Posted on 06/15/2016 7:01:22 AM PDT by Lorianne
There are stories that confirm our worries that the whole industrial system is about to come apart; and then there are stories that scare the crap out of us because they indicate that the collapse is ongoing and accelerating. This is one of those latter stories, one of those pre-apocalyptic cracks of doom that, like thunder, tell you it’s time to get ready. A Google search this morning finds no mention of this story in the industrial media, but it rages in the alternative sources (many of whom are weaving it into their previously established conspiracy theories as a deliberate act, not another triumph of ineptitude).
The story? All over the country, especially since June 1, the SNAP card system, which is how we get food stamps to people now, is failing. Curiously, the failures seem to be selective, not blacking out areas-or states or regions, but cherry-picking individuals all over the county. Hundreds of people all over the country so far this month, and thousands this year, are experiencing late funding of their SNAP cards — some people are still waiting for funds that were supposed to be available on June 1. Many hundreds more are finding their SNAP cards won’t work at all.
According to a website that tracks these things, people are reporting problems at a rate that for parts of the day exceed 200 per hour. Fifty million individuals, including one out of every five American children, receive food stamps. If you know any families who rely on them — personally I mean, not through the viewpoint of the snarling “get-a-job” trolls who populate every online discussion of this subject (including, amazingly, the website designed to collect reports of problems in the system) — you know that the last few days before the stipend comes through are often hungry days. (The trolls sneer at that, but would you really be unaffected by a one or two week delay in your paycheck?)
But you do not have to be a bleeding-heart liberal to find this problem appalling. The SNAP, or EBT, card is how we deliver food assistance to people who otherwise would be in line at some government agency, lines whose size and desperation would dwarf anything seen in the Great Depression. There is virtually no margin for error here before people start to starve. (What’s that you say? A huge government computer system with no margin for error? What could possibly go wrong?)
And if you have no pity for the starving (because obviously if they had good character they would be successful like you), consider this: before they starve they are going to burn your country down around your hard of hearing ears.
People who have not read history and who have no empathy and are childishly simplistic in their comprehension of the world — you know, people like Donald Trump — have no idea what has happened in the past (“Let them eat cake!”), what is happening right now (People are dying in massive riots around empty grocery stores in Venezuela.) or what could happen any minute if another lit match is thrown into that tinder box (“Drug test them!” “Reduce and restrict benefits!” “Make ‘em work for it!”)
So move the second hand on the doomsday clock a little closer to midnight, and pray that the government that designed and built a computer system for the FBI that had to be scrapped entirely on opening day — the government that designed and built the original Obamacare website — can fix this problem before….
Oh, never mind. I gotta find my bugout bag.
If we take out the media liberals, there won't be anyone blaming us.
That's the problem in this nation. The media is ran by liberals, and they have the power to "blame" people.
I say we take away their power, and then we won't have to worry about them lying about us.
1. There's been lots of dramatic news, i.e. two shootings in Orlando.
2. The airport lines caused by TSA blunders is more important to reporters, because they experience them firsthand.
3. There is a charity buffer for this.
4. This is what happens when the government is in charge of a large program. VA waiting anyone?
It has long been my opinion that anyone on the dole should not be allowed to have discretion regarding what they are going to eat.
The stupidest thing you can do is give layabouts money to spend. Don't let them spend anything. Give them a weekly supply of pre-selected groceries from a central warehouse.
Being on assistance should not be fun, easy or even tolerable. It should be difficult and troublesome, and people should want to get off it as soon as possible.
Those who are hopeless will still get fed, but those who are able will not remain in such a program.
Problem is, such a solution does not fit the political needs of certain power blocks.
I agree. Also, entitlement parasites should not be allowed to vote. Once of the govey tit, voting rights would be reestablished.
Back in 2010 a man old enough to remember the thirties contradicted me when I said that we were really in a depression but refusing to face the fact. He actually said that this was not a depression because there were no SOUP LINES. I asked him what he called forty million or so at that time on food stamps and did he have any idea how long the lines would be if we had soup kitchens instead of EBT cards. He didn’t seem to have an answer. I have said for a long, long time that we passed the peak earnings for working people in real terms forty or more years ago. All the cell phones, computers etc. serve to amuse people and keep them from asking themselves why their grandfather had a farm, a house, livestock etc. and little or no debt while they owe more than everything they own is worth and many college graduates are taking jobs at wages that are, in real inflation adjusted terms, less than the minimum wage of $1.25 an hour was worth in 1963. Many others are finding no jobs at all and some who are supposedly doing well are still taking jobs that pay no more in real terms than they could have gotten with a high school diploma in the sixties.
read.
Do I understand you to contend that Trump has no sense of history nor empathy? If so I’m wondering why you would believe that.
Yes, govt employees should be tax exempt and not allowed to vote.
I have long argued that the welfare system was created solely because of the 24th amendment, which gave the vote to people who did not pay taxes.
The 24th amendment was passed in 1963, and in January of 1964 Lyndon Johnson first proposed his "great society" programs, i.e. "welfare."
Oh, please. Where was the barf alert?
I’ve often wondered if it started going downhill when the property ownership requirement went away.
Unquestionably.
This guy is a d**k but would be interested to know the veracity of this story.
I think I read somewhere (FR maybe?) that they were staggering the delivery dates on SNAP/EBT money. Could this be it?
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