List of 50 Largest U.S. Charities, a good portion of which are attempting to help the poor.
An iffy index about giving to the poor.
There are many examples of people who work towards helping the poor. These are not including the millions (billions?) spent on welfare, not just in the U.S.
Welfare just pacifies the poor. It exists to control them and feed them into a state of co-dependency. It does nothing in elevating them or freeing themselves from the shackles of tyranny.
At any rate your examples amount to not much of anything at all.
What is more interesting is society’s tolerance or need of having huge swathes of underclasses and slaves.
For societies that rather hypocritically call themselves ‘moral’ it never ceases to amaze me.
You’re one of those people that after giving your yearly pittance of $5.00 to some hyped up charity you go around feeling proud and smug about yourself. Whatever.
I agree, but the question was to show care for the poor. Not that it works, or secondary goals. Even if it is done while lying to themselves, it is still part of caring for the poor, hence the iffy part of the index…
How subjective of you.
I’ve often thought of Minimum wage and other such actions, including the response of “you’re just blaming the poor” to be mostly rhetoric to gain power, as it has limited results in helping the poor.
Your amazement is subjective, and not really of interest to anyone except yourself. It is a selfish thought.
I have no interest in attempting to convince you of what I am.
i’ve been poor most of my adult life. My parents are definitely much better off than i. Downward mobility. i know firsthand what it’s like to be a wage slave for years and years at a time and i still see concern for the poor in society. As Eric points out, the presence of large, independent, non-profit charities alone demonstrates broad concern, even if those charities don’t necessarily do much good overall. So does the presence of soup-kitchens and hostels. But beyond that, i’ve seen care for the poor on more personal levels as well. i don’t know if you’ve ever panhandled, but when someone hands you free, unconditional money, that’s something more profound than just selfishness on their part. There’s an element of selfishness, sure - but it goes beyond that. Those people empathize with the less fortunate or else they wouldn’t be giving their money to strangers. You can actually tell which people give a fuck about the poor by panhandling. Even if they don’t give you any money, it’s their reaction to you that lets it be known. Keep in mind that my point here is not that EVERYONE gives a fuck about the poor, only that many people do and so it’s not fair to say that NOBODY does.
Those are some great examples, I didn’t even think of them. Thank you.
This thing.
Society’s inclinations of helping out the poor these days only involves feeding, clothing, and housing them. That’s it.
You can feed and shelter any given beasts which is exactly how our human brethren treat the poor as.
It’s not that because there is any general concern for the poor but instead is a measure of security by the state because if it didn’t there is always the fear that the poor will organize themselves into a massive revolt. There is no compassion in all of this but instead are motivations done out of fear and insecurity.
If society ever wanted to do a radical thing it would involve education and employment.
Of course that is always too expensive where nobody wants to do that on any large significant level.
Non profit charities? No such thing.
The establishment prefer to keep an underclass living, as that continues to depress wage claims.
This works to maximise the profits of the rich.
Whilst they can continue to enjoy tax breaks, and corporate subsidies at the same time they can also say ’ hey - but we feed these wasters, and morons’, and feel good about themselves.
dup
Actually, Americans on welfare and/or subsidized housing live pretty decently compared to the poor worldwide. It’s not easy to live on welfare, but it’s certainly better than being poor in the 3rd world.
What exactly would you have people do to help the poor that is not already being done?
Sure, that’s part of it. It is certainly better to NOT have people getting so desperately poor that they kill you and take what you have. That’s the practical, common sense end of social welfare spending.
You have no way to know that, and i think you are quite clearly wrong. There is a rational calculation which says that it is in one’s best interests to keep the poor from getting too desperate, yes. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only reason people look out for the poor. i don’t even think it’s the primary reason. Humans are sentimental creatures, and most people who help others do so because they empathize with and relate to each others’ suffering. We’ve evolved that way.
Society tries and admittedly doesn’t always succeed at helping the poor in those ways, but it’s not as if there is something obvious that isn’t being done. It is complicated, difficult and expensive to help the poor. You can’t just wave a wand and give everyone a free education and a well paying job.
Like i said, it is expensive, but actually there ARE people willing and indeed trying to do it, perhaps some of them cynically motivated, but certainly not all.
In other words, the numbers you qouted [i]seem to be made up[/i]. That is important. Again, it'd can't be that the average person pays 250 to the military and 4000 to corporate welfare given what we know about the federal budget.
Let me help you out. Conservatives and right-wingers criticize food stamp programs along with Medicaid, Social Security, and other social welfare programs in the U.S. because they constitute the largest expense of the federal government by a wide margin. Of course conservatives don't criticize the food stamp program because it is expensive alone (SNAP costs about 10% of what the U.S. military budget is) , we criticize it because it is corrupt as hell and a part of a very expensive mentality. As far as laziness is concerned, a person collecting on all the welfare available in many states states is doing better in total wealth than a person trying to support themselves with a decent job. Some particular welfare recipient might be the most motivated, hard working person ever, or they may not, but [i]incentivizing people to stay out of the work force is bad for the economy regardless.[/i]
It’s tempting to link your comment to that “What is progressivism” thread as another example of the progressive tactic of declaring the opponent hates some protected-status class, but why bother? It’s so obvious now, and one of you will just give me another example tomorrow.
As to this “most people don’t care about the poor” business.
Here's some more reality- most people don't care about [i]strangers[/i]. Poor strangers, rich strangers, white strangers, black strangers, gay strangers, straight strangers, boy strangers, girl strangers, and especially strangers in foreign countries. Making it about class and trying to conclude something thereby about class struggle isn't reality, it's political strategy.
Ucc, if the person on welfare is doing better than some people who work for a living, then you should be against these libertarian corporations who pay less than welfare to their workers. Because check it out…people on welfare, largely are not doing very well.
Like that is any better. 
People really hate poor strangers. At least from a rich stranger you could shake them down for some money.
State welfare is nothing more than a corporate subsidy program. Anybody with fucking brains knows this.
I agree that corporations should not be able to lean on taxpayers.
Privatize the profits and socialize the losses. It’s a win, win baby!
So long as people are allowed to invest then you may be right, or something.
Most people are dicks by nature, i know. i’ve only been talking about people who actually do give a shit. Enough such people exist that there are large-scale cooperative efforts to help the poor (some such people even share your own basic belief system, or profess to). And it IS about class. They may not care much about strangers, but most people DO care about class - achieving a certain class, maintaining it, whathaveyou. By extension, they care about other peoples’ class, as reflected in who they associate with, where they live, and so on. These things matter to most people, and they mattered to people long before Marx or anything even resembling the modern left ever existed. Witness the whole political obsession - on BOTH sides - with the middle class and it’s future in the US. Class is a real thing, and as long as it is a real thing then struggle among the classes is inevitable.
Ucc are you on the Koch Brother’s payroll?