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Two Americas?Follow

#1 Dec 08 2013 at 2:51 AM Rating: Good
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David Simon (creator of The Wire) thinks so.

There are definitely two Americas

Interesting attempt to unpick the capitalism/socialism beehive.
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#2 Dec 08 2013 at 4:31 AM Rating: Decent
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North America and South America?
#3 Dec 08 2013 at 12:09 PM Rating: Excellent
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I've lived in both parts of the Baltimore, David Simon talks about. One house I lived in while still married, was riddle with crime, while no one dared get arrested just across the street from us, for there you would actually do time, while on my side you got off lightly as the victims were most likely to be black and not rich white folk. The economic difference between Guilford and Govens, Wavely and Pen Lucy is stark with some of the most expensive housing in the city right next door to areas of boarded up housing.

I've thought of making a film of the blocks of well maintain homes followed by block after block of houses boarded up or with roofs gone.

At the present I'm trying to import a little of Charles Village were my parents lived, to a dead end street of mainly home owners and a few rental properties in an area known best for producing the anti-snitch video.
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#4 Dec 08 2013 at 12:56 PM Rating: Excellent
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David Simon is a smart man. Unfortunately he keeps telling a story no one wants to hear.

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#5 Dec 08 2013 at 1:12 PM Rating: Excellent
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It's nice to see that he hasn't noticed the secret 3rd america, the part I've already taken over with my wombat hoards and rule with an iron fist!

(yes, lichtenstein counts damnit!)
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#6 Dec 08 2013 at 1:30 PM Rating: Decent
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Smart guy, too confrontational to effect much change, sadly. If it's me saying you're too confrontational, you should probably really tone it a down a little.
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#7 Dec 08 2013 at 1:50 PM Rating: Excellent
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I don't think this is an awareness issue. People know this stuff, they just don't see an easy or reasonable solution to it that doesn't put themselves at risk.
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#8 Dec 08 2013 at 2:45 PM Rating: Excellent
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Sometimes when I talk to strangers who live outside the United States, they will tell me how lucky I am to live here and wonderful it must be to live in America. I don't know what to tell them.

We are very good at tricking the world into thinking we some paradise of prosperity. What's worse, we are even better at fooling our own people. People who live in poverty look at the characters on TV with their nice homes and comfortable well-paying office jobs and think that is the norm, and that they are somehow inadequate for not living up to that standard.

Typically when you see poor people outside the US, they are much more self-reliant. They have small farms and animals and natural resources to provide food for themselves. You might see wind or water turbines or even solar panels. In America, at least here in Florida, we actually have laws that prohibit citizens from growing anything, even if they own the land they live.

In the America I know, if you don't buy food from a big box grocery store or processed fast food place, you don't eat. If you don't own a car, you don't get anywhere. If you don't rent a tiny overpriced apartment and split the cost with people you'd rather not be living with, you are homeless, or working 37 hours a week and living out of your car you bought from a scrapyard for $200. Meanwhile, getting food stamps or any sort of government assistance becomes more and more difficult as Republicans in congress fight tooth and nail to "motivate" the poor into getting up and filling all of those jobs that are just out there waiting for them. Because nothing would get done in this country if there weren't 45,000 people in a city fighting for one job.

Tell people this, and they'll quickly point out how NOT poor you are because you own a television, or a computer, or a car. Because paying $40 one time for a phone makes all the difference in the world when you spend $400 every week on groceries.

This "other America" only exists because we have made it this way. The poverty people experience here is hard to realize sometimes because it is 100% artificial.

Edited, Dec 8th 2013 11:46pm by Kuwoobie
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#9 Dec 08 2013 at 3:13 PM Rating: Good
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Kuwoobie wrote:
In America, at least here in Florida, we actually have laws that prohibit citizens from growing anything, even if they own the land they live.

Smiley: confused
Quote:
Because paying $40 one time for a phone makes all the difference in the world when you spend $400 every week on groceries.

WTF do you eat? Gold plated gold?
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#10 Dec 08 2013 at 3:30 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Kuwoobie wrote:
In America, at least here in Florida, we actually have laws that prohibit citizens from growing anything, even if they own the land they live.

Smiley: confused
Quote:
Because paying $40 one time for a phone makes all the difference in the world when you spend $400 every week on groceries.

WTF do you eat? Gold plated gold?


No, but I use to be a cashier at a grocery store, and that's about what the average family who came in spent on groceries. Almost everyone paid with food stamps and WIC.

Regarding the laws on growing-- it makes the neighborhoods look undesirable.
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#11 Dec 08 2013 at 3:30 PM Rating: Excellent
$400 is our entire grocery bill for one month, and that includes splurging on dinner out once a week.

(Note: Does not include alcohol or household supplies. Just food.)
#12 Dec 08 2013 at 3:35 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Kuwoobie wrote:
In America, at least here in Florida, we actually have laws that prohibit citizens from growing anything, even if they own the land they live.

Smiley: confused


I'm assuming those random home owners association communities and local areas where they put bans on gardens over "x" size in "y" location. Like here locally we can't keep farm animals (barring a few grandfathered exceptions and a small number you can claim as "pets"). Not some evil conspiracy to make us go to the grocery store instead of living off our land, but because the people on the council own touristy resorts and they don't want the area populated with farmland.

But that's hardly all of Florida, let alone America.


Kuwoobie wrote:
Quote:
Kuwoobie wrote:
Because paying $40 one time for a phone makes all the difference in the world when you spend $400 every week on groceries.

WTF do you eat? Gold plated gold?


No, but I use to be a cashier at a grocery store, and that's about what the average family who came in spent on groceries. Almost everyone paid with food stamps and WIC.


I've seen those people. Those packed full carts are not a single week of food.


Edited, Dec 8th 2013 4:38pm by TirithRR
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#13 Dec 08 2013 at 3:40 PM Rating: Good
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Ok. $400 a week on groceries or $900 a month on rent. Having a TV does not make you prosperous.
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#14 Dec 08 2013 at 4:06 PM Rating: Excellent
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Yeah, a handful of zoning violations does not an overall ban make. Even in the highlighted story, they could have had a garden in their back yard they just didn't have a back yard appropriate to growing a garden (says them, anyway).

I feed a family of four on far, far less than $400 a week. I can't fathom what I would buy for $400 a week. I'm sure that, given a million dollar challenge on a game show, I could find $400 worth of groceries but the idea that it's legitimately costing anyone $400 a week (much less from box store grocers) baffles me.

A more real problem is locations unserved by grocers where people wind up buying their "groceries" in the form of canned products and Lunchables from the gas station or convenience store.
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#15 Dec 08 2013 at 4:36 PM Rating: Good
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My brother and I, two full grown men, eat heartily, without the help of seeking sales or going for the cheaper off brands, at an average of 125 a week.

A quick google search seems to say the average family of four spends about 1000 a month on groceries.
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#16 Dec 08 2013 at 4:53 PM Rating: Excellent
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I look around my urban neighborhood, and I have two fruit stands, a major chain grocery store, a Whole Foods, and once a week a farmer's market all within easy walking distance.

I was talking to a guy from Oakland who's working to get ONE fruit stand or grocery store into his neighborhood. "We got the liquor stores covered, but we could use some FOOD, man."

I realize that's purely economic: grocery chains don't want to operate in lower-income areas. However, that's kind of the point of what Simon was saying. If it doesn't pay off monetarily, immediately, it's not considered worth doing.
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#17 Dec 08 2013 at 4:56 PM Rating: Excellent
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I do agree with the Kuwoobie's general point that "But dem so-called 'poor' folk have a color TV and a microwave oven!" is a pretty lame argument. A microwave oven doesn't provide financial security nor is it a good indicator of such.

Edited, Dec 8th 2013 4:56pm by Jophiel
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#18 Dec 08 2013 at 5:13 PM Rating: Good
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when the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with mars peace will guide the planets and love, love will lead the way. This is the dawning of the age of the consumer. [:hope:]
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#19 Dec 08 2013 at 5:13 PM Rating: Good
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Edit Smiley: glare

Edited, Dec 9th 2013 12:14am by Elinda
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#20 Dec 08 2013 at 5:20 PM Rating: Good
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To clarify, I did not mean to imply there was an overall ban on growing food in Florida, but it does seem to be a growing and widespread trend here. Supposedly they do not want people growing anything they can hide weed in, but I am only speculating. I also did not say it was a conspiracy to force people to buy food from grocery stores. That's just the way it is.

I'd give anything to be able to grow potatoes and vegetables and raise chickens and have a place to raise and prepare edible fish. It just isn't an option here. I make a decent amount of money doing what I do, personally, but you'd have to be pretty well off to live somewhere and have the means to do any of those things in this country.
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#21 Dec 08 2013 at 5:40 PM Rating: Good
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Kuwoobie wrote:
I'd give anything to be able to grow potatoes and vegetables and raise chickens and have a place to raise and prepare edible fish. It just isn't an option here. I make a decent amount of money doing what I do, personally, but you'd have to be pretty well off to live somewhere and have the means to do any of those things in this country.


I think what stops most poor people from farming their own food isn't some random council laws in local middle class areas with the "NIMBY" mentality, but instead those poor people being in densely populated areas that don't have enough open, usable land to farm. Of course I have no evidence of that beyond the anecdotal stuff of all my poor family members that live out in rural areas have gardens and raise animals for eating.

And I wouldn't say you'd need to be pretty well off to live somewhere and have the means to garden/farm on a scale big enough for personal use. You just have to live in an area that would be suited for it. There are plenty of areas outside the big cities that allow for things like that. It has little to do with your job/money situation, and a lot to do with your area. Here in Western Michigan cost of living is low, and you can farm/garden with relatively few restrictions. Definitely don't need to be well off to live here.

Edited, Dec 8th 2013 6:48pm by TirithRR
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#22 Dec 08 2013 at 5:50 PM Rating: Excellent
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I don't know where "here" is for you (Florida but that's about it) but growing potatoes is just digging a hole, throwing a potato into it and waiting until the plant that grows out of the ground dies off. Then you dig up the bunch of potatoes it made.

I don't know how well it works in Florida where the climate is different but potato plants are not large or noticeable. You can also container grow tomatoes and the like.

But yeah, if you want to raise chickens and a trout pond then you need a piece of land far enough from other people that you can fit a trout farm and not annoy the hell out of them with your smelly noisy-*** chickens. You ain't gonna find that in the city or suburbs but that's less the man keeping you down and more people not wanting to deal with your dumb chickens. Ironically, the people I usually see raising their own chickens aren't remotely "well off" -- they're people who live on the cheap land out in the sticks where there's not much in the way of zoning laws. They own land so they're not ghetto poor or anything but it's not like they took their riches and went off to some farm patch to raise chickens and potatoes.
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#23 Dec 08 2013 at 5:59 PM Rating: Excellent
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TirithRR wrote:
I think what stops most poor people from farming their own food isn't some random council laws in local middle class areas with the "NIMBY" mentality, but instead those poor people being in densely populated areas that don't have enough open, usable land to farm.

What stops them is a combination of not having a clue how to grow a plant and not having any understanding of why it'd be beneficial to grow plants. Again, there's a lot of stuff you can container grow even in an apartment or on a fire escape or rooftop but they don't see the point in growing a shit ton of cherry tomatoes. Especially when you're not going to make a full meal or a consistent meal out of what you're growing. Or when you don't cook at all beyond microwaving frozen/boxed stuff. Basically, it take a fairly major change of lifestyle to make it "worth it".

How do you sell someone who has probably never eaten a cucumber in their life that wasn't in pickle-on-a-burger form on trellis growing cucumber vines?

Community urban garden projects are good because it allows people to grow more food at once and you likely have a couple people into it who can help carry the others through to harvest and have them see the benefits of it. Of course, then some idiot tries to grow pot in it or decides to trash it for kicks.
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#24 Dec 08 2013 at 6:34 PM Rating: Default
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Catwho wrote:
$400 is our entire grocery bill for one month, and that includes splurging on dinner out once a week.

(Note: Does not include alcohol or household supplies. Just food.)


This.

Jophiel wrote:
I don't know where "here" is for you (Florida but that's about it) but growing potatoes is just digging a hole, throwing a potato into it and waiting until the plant that grows out of the ground dies off. Then you dig up the bunch of potatoes it made.


Sounds like witchcraft.
#25 Dec 08 2013 at 7:57 PM Rating: Good
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Kuwoobie wrote:
To clarify, I did not mean to imply there was an overall ban on growing food in Florida, but it does seem to be a growing and widespread trend here. Supposedly they do not want people growing anything they can hide weed in, but I am only speculating. I also did not say it was a conspiracy to force people to buy food from grocery stores. That's just the way it is.

I'd give anything to be able to grow potatoes and vegetables and raise chickens and have a place to raise and prepare edible fish. It just isn't an option here. I make a decent amount of money doing what I do, personally, but you'd have to be pretty well off to live somewhere and have the means to do any of those things in this country.


If you want to live off the land, there are pretty cheap properties to do so on.
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#26 Dec 09 2013 at 2:38 AM Rating: Good
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Like the entirety of the Midwest.
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