Video of 1/2-Mile Line for Food in Virginia Goes Viral After Being RT'ed by The Lincoln Project, etc

[lowkell]

https://bluevirginia.us/2020/09/video-of-1-2-mile-line-for-food-in-chesterfield-county-va-goes-viral-after-being-retweeted-by-the-lincoln-project-director-judd-apatow-etc

A striking visual of hardship and hunger in #TrumpsAmerica

[Leghorn21]

1. ...and this is just *one* food bank in *one* county

Link to tweet

[mucifer]

2. Another Lincoln Project tweet:

Link to tweet

?s=20

The country is burning. It’s sick. It’s hungry. It’s broke. And what is the president talking about? The Mueller Report and Hillary’s emails.

[leighbythesea2]

3. That really

Takes your breath away. It didnt have to be this way.

[Grasswire2]

4. It's striking to me that everyone in line seems to have a nice car there.

The food bank I have volunteered at here is nothing like that. Many people walk to the church with carts or wagons. Or they come in beaters or very well used old cars. Public transportation only comes about half a mile away, but some arrive that way.

[Hekate]

5. What it shows is that even people with nice cars & a place to live are only a couple of paychecks...

...away from what we see. Soon the evictions will start. The middle class is hollowed out in America, and there is almost NO safety net.

[Grasswire2]

6. what it also signals to me is that many people have cars they likely won't be able to keep.

As they will need to try to sell them to get out from under the loans.

Does that seem likely?

[Hekate]

7. Dunno. How do you get to work without one? Can you sleep in yours after eviction?

The American Way is to spend all the money that comes in, re-fi the house and take the money out, take out money from your 401K. Max out the credit cards. So yes, we are talking about people who have (or had) a 401k and a house. Plus a nice car.

A few years ago I read that the majority of Americans don’t even have $400 in the bank for an emergency. How the hell did we get here?

Sure, millions of consumers made millions of individual decisions, but if you don’t think advertising pressure works, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. We were redefined as “consumers” right after WW II. But in my lifetime I have seen pension plans gutted and continuous pressure to kill Social Security. The biggest cause of bankruptcy is devastating medical costs.

We’ve already been thru the crisis where a lot of people were talked into overspending on houses and then lost them to the banks. This is orders of magnitude worse.

Those people will hang on to their cars as long as they can.

[Grasswire2]

8. well, some of us do use public transportation, but I realize that's not universally available.

I gave up having a car fifteen years ago, but I live in an area where public transportation is damned good, and a taxi service is reliable and reasonable. The car was more a liability than an asset.

I never thought of a car as being a "bubble" of safety in a pandemic. I see that now. But I still wouldn't want one.

[Hekate]

14. As long as you can put gas in it you can get out in case of disaster, as well

I didn’t get my DL until I was 30. I lived someplace where the bus system was cheap and reliable. Then at 32 I moved to a medium sized California town and that was hugely different — I could spend all day on the local bus trying to get the toddler to the pediatrician or some other necessary errand. I had to get over my fear of driving if I wanted to get a divorce, a job, childcare, and all the rest — and it helped that there was only one freeway through my town.

My husband and I aren’t big on cars as status symbols. We shop by reading Consumer Reports, then we buy something new and drive it till the wheels fall off. Our Honda Accord is going on 12 years old, and our Camry wagon is 30 years old. I admit the Camry needs replacing, but we are using the Honda for all freeway driving now. In this way, I guess we are counter-culture.

As far as getting out of town, 3 years ago we had to evacuate with the clothes on our backs. I think we made it out of the house in 15 minutes flat: wake hubby, leash dog, wake hubby again, medicine, make hubby go outside and look at the fire lighting up the sky, important papers, and both cars.

I look at all those cars in line at the food bank and know that each one has a family with kids who used to carpool to afterschool activities and parents who used to have jobs they commuted to, and now the refrigerators and cupboards are empty and they are drowning. I feel so bad for them, because when a societal disaster is this big, it was not just their individual decisions that brought them there. Those cars, if they can hold on to them, are going to be their lifeline back to some semblance of normalcy.

[CloudWatcher]

9. tents ...

I've read (on DU) that tents and camping gear are almost impossible to find. Seems demand is far outpacing supply ....

[Codifer]

11. Will Rogers said it

during the depression.

America is the first nation to drive to the poorhouse in an automobile.

[Karadeniz]

17. And we have the best politicians money can buy. One smart cookie? Was it an automobile

Or a Cadillac?

[Hekate]

20. Automobiles replaced the horse and buggy. Automobiles enabled the Dust Bowl Refugees...

...to escape to California rather than starve on their dead farms. And I think it was cars that enabled African Americans to escape the South for places like MoTown and Chicago.

So — he had a point, but on the whole it made us the most mobile nation since nomadic tribes tamed the horse in the first place.

Right now we have a nation having withdrawal pains from all this freedom of movement.

[reACTIONary]

28. The Great Migration.... Trains....

Trains were the principle transportation for AA's moving north.

By the end of 1919, some 1 million blacks had left the South, usually traveling by train, boat or bus; a smaller number had automobiles or even horse-drawn carts.

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/great-migration

[Hekate]

30. Thank you. I knew there was something missing.

[Ferrets are Cool]

12. This

[Grokenstein]

13. "No one who owns a car is poor!"

[Hekate]

16. Can't remember which uber-wealthy right winger said that people in American slums were not...

...really, truly, poor because they had refrigerators and phones. He didn’t add running water, but it would have been in keeping with his sentiment if he had. It was very much in the vein of the cartoon in your post.

[paleotn]

25. Sean Insanity maybe?

I remember that and I do believe it was a Faux News talking schmuck. Which one? Doesn't matter. They're all the same.

[NickB79]

29. John Stewart said it best

"You food chilling mother fuckers!"

[keithbvadu2]

18. In one case, I agree with 'if you have...'

In one case, I agree with 'if you have...'

Moochers that have money for cigarettes and are out bumming for food.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. I noticed the same thing.

I have long been very bothered by people always owing money on a car. Other than perhaps your very first car, you should never owe money on one. Buy less car than you'd like, but don't be beholden to a bank or finance company. Worse yet, don't every be upside down on the car loan. Because if you are, and the car is totalled, the insurance payment is for the value of the car, not what you owe. I know several people who have learned this the hard way.

Yes, I realize these are hard times. But there are certain economic basics too many people never learn. Many years ago, as in the late 1960s or early 1970s, I read an article in Life Magazine profiling a man who had a modest income but who had gradually built up something like a two years' supply of non-perishable food as a hedge against food price inflation. What has always stayed with me what he said when asked how did he manage to pull that off. He said, "Keep in mind there is always someone down the road who is making $2,000 a year less than you are [Think 10 or 20k now] and they are getting along." That has never left me.

The same with no savings for retirement. Unless you are actually at the poverty level, you can save something. There's something in your spending that can be reduced or eliminated. But all too often I see people with incomes well above the average or median who complain that IT'S NOT POSSIBLE TO SAVE ANY MONEY!!! Yeah, it is, but you will have to give up something.

I have also done volunteer work at my local homeless shelter, and I have some notion of what's involved.

All that said, this video is why we should have a Universal Basic Income. Or perhaps, every single person in the country gets some basic SNAP benefit. Everyone. Not means tested. A certain amount is loaded on a debit card each month, and whatever is not used goes away and the new amount gets loaded the next month. Personally, were I to get the SNAP benefit that way, I'd immediately use it to buy food for my homeless shelter. The UBI I could use to free up money to donate to various worthy and appropriate causes.

No matter how much I rail about people being idiots with money, I recognize that at this point I am comfortable enough to help others, at least a little.

[paleotn]

24. That's the thing about an economic crises....

A lot of folks you'd least expect are just a couple of missed paychecks away from a food bank. Economic crises rip away the facade projected in "good times." And S&P be damned, that's exactly what we're in, with bankruptcy becoming the daily talking point for months to come. The damage will be at least as lasting as the financial crises of 2008, probably worse and longer. Back then the equity markets didn't collapse fully until we were well into the great recession. Wile E. Coyote has left the cliff edge behind, but doesn't know it yet. Just Republicans driving the country into a ditch...AGAIN! But this time they rolled it a couple times and hit a tree.

[warmfeet]

10. So, we can give millionaires and billionaires massive tax breaks?

We can afford that.

But, we cannot afford the cost of the average citizen to eat?

Anyone want to change this bullshit? Bueller? Bueller?

This is fucked up. Let's change it. Now!

Security is not protecting our borders, it is ensuring that people (all fucking people - I don't give a shit where they are from) within our borders have the best chance possible to live. We all deserve dignity. We all deserve dignity. We all deserve dignity.

Okay, beyond that - every fucking living thing on this planet deserves dignity - humans are one life form of many. All deserve dignity.

Sorry for the rant. Also, not so sorry. It needs to be said.

[Evolve Dammit]

15. So much winning...

[Illumination]

21. OMG! Look what Trump created!!!

[Roland99]

22. I spent 15 mos flying to that area every week

Was mostly in the SE corner of that county and into Prince George

But that area I remember being rather diverse and solidly middle class overall, with some pockets of lower income areas

Good to see a change toward blue. Voting FOR their best interests instead of against

That food line. Ugh. Depressing

But the Rolls Royce Aircraft plant in the Prince George area recently announced it was closing. That’s where I worked for that 15 mos. and Petersburg had a sizeable military presence and a regional law enforcement training facility

[IronLionZion]

23. Find your local food bank here if you'd like to donate

https://www.feedingamerica.org/find-your-local-foodbank

I donate every month and switch between my local food bank and the national Feeding America.

[paleotn]

26. Wonderful idea!

Thanks.

[Hekate]

27. Thank you so much

When I moved away from Santa Barbara County I lost track of the one I used to support. Now by inputting my Zip Code (Ventura city) I have discovered the closest one is in Oxnard, which is in Ventura County.