Poor blamed for own predicament again for next 364 days
By James Israel
It was another warm and fuzzy Christmas day across the country, with people volunteering to help feed the hungry, folks donating to Salvation Army bell ringers and copious displays of brotherly love by professional sports players at halftimes on every sports channel.
But Christmas is over now, and the nation returns to its standard tough-love stance: If you’re down and out, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, you lazy bum!
As families continue losing their homes to foreclosure, adding to the millions who already have since the crash of ’08, commentators and even the “man on the street” go back to blaming them for taking on a loan they couldn’t handle.
Never mind that no one has gone to jail for the reckless betting on toxic bundles put together by those geniuses on Wall Street, or the immoral and illegal “robo-signing” schemes by the major banks, or the fact that most of those loans were secured by people who were doing just fine and could handle them when they had jobs before the crash — it’s all their own fault.
It’s only Christmas once a year, go find someone else’s shoulder to cry on!
Then there’s the thousands of families made destitute by illness because of lack of health coverage. Sure, the greedy insurance companies went through their policies with fine-toothed combs, finding dubious reasons to deny coverage — but, hey that’s capitalism! On Christmas, a family like that might have been highlighted by a Walmart-sponsored show and given help to make things right. Heck, they might have even got the chance to be on “The Today Show” with Matt Lauer and Ann Curry! Golly gee!
But it’s not Christmas anymore. So buck up, buckaroo!
And sure, dumping toxic waste close to where people live is not such a good idea, but those people should’ve known not to live there! What were they thinking? That giant corporation has to make a profit, they’ve got million dollar bonuses to dole out!
What do those families with little children whose lives will be forever plagued with sickness expect? A chance to air their stories? Compensation? Justice? Bah, humbug!
Try to hang on until next Christmas. Who knows, you might get lucky! But for now, it’s back to business as usual. And that All-American tough love.
After all, we don’t want to be labeled as “socialists”!!!
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