Walmart Greeter Buys 6-Pack of Beer & Is Condemned

[Klukie]

by JANE DEVIN on 07/19/2012

“They shouldn’t enjoy the same privileges that other people do, even in paltry amounts.”

“They shouldn’t have TV’s, cable, computers, cell phones or any other unnecessary thing.”

“There should be more laws to curtail their enjoyments and punish their irresponsibility.”

This kind of frequently repeated and often angry speech isn’t about prisoners, but about poor people. Especially those dregs of society who jump through flaming bureaucratic hoops for to receive a meager amount of food stamp assistance.

http://janedevin.com/2012/07/19/walmart-greeter-condemned/

[DebJ]

1. Thanks for the link to that incredibly well-stated article.

Put it on my FB face.

[Mz Pip]

6. Me too.

I have a freeper type "friend" who always posts crap about people taking advantage of the syste4m. Of course it's never about the rich fat cats who take every advantage they can but about poor people who might be entitled to unemployment.

[part man all 86]

2. Let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more. (Proverbs 31:7)

[Lochloosa]

25. Thank you for that one. I have a good use for that one.

[smirkymonkey]

3. Hell, if I worked at Walmart I'd have bought a case of beer.

Like, every day.

[Initech]

11. Case? I'd buy the fucking keg!!

Prost!!!!

[Scootaloo]

27. If you worked at Wal-Mart, you couldn't afford to rent a keg

Much less fill it with anything. Maybe halfway full of flat "Milwaukee's Best" if you do some busking...

[Zoeisright]

4. Nothing worse than the smug middle-class person who does everything they can

to make themselves feel better by looking down on those less fortunate.

[southernyankeebelle]

8. It would be so nice that this middle class ass gets a taste of what a working poor family

goes through. It has sunk into many middle class families that have lost their jobs and are having to get welfare and food stamps now understand what people who make minimum wages feel like. Until you are in someoneelse shoes just shut up. You have no idea.

[TheManInTheMac]

5. This is just made up. Who exactly condemned a Walmart employee for buying beer?

Specifically. Name names. You can't. No one can. That's who.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

10. Amongst my friends and me, we've been discussing this topic lately.

Women on food stamps with a full set of nails, an IPhone and a pedicure driving a Hummer (Seriously, saw this this week, and it kind of pissed me off. I don't even have an iPhone and I've never had a brand new car). This really made me feel like a piece of shit, and I will do my best to do better in the future.
EVERYONE should read Bridges Out of Poverty. Seriously. It will shed light on a ton of reasons why people do what they do and think how they think in different classes. It is required reading for new DHS workers in Oklahoma.

[TheManInTheMac]

13. Thing is, there is no indication in this fable that the Walmart greeter is receiving any kind of

assistance. This blog post is an assumption. And when you make an assumption, as Samuel L. Jackson sez, you make an ass out of you, and umption.

[The Magistrate]

19. Odds Of It Are Pretty Good, Sir

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/20/1101630/-ATTN-GOP-SENATORS-Walmart-Is-The-Largest-Food-Stamp-Recipient-In-The-Country-Fine-Them

http://grist.org/business-technology/2011-11-07-walmart-by-the-numbers-green-vs-growth/

http://crooksandliars.com/tina-dupuy/taxpayers-should-stop-subsidizing-walma

[A Simple Game]

23. I admit that I just skimmed the article. But I saw nowhere where the persons

age was mentioned. Most greeters I see at Walmart look old enough to be on SS and are just supplementing their fixed incomes. They may need the money and they may also be doing it to just fill in idle time. If the person is a two person or less household, their income plus SS would probably be too much for food stamps.

[Major Nikon]

16. It figures that OK would force state employees to read that hack's book

Blaming the impoverished rather than blaming our Walmart society that forces people into cycles of poverty is a consistent wingnut theme that is easily debunked.

If you're going to tout a book by the wingnut's darling who self-publishes non-peer reviewed assertions and then sells her "expert" opinions at a price, I think it's fair to post a paper which gives the rest of the story.

http://www.edchange.org/publications/Savage_Unrealities.pdf

[YellowRubberDuckie]

34. I don't know anything about the book or the author.

I just had to read it. I thought it was good and there was no blame involved. It was just a sociological study of the behavior of people in poverty and helping them to grasp concepts to get out of it.

[Major Nikon]

40. She's a hack that sells thinly veiled racism

The link I provided explains why in great detail. There are many other academics who are saying the same thing. She basically is telling the wingnuts exactly what they want to hear, which is that poverty is not the fault of class injustice but rather is the fault of the poor.

[Gormy Cuss]

17. "Bridges Out of Poverty" is a steaming pile of crap.

It's a comfortable middle class interpretation of why poor people are poor and stay poor.

[Major Nikon]

21. It's much worse than that

The author lives in my state and is nothing more than a snake oil salesman. She self-publishes her work to avoid peer review and has zero credibility within academic circles. She reinforces wingnut racist ideas that people are poor because they are lazy and because their parents were lazy. The most disturbing part is that she travels around the country promoting her nutty racist ideas at seminars aimed at public educators at $300 a pop (paid for with tax dollars).

[Tsiyu]

24. Sometimes what we "see with our own eyes"

isn't necessarily what we think we are seeing.

Did you know that when you get foodstamps, you can authorize a person to get groceries for you?

This is helpful for the elderly, the housebound sick, and those without any form of transportation.

The Humvee driver may have been getting food for her neighbor, her elderly parents, or perhaps she has a household full of foster children for whom the state provides some compensation.

Unless you care to ask the person using the EBT card a lot of nosy questions, it's best to assume they are not using something they "don't deserve." No, I am not on food stamps, though I have been in the past. That's how I know you can designate a card user.

Is there fraud in the system? Not any more than in any other system.

But if you feel it's right up in your face, it's a lot easier to bitch about it than about the fact that GE pays no taxes, or that oil companies get government subsidies.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

35. Watched the person in the Hummer walk into our office and apply and get food stamps.

[Tsiyu]

41. Really

Do you work for Human Services?

Surely she had to meet income guidelines like everyone else.

There are more than a few former upper middle class folks who are now struggling. Perhaps she is one of them? Up to her eyeballs in debt and no income...maybe her unemployment just ran out.

Maybe she borrowed the car and does her own nails.

I'm sure most of the clients coming to your office do not drive Humvees.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

42. They don't...

...we were just talking about the one who did.

[Tsiyu]

43. I see

Are there no privacy guidelines at this office?

Or are you free to discuss the details of the cases amongst yourselves?

If you have fraud going on there, as you seem to be implying, shouldn't you be reporting that to the feds rather than making statements on a message board about your office's role in aiding and abetting food stamp fraud?

[YellowRubberDuckie]

44. I didn't necessarily say there was fraud going on there....

...here's the way it works: People live in hovels and drive nice cars instead of what the rest of us would do: Rent a better place and drive a crappier car. They probably live with a relative and all of their money goes to their car payment and their luxury items. I don't think it's necessarily fraud. I think it's just poor money management abilities.
We ARE allowed to discuss stuff amongst ourselves. I'm just using an anonymous message board to vent frustrations. I don't know their identities or their information, so while my venting is just conjecture, which most people would understand, I think you are being a little too critical of my observation.
I've noticed DU is no longer fun anymore because no one can be anything but serious all the time and everything that is written is taken to such extremes, when it is meant to be taken lightly and just as a part of a conversation on a message board.

[Major Nikon]

14. Why on earth would someone make that up?

You can go to most any wingnut website and find as many "welfare queen" stories as you want. I'm sure most or all of them are a work of pure fiction (like Raygun's), or are greatly exaggerated.

[99Forever]

33. Way to completely miss the point.

Wow. Talk about smug and heartless. I don't like you. At all.

[Odin2005]

38. Must be nice to live such a sheltered middle class life.

[The Magistrate]

7. That Is Spot On, Ma'am: Thank You For Sharing It

And it is worth pointing out that the fact that persons working at Wal-Mart qualify for food-stamps constitutes a sizable subsidy to Wal-Mart ( which otherwise would have to pay higher wages ), and thus is tax money put in the pockets of the six Walton heirs, who own already as much as two fifths of the entire U.S. population....

"Romney loves America like a tick loves a dog."

[Mopar151]

29. A friend told me a long time ago

That only a quarter of public assistance clients can get by on their "above the table" income and assistance. Help from family, "canning", yard saling, flea marketing, off-the books babysitting or "side jobs", taking in "boarders", morning cleanup in the bar, maybe deal a little weed.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. The poor should spend their money on something useful..like a dressage horse.

[Ikonoklast]

12. Too tough and stringy.

They should just do what Lemmy advises...

[AynRandCollectedSS]

15. Like this gem that's floating around Facebook...

Stop by and tell them what you think at 100% Fed Up...I did.

Tomorrow I will making a counter-meme along the lines of, "If you can afford a private jet, three vacation homes and a yacht you should not be getting CORPORATE welfare."

[Risen Demon]

18. Your counter-meme is the truth!

But the pissy ones will counter with the "class-warfare/envy" talking point.

[Monk06]

20. That's probably one of, if not the best blog I have ever seen. No I am not Jane Devin.

[Kennah]

22. +1000

She is awesome.

[baldguy]

26. Too many un-Christian "Christians" believe that being poor is a sin.

Living in poverty is at once a punishment by God and an offense against God. Any suffering that less fortunate people suffer is right & just.



The realization of the fact that middle-class people have more on common with poor people and almost nothing in common with rich people never surfaces in their parochial, mean little minds.

[panzerfaust]

28. Well Said

Please read the article linked by OP

[Klukie]

30. I saw this on my friends FB page and had to post it

It couldn't have come at a better time because lately all the assholes seem to be coming out of the woodwork on this topic. This author said all of the thoughts that are in my head ....thoughts that I don't have the ability to put down on paper or a computer screen. She nailed it and I love it. I have see so many hate-filled posts going around FB and I just had a conversation 2 days ago with my brother about "the poor and their bad choices". I have come to the conclusion that the pull yourself up from the bootstraps crowd truly believe that the poor can have no vices. What they fail to realize is that all of humanity struggles with vice....poor, rich or middle of the road. I can't convince any of them that it is unfair to expect people in poverty to possess superhuman abilities.

[99Forever]

31. What sort of an awful nation have..

.. we become?

If we do not break the death grip the 1% has upon us, this country will collapse.

[gollygee]

32. It's amazing how much hatred people show toward poor people

and I've heard people say it's because they've "made bad choices" or whatever.

You know, sometimes bad choices are at least part of the problem, but everyone makes a bad choice here and there. If I make a bad choice, I can't go out to eat as often as I'd like the next month, but if you're poor, that bad choice can send you to public assistance. It isn't just an issue of bad choices.

And then sometimes it's over something people can't control. Being born to somebody poor, getting sick and having no way to pay the bills, etc.

We all need to give each other a break and not assume the worst of each other.

[Odin2005]

36. Welcome to my life.

[WCGreen]

37. A society wide "Poor House" exists in this country...

[Lifelong Protester]

39. That was a great read

I especially connected with this bit:

"How many untalented superstars are there? How much unearned wealth? How many people are there who don’t work hard (and perhaps have never worked hard) — and who have slid by in a society willing to grease them for little more than their pedigree, light entertainment value, or good looks? From these rarefied people, how little effort does society demand in return?"
Sorry, but totally appalled that I have students who 'aspire' to the Jersey Shore lifestyle.

I, too, wonder at how we can continue to apply standards to the poor, but be blind to applying those standards to the uber-wealthy, many of whom inherited wealth and are lazy, 'indulgent' to a fault, and do not have to work 1/10th as hard as someone who is among the working poor.