July 8, 2004
EVEN A BROKEN CROCK:
The New Cosby Kids: It must be fun to beat up on people too young and too poor
to fight back, or Bill Cosby wouldn't do it. (BARBARA EHRENREICH, 7/08/04, NY Times)
[I]t's just so 1985 to beat up on the black poor. During the buildup to welfare "reform" in 1996, the comfortable denizens of think spas like the Heritage Foundation routinely excoriated poor black women for being lazy, promiscuous, government-dependent baby machines, not to mention overweight (that poundcake again). As for poor black youth, they were targeted in the 90's as a generation of "superpredators," gang-bangers and thugs.It's time to start picking on a more up-to-date pariah group for the 21st century, and I'd like to nominate the elderly whites. Filial restraint has so far kept the would-be Social Security privatizers on the right from going after them, but the grounds for doing so are clear. For one thing, there's a startling new wave of "grandpa bandits" terrorizing rural banks. And occasionally some old duffer works himself into a frenzy listening to Cole Porter tunes and drives straight into a crowd of younger folks.
The law-abiding old whites are no prize either. Overwhelmingly, they choose indolence over employment — lounging on park benches, playing canasta — when we all know there are plenty of people-greeter jobs out there. Since it's government money that allows them to live in this degenerate state, we can expect the Heritage Foundation to reveal any day now that some seniors are cashing in their Social Security checks for vodka and Viagra. Just as welfare was said to "cause poverty," the experts may soon announce that Medicare causes baldness and that Social Security is a risk factor for osteoporosis: the correlations are undeniable.
And the menace posed by the elderly can only get worse, as ever more of them sink into debt. What's eating up their nest eggs? In many cases, drugs. How long before the streets are ruled by geezer gangs mugging us to support their insulin and beta-blocker habits?
These aren't mutually exclusive propositions--the elderly throughout the West have become social parasites. We should reform Social Security and Medicare just as ferociously as we did Welfare.
MORE:
Cosby Paying for Education of 2 Students (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 7/09/04)
Comedian Bill Cosby, who recently said black children are ``going nowhere'' because they don't know how to read and write, is paying for the college education of two top high school graduates who support themselves.Cosby, who lives in Shelburne, read a story in The Republican of Springfield about Loren M. Wilder and Jimmy L. Hester, who are also black. They went to three colleges in a tour arranged by Cosby, and selected Hampton University in Hampton, Va. after visiting the campus on Tuesday.
"This is all about your careers, your lives,'' Cosby told the teenagers, who are black, as they traveled with him on his private jet, The Republican reported for Thursday editions. ``The more you study, the better you do now, the more will open up to you later.''
Wilder was 14 when his mother was jailed for dealing drugs, and Hester left home at 15 after years of moving around and fighting with his mother.
Both moved from place to place before getting an apartment together this winter with another student from Putnam Vocational Technical High School.
Cosby was scheduled to honor a dozen high school students and graduates, including Hester and Wilder, on Thursday at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Which reminds us of the old political definition: a liberal is someone who loves people in the abstract but hates them individually; a conservative vice versa. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 8, 2004 9:56 AM
Former Gov. Lamm of Colorado said that the elderly had a responsibility to die. That would certainly alleviate the problem and put our finances back in tip top shape.
Of course he is now "former" Governor.
Posted by: h-man at July 8, 2004 10:18 AMRather they have an obligation to fund their own retirement and health care.
Posted by: oj at July 8, 2004 10:28 AMLamm had it right, Social Security was based on the actuarial assumption that people would die within a few years of retirement. It was mainly to keep them out of poverty for the few years they had left. A 2-3 decade long period of government paid leisure and travel wasn't part of the original deal.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at July 8, 2004 10:35 AMIt must be fun to beat up on black celebrities who have the courage to tell painful truths to the people they care about and whom they want to help make something of their lives....
(Or perhaps it's just another day in the life of a left-wing, socially-(un?)conscious journalist.)
Posted by: Barry Meislin at July 8, 2004 11:16 AMI hold the campaing against smoking repsonsible for this.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at July 8, 2004 11:34 AM Conservatives have always understood that Social Security needed reforming. Barry Goldwater taught us that in 1964, just before the electoral catastrophe that GAVE us welfare as we used to know it, GCA 1968, affirmative action, and all those other goodies. We can and will reform SS, when the present generation of old people have finished doing what old people do, in about 20 years or so.
For now, I suggest that we zip it, win the fights we can, and let nature take its course. Have you tried talking to people about this issue? Otherwise intelligent, supposedly literate people obstinately refuse to accept the chimerical fantasy of the Social Security "trust fund."
I thought we had a break thru here:
"It's time to start picking on a more up-to-date pariah group for the 21st century"
then I realized oj would never link to a story that did not contain something like:
"and I'd like to nominate the elderly whites."
OJ never hides his racism.
Since these dispicable gringos actually spent their working lives paying taxes into these systems,I'll go for their reform the moment aliens,legal and illegal,are are removed from all public benefits programs.
And before you start nattering that they pay taxes,I'll preemptivly remind all that they consume far more in public services and entitlements than they will ever pay in taxes.
Which may explain why the publisher insists on living in a libertarian/conservative state thats 97% non-non-white.
What's astonishing is that, while even the NY Times now concedes that the '70s critiques of welfare were right, Ehrenreich still hasn't caught on.
Posted by: David Cohen at July 8, 2004 12:53 PMI thought we had a break thru here:
"It's time to start picking on a more up-to-date pariah group for the 21st century"
then I realized oj would never link to a story that did not contain something like:
"and I'd like to nominate the elderly whites."
OJ never hides his racism.
Since these dispicable gringos actually spent their working lives paying taxes into these systems,I'll go for their reform the moment aliens,legal and illegal,are are removed from all public benefits programs.
And before you start nattering that they pay taxes,I'll preemptivly remind all that they consume far more in public services and entitlements than they will ever pay in taxes.
Which may explain why the publisher insists on living in a libertarian/conservative state thats 97% non-non-white.
Anonymous:
No they don't. They pay SS taxes but aren't eligible for benefits.
Posted by: oj at July 8, 2004 1:26 PMNeed any more evidence that blacks and whites
are not the same constituency?
J.H.:
Good point. Cosby is black. She's white. You're welcome to her.
Posted by: oj at July 8, 2004 2:57 PM"No they don't."
Then perhaps you can expalin why the public health services and of Arizona and California are collapsing?Are the waiting rooms full of old white people?Or the huge yearly increases in school rnrollment?Old white people going back for the that diploma after all these years?
"They pay SS taxes but aren't eligible for benefits"
Only on what they earn above the table,you have no idea how large the underground economy is,especialy in border states.Even what taxes they pay for above the table income is dwarfed by public housing,public health care,public education,etc.
"Good point. Cosby is black. She's white. You're welcome to her."
Most blacks agree with her.
Posted by: at July 8, 2004 3:21 PMCosby, who lives in Shelburne, read a story in The Republican of Springfield about Loren M. Wilder and Jimmy L. Hester, who are also black. They went to three colleges in a tour arranged by Cosby, and selected Hampton University in Hampton, Va. after visiting the campus on Tuesday.
``This is all about your careers, your lives,'' Cosby told the teenagers, who are black, as they traveled with him on his private jet, The Republican reported for Thursday editions. ``The more you study, the better you do now, the more will open up to you later.''
Just in case you missed it, those kids are black.
Posted by: Timothy at July 8, 2004 3:25 PMI'll will be fun to see the Judd's get old
Posted by: andy at July 8, 2004 5:44 PMandy:
You've obviously never seen an old Judd--nothin' fun about it.
Posted by: oj at July 8, 2004 6:29 PMAnonymous:
No, most white journalists and politicians agree with her. Most black people actually know black people and therefore know he's right.
They aren't.
Posted by: oj at July 8, 2004 6:31 PMThe funny part -- well, honestly, there are several, but one of them -- is that Cosby is an itinerant Leftist. I seem to remember him putting together Barbara Lee rallies a few years back.
Posted by: Chris at July 8, 2004 11:38 PMOrrin's wrong. If you work and pay Social Security tax (along with your employer), you get benefits. It does not matter what else you may be.
Filipino immigrant sugar workers who retire in Hawaii often return to their home villages and marry teenage girls. The girls are happy to get the old goats, because they get pregnant and when the goats die, they get SS payments as widows and their children as dependants for decades and decades.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at July 9, 2004 3:21 AMHarry:
"The girls are happy to get the old goats"
Not, I'll bet, as happy as the old goats.
Posted by: Peter B at July 9, 2004 1:15 PMIf they're old they qualified for Reagan's amnesty.
Posted by: oj at July 9, 2004 1:32 PMThey still qualify today. You do not have to be a citizen to collect Social Security. The sole qualification is to have paid Social Security tax.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at July 9, 2004 2:10 PM