair short and dressed as a man. They robbed the stagecoach without incident. But the authorities caught up them and arrested them less than a week later. Hart escaped, but was recaptured after two weeks. During her trial, she pleaded that she needed the money for her sick mother. The jury acquitted her, which really pissed off the judge.
Today in Labor History May 28, 1797: French authorities executed proto-anarchist revolutionary Gracchus Babeuf. Babeuf formed a secret society during the time of the French Revolution, known as the Conspiracy of the Equals, that plotted to overthrow the revolutionary government, and replace it with one that was truer to Jacobin ideals. The group included Sylvain Maréchal, Jacques Roux, Jean Varlet and others. Specifically, they called for a society with absolute equality, through the collectivization of all lands and the means of production, and putting an end to all poverty, at least for citizens of France. They also called for the abolition of private property and equal access to food, demands that resonated heavily among the impoverished French population, who were suffering from hunger during the economic crisis that followed the Revolution. By early April, 1796, half a million Parisians were in need of relief. And people began singing Babeuf’s song, Mourant de faim, mourant de froid ("Dying of Hunger, Dying of Cold"), in the cafés.
Throughout his life, Babeuf advocated for the poor and for the abolition of private property. He said "Society must be made to operate in such a way that it eradicates once and for all the desire of a man to become richer, or wiser, or more powerful than others."
@ZoidbergForPresident
No, of course not.
Babeuf, and the conspiracy of equals were the radical left wing fringe of the French revolution, and it was the Jacobins who murdered them
You know the worst things about social safety net programs like Medicaid is that they punish the most vulnerable for trying to escape poverty. I'm sitting here thinking about my financial aid and whether a refund check from student loans will ruin my healthcare, bcuz I'm disabled and need my medical care to be free. There's also the fact I'm actively discouraged from saving bcuz if I save too much I'll get kicked off too.
Ah, #capitalism. Neoclasical (mainstream) economic theory tells us it ensures resources will be put to the best, most efficient use. However, ignores the obvious: wealth equals power, so that what is "best" for society is what the richest value.
Like chasing everlasting youth by getting weekly blood transfusions from your teenage son and $40,000 gym membership add-ons.
It can certainly seems, sometimes, as if a given thing does not have much immediate economic value, or even that it ever will, to many or most. That's a criticism many level at many forms of research. Some of us are very reluctant to strongly judge most such decisions.
Few would argue that capitalism does not involve any poor choices. Many argue that it results in superior outcomes when compared with any viable alternative.
"I do think that history makes it pretty clear that free markets and capitalism*, on average, lead to much better outcomes** for humanity than anything else we've tried."