STEPHEN COLBERT, on a conservative group’s findings that “99.8 percent” of the nation’s poor own a refrigerator and that the majority own a microwave — making them, we guess, not poor? — on The Colbert Report.

The federal definition of poverty is a family of four subsisting on less than $22,000 a year.  If they have a 20-year-old refrigerator, a $60 microwave, a $20 coffee maker and some other basic necessities, I’m not going to whine about it like many conservatives seem to love doing.

Because the poor don’t deserve to have shit.  And rich folks really deserve huge fucking tax breaks.

(via inothernews)

Is this *really* what they’re whining about now? (i can’t keep up any more, jesus). that we have microwaves and refrigerators? Guess what? That’s because we RENT and a microwave, stove and frige COME WITH THE DAMN RENTAL UNIT. Even when you buy (and most people i know buy trailers), the frige and stove and *usually* microwave come WITH THE UNIT. And those people who somehow didn’t get a stove USE THE MICROWAVE. having a microwave in that case is not a luxury, but a goddamn injustice. because they SHOULD have a stove. But some bastard motherfucker landlord felt like including a stove wherever they are staying isn’t they’re responsibility. Or the poor person is staying in one of those rent by the week hotels and can only have a microwave. again, another injustice, not a luxury. 

ETA: and half the time poor folks need a microwave because they don’t have time to cook on the stove. or they are eating frozen meals because whole food costs so much.

these are not issues of luxury, but of necessity. i think it’s great that rich people can decide for everybody what they need and what is a luxury.

(via radicallyhottoff)

Actually, “The poor deserve nothing” is exactly the message that some try to spread.  The US is tainted by puritanicalism (which is not the same as puritanism), so that we value people only for the work they do… with “work” defined pretty narrowly.  Cleaning houses doesn’t count, nor does raising or educating children, nor does providing skilled nursing care.  We have to be doing manly work and receiving manly paychecks to have worth in the US.

What, this sounds too extreme?  Think about it.

• What’s the first thought in your mind when you see an obese person on a scooter or motorized wheelchair?
• How do we treat our elderly, our retired?
• How do we treat those in our midst who are disabled?
• When you go to the grocery store and you see someone parked in a handicapped spot, but you can’t spot a visible problem, do you glare at them or pass judgment?
• When you see a homeless person on the street, do you avoid making eye contact?  Do you surreptitiously lock your car doors?

If you’re not doing manly work, you don’t have worth.  And therefore, you deserve mold and trichinosis.  You deserve debtors’ prison.  You deserve to be jailed for sleeping in a public park.  You deserve to lose what little you have, to feed the rapacious appetites of the manly wealthmongers among us.

May God have mercy on our souls.

(via bluntlyblue)

Stephen Colbert (via videcormeum)

That is the truth of it, isn’t it, the bit that I bolded up there?  We don’t want to really help the poor.  The poor are dirty, and they smell bad, and they don’t watch the same tv shows we do (if they have televisions at all), and we don’t want to mess up our nice clothes, and we certainly don’t want anyone to see us in those neighborhoods!

The secret is, we’re afraid of the poor.  We’re terrified of the homeless.  It doesn’t take much to take someone solidly in the middle class and turn him or her into a poor person.  Get laid off and not be able to make your mortgage payments.  Have a medical emergency.  Get hit by another driver and be unable to work.  Become sick with a chronic condition.  Watch the life that you’ve put together fall apart… and know that there’s almost nothing you can do to keep from becoming poor.

And all the sudden, nobody will want to help you any more.  Because you’re dirty, and you smell bad, and you don’t get all the pop culture references any more because you’re too busy working two jobs, and you frighten people with your need. 

We all stand convicted by the existence of the poor and homeless around us.  When we drive past the man begging at the bottom of the highway ramp and try really hard not to make eye contact, we should feel guilty about this.  This man knows the truth about us.  We’re too selfish to help, to afraid to help.

We didn’t want to help.

May God have mercy on our souls.

(Source: )

(Source: colbertnation.com)

Alexander Pope (via quotationsblog)

Message to those Republicans who thought Stephen Colbert was sincerely praising them, when he answered the question “Do you endorse the Pledge to America?” with “I endorse all Republican policies without question.”

Love,
Undercover Nun

(Source: quotationsblog, via lipsbetweenthehips)

Stephen Colbert, in response to the question of why he was testifying before Congress on behalf of the migrant farm workers

Undercover Nun wonders how any American can see that contradiction and claim that we treat these sojourners in our midst in the way God wants us to.  The whole of the bible tells us otherwise.

Lord, have mercy on us all!