ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE

        ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE

"She calls out to the man on the street, Sir, can you help me? It's cold and I've nowhere to sleep. Is there somewhere you can tell me?"
 
He walks on, doesn't look back
He pretends he can't hear her
He starts to whistle as he crosses the street, She's embarrassed to be there,

Oh, think twice, it's just another day 
For you and me in paradise
Oh, think twice, it's just another day
For you and me in paradise
Just think about it,

She calls out to the man on the street
He can see she's been cryin'
She's got blisters on the soles of her feet, She can't walk but she's tryin',

Oh, just think twice, it's just another day
For you and me in paradise
Oh, yes think twice, it's just another day
For you and me in paradise
Just think about it, just think about it.

Oh Lord, is there nothing more anybody can do? Oh Lord, there must be something you can say,

You can tell by the lines on her face
You can see that she's been there
Probably been moved on from every place, Cause she didn't fit in there,

Oh, yes think twice, it's just another day
For you and me in paradise
Just think about it, just think about it

It's just another day, For you and me in paradise
 
It's just another day, For you and me
It's another day, For you and me
It's another day, For you and me in paradise".


Happy Thanksgiving, Black Friday busiest shopping day of the year, Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, HAPPY FESTIVUS, CLICK HERE FOR FESTIVUS VIDEO, Happy New Year.


All well meant and more mysterious to me now than ever before. With record unemployment, housing foreclosures, millions of families on the cusp of becoming added to those categories, 

I just don't get it an longer about this 2 month period every year where so many seem to spread good cheer, show compassion, recognize those who are less fortunate among us, and then immediately forget about these suffering human beings for the other 10 months of the year.

As of November, 2011, one in seven mortgages was delinquent, up from one in 10 a year earlier. As many as one in four houses may now be underwater, and the ratio of household debt to GDP, about 65 percent in the mid-1990s, is roughly 100 percent today. Heavy debt and large losses of wealth have forced spending onto a lower path.  

Inside and outside the U.S., lengthy periods of economic stagnation or decline, have almost always left society more mean-spirited and less inclusive, and have usually stopped or reversed the advance of rights and freedoms. 

A high level of national wealth is no bar to a society’s retreat into rigidity and intolerance, once enough of its citizens lose the sense that they are getting ahead.

"Poor Bashing" has become one of the most shameful aspects of our nation’s political culture: The callous attitude toward  blaming  impoverished citizens for our nations economic problems, verbalized by so many brainwashed Americans looking for a scapegoat, reveal a growing, cruel callousness and hostility to the poor and disadvantaged in our society. 

What’s strange, and offensive, is this belief that we should cut unemployment benefits because politicians of all parties, SUCH AS SENATOR DIANE FEINSTEIN (Democrat, California whose net worth is 75 million dollars) have said "how long do you continue [unemployment benefits] before people just don’t want to go back to work at all"?

Other Republicans such as  Senator Orrin Hatch (a member of the Mormon Church, Republican, Utah whose net worth is $5,729,000 have introduced legislation that mandatory drug tests be given to all those receiving unemployment insurance, because everyone knows that unemployed people are drug addicts, and there’s been recent legislation proposed by politicians to cut the budget funds for food aid to poor children.

By the way, as an aside the Mormon Church is the wealthiest per capita religion in the world with annual tax-free revenues estimated to be $6 Billion per year. Some estimates place the church as donating LESS THAN 1% of its income to help the poor. 

Not exactly a religion with a loving god that sees itself as a contributor to lessen suffering of those less fortunate in the world. 
 
Exactly,  as these two politicians above so clearly define, the real problem isn’t the long-term unemployment crisis, which could leave a huge class of people without the necessary skills to work, it’s those bums too lazy to save their jobs from the financial crisis. 

If those people didn’t want to be unemployed, they should have never worked in the first place, and if those kids didn’t want to be hungry, they should have had the wherewithal not to be born so damn poor, or something.

Today, people have agendas that are narrow and uncompromising, mostly, they are not interested in doing the best for the greatest number of people.Thus, all we get is nonsense debate, meaningless crap that is not based on rational thought.

For example, a person that wants to gut social programs, must answer the question as to what will happen to people? Truthfully, he has to say that the person will find his way or die and that he doesn’t much care which it is.  

But Republicans won’t say that.They will say they are opposed to this or that but will NEVER answer the question about what happens to the people left out.  

This is why Republicans are maniacs.They have no 
empathy for anybody and their only god is money. They are clinically crazy.


Of course, this is the problem with all of Congress today, including Democrats, and the Tea Party as well. They are incapable of doing the best for the country. If they were, for example, there would be no debate about taxing rich people and rich corporations more than a secretary who works in an office.  

In whose crazy economy does it make any sense that Exxon, GE pay no taxes, and the richest people in the planet pay almost nothing in taxes?


Now, the problem is being blamed on poor people and Medicare, Social Security, two programs which are actually solvent. The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided year after year to fund tax breaks for the rich.  But now, it is Social Security that is the phony make believe problem.


You can take all of the benefits that went to poor people and they pale in comparison to the colossal handouts that go to the rich. America is the land of welfare alright,corporate welfare. Rebates and bail outs to the richest corporations and richest people.


ALL of our elected representatives are saddled with special interests. They get donated money from their "friends" and they end up with lots of pals.

When it comes to hard problems, problems when rational people don’t agree, it is necessary to be able to debate and come to a consensus.  Such a consensus is impossible in today’s America. 

It is impossible to negotiate or even reason with somebody who says that the rich will not pay their share of taxes. It is like reasoning with a crazy person.

Republicans in particular  love the lie.They make lies into talking points and put out the bullshit nonstop.

The great lie since the 1980s and Reagan is that cutting taxes creates jobs and prosperity. We now have 30 years that illustrate how much crap this is. Over this period of time the upper 1% have had nearly all of the income and net worth growth, everybody else has stayed flat or gone down.


The ONLY thing that creates jobs is demand and the ONLY way to create demand is if everybody has disposable income. Destroy the middle class, make the poor, poorer, eliminate social programs and there is less money for society.  

This translates into less demand, which then results in higher deficits and unemployment.This is what the situation is today and the situation will be made worse, much worse, as they ‘cut’ their way to a balanced budget.


One way to guarantee a Super Depression, while already in a Depression, for the next 100 years, and the demise of the country in the process, is waging class warfare to allow rich people and powerful corporations to continue to not pay taxes, cut social programs, and balance the budget on the backs of the working class.  

This will completely destroy the middle class, hurt the poor, and usher in a new destitute part of society.  There will be no way out of this either. 

So, the rich people got America into the mess and the poor are being blamed. This is one fucked up, dying country.

As this spreads to cities all across America, using New York City is an example of what is happening nationwide, except it's an even worse situation in most other States.

IN NEW YORK CITY ( SEEN BY MANY) AS A "PROGRESSIVE PLACE":
• At the end of October. 2011 there were 41,204 homeless adults and children sleeping in New York City municipal shelters, an all-time record. This is the first time ever that the number of homeless people sleeping each night in the New York City shelter system has exceeded 40,000 people.

• Since last year (October 2010 to October 2011), the total number of homeless people in the New York City municipal shelter system each night has increased by 9 percent.

• Since May of this year after the City eliminated all housing assistance for homeless families the total number of homeless people in the New York City municipal shelter system each night has increased by 7 percent.

• The number of homeless children in New York City shelters ,16,934 children at the end of October has reached an all-time record high. The number of homeless children in New York City shelters each night has increased by 13 percent.


• Homeless families are staying in the municipal shelter system for longer periods. Average shelter stays have risen from eight to eleven months, a remarkable 28 percent over the past year, and have risen 8 percent between May and September alone.

We are living through a slow-motion social catastrophe, one that will stain our culture and weaken our nation for many, many years to come. We have a civic and indeed a moral responsibility to do everything in our power to stop it now, before it gets even worse.


Saying Happy Holidays for  the next 2 months, buying yourself "more stuff" that you really don't need, feeding the poor for the holidays, it just doesn't cut it anymore.


I would be more concerned if I were you that the rest of us will eventually be forced into the ranks of the poor, depending on others for our survival. Except there won't be others who give a shit about us. 

Think I'm kidding, don't be so sure that you are so indispensable to society. Think you will have a job, house, a roof over your head, money to put your kids, grand kids through College, or a retirement for yourself, don't be so sure.

Not only is there often a lack of support from those who are "close' to you, but many people who lose their jobs are often ignored by their "friends", neighbors, even family, who could sometimes easily provide a job, or referrals for them in their own Company's. 


What will you use for money as the last dollars are stolen from your pockets by the government and their cronies? I have nothing left to give them, do you?

No one is getting out of this except the privileged few, and you aren't likely one of them.

Happy  Holidays and Happy New Year, in case I forget to say so.