Thursday, December 6, 2007

Who cant love a good class war?

Watch this new film from Brave New Films:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8RsFwsODzE&eurl=http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/20619-fight-the-war-on-greed-and-you-could-be-in-our-next-video

My comment:
I have my college degree in Social Work. I owe $55,000 in student loans, Henry’s hourly wage. I work for $9.50 an hour. I earn an annual income of $23,000 a year. I live in a 500 square foot apartment, which takes more then half my monthly income. I work in a chronically homeless shelter in Los Angeles, assisting people who on average collect $221 a month on general relief. All are mentally ill with substance abuse problems. They live at the shelter, each in their sprawling 9x9 square foot cubicle complete with desk lamp, bed, and dresser drawer. At the flick of a dial they see rushing water in the shower, sometimes hot, and three times a day they retreat to their opulent dining hall where they enjoy hot meals, then after they have had their fill of mostly beans and rice, they retire to relax on their eleven year old couch, complete with lice outbreaks, to watch a television that receives over three channels. Like Henry’s estate, the shelter contains a master library where one can relax while sitting on milk crates reading paperback books from the 1970’s. And also like Henry many of the clients own a vacation property they can escape to when they need to relax. Some have private storage facilities where they retreat to when they need to get away or for others it’s under the pier in Santa Monica where there are free showers and other homeless single families they can mingle with. Oh but that’s not all. Like Henry our clients feel the need to play, one of them played the California lottery and won $1,000, his earnings however were not paid out. Rather they were collected by the state of California to cover his general relief costs which states there can be no other income while collecting the exorbitant amount of $221 a month.
At present it is such an exclusive lifestyle that only 90,000 people in the county of Los Angeles who qualify as homeless can live in our opulent shelter mansion. I am sorry to inform you that you don’t meet our criteria. Ah Henry your mansions could house all of these people. However, I don’t think they would feel comfortable living your life, as they are used to having to pay taxes, even though their incomes are less then $9,000 a year even though this income comes from full time employment, go minimum wage! In addition, they are also accustomed to doing for themselves in order to survive; I don’t think you would fit in here.
So cheers to you good sir, may you sleep well tonight, regardless of which of the 47 king size beds you lay down in. Perhaps one day our paths will cross, as I will be first in line for the class war that will redistribute wealth, nothing personal.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I suspect that I much more enjoy the company of your clients then I would that of Henry. At least they strike me as people of some character and substance.