What percent of Blacks in NO were on welfare? Hear me out....

[Quixote1818]

I got this insane reply back from one of my e-mails. This person makes the assumption that basically everyone in New Orleans that stayed behind was on the welfare dole? Why is it that just because people are poor and Black everyone jumps to the conclusion that the state takes care of all their needs? I am willing to bet MOST of the people who had trouble leaving NO had jobs and were NOT on welfare. Also, people in the Superdome and in the Convention center were PREVENTED from leaving by FEMA!

Here was part of the brilliant :sarcasm: letter:

As I was watching the events unfold I was struck by the fact that the people of New Orleans were not able to organize them selves in any manner. It struck me that the liberal belief in the state creating such a total dependency on govt. has caused many of these deaths by the individuals inability to think and act to pull together for there lives. In life one of the hard lessons is that you must be able to think and act independently for self preservation.

[knowbody0]

1. he is repeating O'Reilly

many were living on social security having worked all their lives. many were disabled. many were working minimum wage. they were POOR.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Besides, I have been impressed with how calm and organized

people were.

People were taking care of one another.

New Orleans is notorious for having a high crime rate, so it's not surprising that there was crime, but by and large, it looked as if people were cooperating and helping one another.

[Lindsay]

12. I was gonna say they must have been watching different

things on the teevee than I was. (Well, yeah, they were probably watching Faux. I was not.)

I was touched by the way people were taking care of each other - pooled money if they had it, pooled supplies if they could scrounge them.

I am so tired of people who only see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear.

[kestrel91316]

3. I betcha the truth is this:

that the vast majority of NOLA's blacks were either working poor, blue collar/lower middle class, or white collar/middle class. Remember, welfare has been gutted, so there can't have been that many just sitting around on their duffs.

Some of those black folks were upper middle class and successful professionals also. Engineers, medical professionals. It is pure racism to imply that they were lazy freeloaders just because they were black. Sheesh.

[Erika]

8. Welfare no longer exists

Disability and food stamps do. Many employers like WalMart do hand out food stamp applications with their employment applications.

No one is on welfare without working unless they are disabled. Only the rich in this contry get the breaks.

[kikiek]

4. They don't believe that the working poor exist. Trying to tell people

that is like hitting your head against a brick wall. They have no clue that people work 2 or 3 jobs and still live at poverty line or lower and without medical coverage.

[delen]

5. It's easier to write them off that way

to dehumanize people if you can fit them into a subset of humanity, think about the term "underclass" and what that really signifies to freeper types, also many of "freepers" are close to being that themselves, so it's also a form of denial.Call it the "that ain't me" syndrome

[spuddonna]

7. Very succinct and well put! n/t

[Nevilledog]

6. Think independently? LOL

"In life one of the hard lessons is that you must be able to think and act independently for self preservation." says the idiot repeating crap FROM O'Reilly. These people are incapable of thinking... AT ALL.

[tabasco]

9. Racist bullshit. Make him prove his bullshit claims.

These are the people that hold Rush Limbaugh in great admiration.

The corporate elite spend a lot on propaganda and these fools believe it.

Tell him he should move to republican paradise: SOMALIA

NO TAXES
NO GOVERNMENT
NO SOCIAL PROGRAMS
NO GUN RESTRICTIONS



THE REPUBLICANS ARE TRYING TO TURN THE USA INTO SOMALIA AND THEY ARE DOING A GREAT JOB !

ALSO ASK HIM WHY HE IS NOT IN IRAQ WHEN THE ARMY IS IN DESPERATE NEED FOR RECRUITS!


edit typo

[eleny]

10. Bullshit - those are the Repuke talking points

"I was struck" -- the least they could do is not lie. But that comes with their territory. Please call them on this. Please please!

Edit: And here's one of the origns:
http://tiadaily.com/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=1026


"An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

by Robert Tracinski
Sep 02, 2005

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over four days last week. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state."

[tabasco]

24. The USA, the welfare state!?! LMAO !!

Do these fools even realize that the US has the weakest social safety net of ANY industrialized nation?

Jesus Christ,the corporate elite want to become monarchs. That's why they spend massive $$$$$$ to fool these idiotic people. We live in a nation of fools. They have allowed the "haves and have-mores" to gain control of our government and now it is going to be a giant fight to get it back. We have nothing but the TRUTH on our side.

[Hamlette]

11. Louisiana, like all states, has a life time limit on welfare

In LA a household with dependent children can get 24 months of assistance in any 60 month period and there is a 60 month lifetime limit on assistance.

Hard to get dependent on government if your benefits run out in 24 months.

Remember too, if you don't have dependent children, you get nothing.

[Quixote1818]

15. Thanks for that info!!!! That's exactly what I was looking for! nt

[Hamlette]

21. You might also like to know. . .

the MAXIMUM monthly financial benefit for a "welfare" family in LA is $240. Yep. That's right. No matter how big the family is, the maximum is $240.

Additionally, less than 2% of the federal budget (welfare and food stamps are both federally funded) goes to welfare while a full 20% of the federal budget goes to pay interest on the national debt. Pay off the debt your taxes will go down 20%. Eliminate welfare your taxes will go down less than 2%.

Welfare is aka TANF and has a work requirement. Some families are exempt but overall a state has to have something like 60% of all welfare families working in the neighborhood of 30 hours a week. (It gets complicated based on your state's past performance.) That's to get the $240 per month...for a family...for a maximum of 60 months. In many states the maximum number of moths is lower. In Tenn it is 18 months.

Here's a great article on the make up of Katrina victims:

http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/KATRINAVICTIMS.PDF

[Quixote1818]

26. Thanks for that. I saved that info for several people I know. nt

[SOteric]

22. Moreover, - Louisiana is the 'sportsman's paradise.'

They allow hunting and fishing pretty much all year round with only the occasional restriction on endangered game.

For decades Louisiana's poor have been able to keep body and soul together by daubing for crawdad, gigging for frogs, fishing the bayou, rivers and streams. Part of the rich tradition of creole cuisine includes a wide variety of acceptable food animals. They'll willingly consume opposum, squirrel, gator... whatever.

I think even presuming that the poor of southeaster Lousiana were on the dole is presumptive and likely to be grossly incorrect.

[Mr_Spock]

13. Saying shit like that person said is very very very dangerous

I can't imagine what they think they are accomplishing by creating an environment where people want to do bodily harm to them. We know these people when we meet them, they aren't all that bad, but who's to say the anger won't get mis-directed? These people are NOT uniters by any stretch. Tempting a civil war is more like it - though Katrina has unintentionally brought the North closer to the South...

[SoCalDem]

14. Freeps love to talk about how they stayed behind for their "checks"

well..my friend's grandfather who died last Thursday got a PENSION check and a Social Security check, and his 74 yr old daughter also got a pension check and a social security check.. Not WELFARE..

[existentialist]

16. They are bullshit Republican talking points

that echo the statements of Barbara Bush at the Astrodome.


I believe that part of the problem is that the Republican true believers believe their own rhetoric particularly on the point of believing that the only poor are those on welfare which must be their own fault.

These Republicans do not recognize the working poor as a significant entity, or that the Republican policies--including but not limited to the FEMA disaster in New Orleans--are hideously unfair to working poor and unemployed alike.

[KT2000]

17. This is what I am hearing too

Bush is going to get away with this because they have already stirred the racist bullshit pot and it is overflowing in this country. What I am hearing is pre-civil rights era garbage.

I want to remind these assholes that they depend on the work of the working poor to get through their everyday lives. When they are in the nursing home someday - it will be the working poor who will be changing their diapers and getting their lunch for them.

[Zodiak]

20. well, a general strike

of all employees who make less than poverty wage sure would wake them up to that fact. We need to start thinking "out of the box", now, because our leaders will not save us or even listen to us anymore.

I will agree with this asshole freeper on one thing: the poor aren't organized enough. But not in the way he thinks. The poor keep this country running at this point. The service industry survives on their blood, sweat, and tears. And the service industry is a HUGE part of our economy.

Other countries have unionized service workers. We shit on ours, grind it in their face, and then blame them for looking dirty.

[Tsiyu]

18. I bet the percentage isn't as high

as the percentage of corporate whores and welfare recipients in FEMA who blocked help for these people for days

[Quixote1818]

25. Boy, ain't that the truth! And they don't have any experience with

disaster relief on top of that. Just a bunch of ass hole Bush cronies!

[smurfygirl]

19. I heard limpballs saying the same thing today

as usual the dems have caused all this.

[ultraist]

30. limpballs should be asking why the poverty rate continues to increase

on jr's watch and the rich continue to get richer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/06/opinion/06kristof.html?ex=1126324800&en=1389c5d6abb1425e&ei=5070

The Larger Shame

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: September 6, 2005

The wretchedness coming across our television screens from Louisiana has illuminated the way children sometimes pay with their lives, even in America, for being born to poor families.

It has also underscored the Bush administration's ongoing reluctance or ineptitude in helping the poorest Americans. The scenes in New Orleans reminded me of the suffering I saw after a similar storm killed 130,000 people in Bangladesh in 1991 - except that Bangladesh's government showed more urgency in trying to save its most vulnerable citizens.

But Hurricane Katrina also underscores a much larger problem: the growing number of Americans trapped in a never-ending cyclone of poverty. And while it may be too early to apportion blame definitively for the mishandling of the hurricane, even President Bush's own administration acknowledges that America's poverty is worsening on his watch.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported a few days ago that the poverty rate rose again last year, with 1.1 million more Americans living in poverty in 2004 than a year earlier. After declining sharply under Bill Clinton, the number of poor people has now risen 17 percent under Mr. Bush. Under Mr. Bush, the national infant mortality rate has risen for the first time since 1958. The U.S. ranks 43rd in the world in infant mortality, according to the C.I.A.'s World Factbook; if we could reach the level of Singapore, ranked No. 1, we would save 18,900 children's lives each year.

[misha227]

23. Most people on welfare also work

off the books. Welfare benefits, even including food stamps, Medicaid, and housing vouchers for those lucky enough to get them, don't come close to taking care of people's needs. Welfare alone isn't enough, the part time job babysitting isn't enough, but sometimes one can get by with a combination of the two, along with some luck. Their luck ran out this month is all.

[newyawker99]

27. Hi misha227!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[ultraist]

28. That person is an idiot!

He/she obviously is unaware of the fact that there are time limits on receiving welfare, unless someone is disabled. (HINT: Clinton's welfare reform).

Their failure to acknowledge that there are a disporportionately large percentage of Blacks in poverty, due to RACISM, is telling.

NOLA is 67% Black and has a poverty rate three times the national average. Within that national average, the percentage of Blacks (and Hispanics) in poverty is three times that of whites, 24% and 8% respectively.

[Brewman_Jax]

29. I don't know why freepers have such a problem

with social services when corporate wealthfare steals more tax money then 100,000 poor people EVER could. I get so tired of having to point that out to the ignorant and the freepers.

[ultraist]

31. Good point: Corporate welfare and what about cutting estate taxes?

The Repukes are only concerned about more tax benefits to the rich, who are getting richer! Cuts to capital gains and inheritance taxes are right around the corner.

Ironically, MOST freepers will not benefit from these cuts, but will be hurt by them.