Irksome Facebook Posts of the Week

As I  pick through this weeks smorgasboard of craptacular posts, I wonder if there will ever be a blog that picks apart Shipwrecked & Comatose.  How about an "I Hate Shipwrecked & Comatose" Facebook group?

I do want to add that these types of posts are by no means any sort judgment on the folks who post this stuff.  Most of the time these posts are posted multiple times and by the time they end up here it was  a case of  " the straw that broke the camel's back" type of thing.

Shall we begin?

This has been posted on Facebook a few times and it’s time it gets the attention it needs on this blog.

I’m curious who the first person was to create this statement.  Did someone actually go to the store and see a woman with an iPhone make purchases with food stamps?  Who was the original spotter?  At what store was he or she shopping?  What purchases were made with said food stamps?

My guess is that this is just a hypothetical person.  It’s just a way for the smug and self-righteous to feel better about themselves by looking down on those evil government leeches who may or may not exist in their world.  

However, what if it’s not a hypothetical?  If that is the case, I’d like to present a few hypotheticals of my own:

The iPhone was a gift from a relative who wanted to make sure the Food Stamp User (will be called FSU going forward) could always be reached and stay in contact.

The FSU bought the iPhone before she lost her job.

The FSU bought the iPhone before her husband died.

The FSU bought the iPhone before her husband left her for another woman.

The FSU bought the iPhone before her baby was born with severe disabilities and she wasn’t burdened by massive medical bills.

The FSU bought the iPhone before her child was diagnosed with cancer and she wasn’t burdened with massive medical bills

Whenever we see people on public assistance, the default reaction is to believe that they don’t deserve it.  The rest of us work for our living, so why can’t that horrible leech do the same?  Americans are trained to have hate and disdain for poor people.  We blame them for all societal ills when they are a tiny fraction of total government spending.  We don’t want to hear their stories.  We don’t want to think of them as human.  After expressing our disdain for the poor for taking $300 a month from the government in earned benefits, needing food stamps while working at Wal Mart, we turn on the TV and watch the Kardashians and the Hiltons play out their fabulous lives, with no real work, on multi-million-dollar trust funds.

It’s sad that this is the society we live in.  We hate the poor for having less than we do because they get something for “free”.  I doubt any American would want to live on the pittance offered by public assistance, but we don’t want anyone else to have it.  There is this belief that if you don’t want to work for a living, you just call up the White House and ask President Obama for money and you will be showered with checks.  

I dare you to ask anyone on any form of public assistance if it was easy.  Chances are you will hear stories of being asked to jump through multiple hoops, have a hundred forms of proof of your need, and be treated with condescension from all corners.  On top of that you have to deal with the nasty judgmental people who give you dirty looks when you shop or make snide comments about you on Facebook. Heaven forbid anyone who is poor ever wants any type of small luxury or pleasure in his life.  If you are on public assistance, you spend that money on the barest of bare necessities and be grateful.  Fun is only for those who can afford it!

I think our hatred of poor people really is born of fear.  None of us knows how many paychecks we are away from the bread lines.  We don’t know how many medical bills could ruin us.  We don’t know what traumatic life events could change our finances drastically.  We don’t want to be the person in line at the supermarket with the EBT card being silently sneered at by the person behind us. 

But it’s nice to know if we needed it, we could get it, isn't it?

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Well, it seems that whoever posted the second stupid post of the week deleted the photo, because it's gone before I could paste it in S&C.

What was it a photo of?

It was an old man holding a sign that said something like, "I lived to be 91 just to piss off Obama."

Huh?

I’m sure the president lies awake at night feeling so bothered by this man’s existence.  Can you imagine him waking up at 3AM and grabbing his wife in terror? “Michelle!  I don’t know what to do.  There is a 91 year old man out there.”  

I’m sure he sits in the Oval Office completely unable to handle any foreign policy or budgetary issues because he’s thinking, “Man, it just burns my butt that there’s a 91-year-old Republican out there!”

It goes to show you that Republicans are incapable of making sense.

Although I’m not a fan of Obama, I have decided to campaign for him.  My slogan?  Vote Obama: It will really piss off regressives.

(Also, Annoy a Republican: Vote Obama or Vote Obama and make a Republican squirm.)

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I'm so sick of this "I want my country back," crap.

Back from what, to when, and from whom?

Back to slavery and the lack of voting rights for women?

Back to the Gilded Age when only a handful of Americans were able to succeed while everyone else toiled long hours in poverty – including children?

Back to the Great Depression?

Did someone steal the country?  Last I checked we are still an independent nation and we are still ruled by Americans.  We have democratically elected leaders elected by American citizens.  The downside of democracy is that it doesn’t always swing in your favor.  You can always be outvoted.

I don’t want my country back.  I want my country forward.  

If I feel my country doesn’t belong to me, it’s because it’s in the hands of people who keep saying that want it “back” when it was theirs all along and what they really mean is, “I want my country to be exactly as I want it and screw everyone else.  I’m too afraid to have the world be outside my comfort zone.”

Oh wait!  I know what this means.  This was written by a Native American.  Yes, I can understand why he or she would want the country back.  If I were a member of the aboriginal population of this land mass, I'd want the country back too!