As I travelled my usual route into work this morning through the badlands of West Philly, I witnessed the usual Thursday morning phenomenon. I usually make my way down 36th Street between 7:00 am and 7:30 am every day. I never get stuck in traffic on this route as no one in this community is rushing off to work in the morning. I rarely see any human beings in Mantua in the morning. Bustling is not a word that describes this section of West Philly. They are snug in their government issued posturepedic beds, in their government subsidized low income luxury townhouses, watching their government subsidized Direct TV, and munching on pork rinds and cheetos bought with their EBT card.
Thursday mornings are different. There is a large non-descript building on the corner of 36th & Haverford Ave. housing the Grace Lutheran Evangelical Church. Below is a partial picture of the building.
On Thursday’s there is a long line of folks with their grocery carts in tow lined up in front of this building. They even bring their own chairs to stake out their position in line. By my estimation they are lined up two hours before they open the doors. It is sort of a Black Friday in Squalorville. This morning there was even a dude in his government subsidized Hoveround in line. Did you know those hoverounds are practically free? I couldn’t help noticing that 80% of the people waiting for the free food were obese. I thought the point of distributing food to poor people was to prevent them from starving. It sure is working, because there were no famished people in that line.
I’m a big fan of those who are well off, donating food and money to foodbanks to help those less fortunate. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the “free” food being distributed to the fine folks in West Philly has been donated at gunpoint by your tax dollars. The government has taken over deciding how charity should function. It’s almost as if the Savior himself was handing out the food to his people. I wonder if I would get any funny looks if I parked my car, got out and joined the ranks of the Free Shit Army in the line. It would probably make for a humourous post if I lived to tell it.
I wonder how many people would line up if they were distributing brooms, trash bags, paint brushes and hammers and requesting that these people clean up their neighborhood? What a silly question. That’s the government’s responsibility.
The Free Shit Army marches onward to its rendevous with destiny.
Here is a link to google maps. If you click Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church and then go to Street View, you can experience my morning commute firsthand. If you cruise down 36th street, you can see some beautiful murals of black people doing great things. You may see a few $25,000 hovels with a few $60,000 Escalades parked nearby.
You know who will be showing up at the food bank sometime today.
Your Squalor updates are absolutely wonderful.
.
Interesting story breaking today. Did you see it?
Arthur Davis ….. who co-chaired the 2008 Barack Obama campaign and seconded his nomination at that year’s convention ………. will speak at the Republican convention to exhort people to vote Obama out of office.
He said he will focus on two failures, direct promises from Obama that not only went unfulfilled but ended up making things worse: 1) unifying the country and 2) turning the economy around.
Wow.
Vote Obama and get more free shit.
Don’t worry.
White people be tryin’ real hard to keep black folk from gettin’ dey free shit.
My company picked up my lunch today – salad with chicken, water.
I got to the office at 7:20 AM, worked through lunch and will leave at about 6:00 PM.
I am a lucky bastard who should be give more to the federal government – my fair share.
Robmu1
I’m going to have to start referring to you as ChickenSaladRob now that you’ve joined the FSA.
I think kudos is deserved for Robmu1 as the inventor of the term Free Shit Army. Let’s give him a standing ovation.
Obama-Biden: Hope and chains
Debra J. Saunders, Chronicle Columnist
Vice President Joe Biden played the race card this week when he drawled Southern-style to a racially mixed audience that if Mitt Romney takes the White House, he’ll “unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”
Last week, a super PAC run by a former aide to President Obama released an ad in which a former steelworker all but fingered Romney for causing his 55-year-old wife’s cancer death in 2006 because Bain Capital shuttered the plant where he worked in 2001. The week before, White House aides stood back as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, without providing any proof whatsoever, charged that Romney didn’t pay taxes for a decade.
The president’s henchmen are running a dirty campaign. The worst part of it: These nasty antics are the best Obamaland has to offer.
Don’t take my word for it. Heed the message delivered by Obama himself when he accepted the Democratic nomination for president in Denver in 2008: “If you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.”
The president is in a pickle. He doesn’t have a smart plan to rescue the economy. He has pretty much given up until after the election on working with Congress to pass legislation to keep Washington from running off the fiscal cliff on Jan. 1 – when the Bush tax cuts expire and mandated spending cuts loom.
As CEOs decide to stall new equipment orders and plans to hire new workers, the administration essentially has cried uncle. The president blames “the other side” for not playing fair, and then somehow expects Americans to re-elect him so he can not get things done again.
Romney and his supporters know a thing or two about negative campaigning. A recent bogus campaign ad on Obama’s welfare plan won four Pinocchios, the maximum, on Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler’s scale.
The steelworker spot by super PAC Priorities USA also earned four Pinocchios. It’s not just that Bain may have kept the steel plant alive longer than it would have lasted, or that Romney left Bain by 2001. More important, former steelworker Joe Soptic claimed his wife developed cancer “a short time” after he was laid off, but she wasn’t diagnosed until 2006. And the ad does not mention that after he was laid off, Soptic got a lesser-paying job with benefits, and his wife had a job that provided health coverage until an injury derailed her work in 2002 or 2003. Kessler concluded, “On every level, this ad stretches the bounds of common sense and decency.”
The campaign and the White House press office refused to renounce the ad. Deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter claimed that the campaign didn’t know the facts of Soptic’s charge – even though she had set up a campaign conference call starring Soptic in May. Ugly stuff.
The Obama campaign, Priorities USA and the vice president are stirring up all that unnecessary muck because they want to excite the base. They want to incite resentment.
If they do it well enough, maybe voters won’t notice that this administration has lost hope and resists change.
There is a local coin shop I frequent to purchase junk silver because the prices are at or slightly below spot. The place is located in a strip mall right next to some sort of Orthodox Tax Evading Church. On Saturday mornings there is a line that forms for people to pick up free food. About one in ten look as though they are actually needy. One morning, several months ago, I saw a red Porsche 911 with a handicap placard pull up to load his free shit in the car. When the cart full of free shit was brought out, he started bitching about dented cans in the box. It’s a damn good thing I was not one of the volunteers there!
I_S
I’m happy to have left that Philly cesspool just after Hurricane Katrina! Now I’m living in Murder central, Nawlins, or just outside the city, in Slidell. It would seem that I have just changed seats on the Titanic. I am amazed at the levels of corruption and indictable offenses that goes on in this state. This whole country has gone to hell in a hand-basket! AND, it’s getting nothing but worse, everyday!
@AnAverageJoe: Thanks so much for the outstanding description of Slidell.. I have a daughter (full standing member for the FSA) living there (at least she was the last time I talked to her), supporting her good for nothing boyfriend on her disability check and two sets of food stamps.
Some kids turn out better than others. And some kids don’t turn out at all, regardless of the time, effort and teaching you give them.
She is, sadly, a near daily disappointment and I don’t care if your kid is 50+, she’s still your kid and you still feel bad about things.
Parenthood is overrated, I think..
Take care there is lousy-anna.
MA
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-08-16/22-stats-show-how-emerging-one-world-economy-absolutely-killing-american-work
@MA – Sorry to hear about your daughter. As an estranged child myself, I have a reasonably good idea of how shitty it feels.
I want some free shit. How do I get some? I want some free shit too!!
@Stan – Its easy, just give the government all of your stuff, and then stop working. You’ll have much the same quality of life, except more time to enjoy it!
In America, a citizen’s right should include a comfortable place to live, food enough to satisfy him, and entertainment to fill his waking hours. The United States is a rich enough nation to afford that for all our folks.
Though many Americans may want to work to have more, no American should have to work to have enough. A effortless lifestyle should be every American’s birthright.
For America’s elite Alphas there should be the certainty of success, riches, and an elegant lifestyle. That’s their birthright.
For America’s Betas, including the Administrator, you, me, and other TBP readers who have been taught to work, there should be a fair chance for a good job with a big corporation, a salary enough for a home with a mortgage in the suburbs, two cars, school loans, and a struggling future for our children.
As for the rest, it’s work or cruise depending on how they’re inclined.
“I’m entitled, you may be, and others will support us,” should be the slogan of the American 21st century. Agree?
Funny i was just talking about who is going to the food bank tomorrow,the wife is going she enjoys chatting with the ladys.I look around and most who show up can use some help.A lot of the food is at the experation date.So its good to help people out and not toss food in the garbage.
last week we were giving eight loaves of bread to everyone,we had over four hundred loaves.
Some people actually turn down food so others can use it.When the bread dosent go they give it to the bears at the local animal park.Knothing goes to waste if possible.
I guess our locations make the difference.Population density and all.I recommend folks get out of the citys while they can.Whats your life worth to you?
Yo Mister Admin
Damn, boy, you write some funny sheeit. You damn right da homies in Philly gonna git themselves some free sheeit. Same as da homies everywhere. Why da fuq shouldn’t we’s git free sheeit? Our father’s, father’s, father’s, father’s, father’s, father’s, father’s father wuz slaves, an’ we’s black folk ain’t never gonna forget dat sheeit. Never mind dat if dey had stayed in Motherland, dey would gots been ganked by tribal violence. Never mind dat we’s never would gots been born. Never mind dat our standard o’ living on welfare iz 100 times bettah than da average African this day.
Damn right wuz all fat an’ happy. we’s git dat free chickn n` corn bread ‘n waffles so we’s can sell our SNAP cards ta other fools. we’s git some o’ dat primo smoke by trading fo’ SNAP. sheeit, we’s can even git some nice lady box by trading fo’ SNAP an’ EBT. Why da fuq should we’s waste SNAP currency on chickn n` corn bread ‘n waffles? Usin` SNAP fo’ chickn n` corn bread ‘n waffles iz fo’ dem whitey trailer trash crackers dat is fat as Jobba da hut.
werd up, yo’ just jealous. we’s git democrats ta build us new houses, pay fo’ all our pain pills we’s sell, all da ER visits when we’s beat da sheeit out o’ our beotches.. dem democrats gonna give us free sheeit till da end o’ tyme, an’ all we’s gots ta do iz vote fo’ ’em. What could be easier? Just keep working hard, rollin’ ta werk, an’ paying yo’ taxes, foo’. we’s need our free sheeit, an’ we’s be gonna git it don’t make me shank ya!
Back in my Catholic Church attendence days, I would participate in my Church’s food drive/toy drive several times during the year.
As I handed out grocery sacks full of food and toys at Christmas time to very well fed, very well dressed, no habla espanol families in brand new pick up trucks, usually full of sacks of loot from other (sucker) Churches, I began to wonder if I wasn’t being played for a MORON.
I did this for about two years and quit, when I began to recognize the “poor” people showing up 2 years in a row with 2 different brand new trucks.
Slime On!!
Jim: Wait until you see the fucking lines when they start handing out the Obama meat that we just paid the cattle and chicken and catfish ranchers for. They’ll need half the Philly Police Department to control the crowd.
Hilarious. When you don’t have a job or have to work for anything, figuring out how to spend your day becomes your job. You can’t imagine the pathology this causes. Oh, well, maybe you can. Frankly, I’m impressed they got their asses out of bed before noon for anything.
Don’t let Admin fool you, he hangs out with the 30 blocks homies. Actual picture:
Gaaaaahhhhhh got stuck listening to Father-in-law sing Obama’s praises for 45min straight.
I feel like putting together an infographic for the man on why Obama is fucking horrible for the economy.
LIke the autoglass van parked near the Community Center as the demand for competent autoglass technicians is constantly high because of crime. Everyday another broken window. Also love the expensive Mercedes parked behind the van. Must be the minister’s or director’s car. And finally the Honda or Hyundai with the mandatory Obama-Biden sticker. ABout the churches getting scammed I know this is true as the clients know how to game the sympathies of guilty liberals. I will never forget several years ago we donated a refrigerator to a needy family because the other one broke. The client was referred to my sister by a church deacon. I think they were refugees from Liberia. Anyhow I heft a refrigerator there with my sister and her husband and they we happy. Anyhow my eyes see a fucking 61 inch big screen that I guess their kid bought. I nearly flipped out and was ready to take the TV right then and there as football season was about to start and I needed a bigger TV to watch Buckeye wins and Browns losses. This was several years ago so the prices were much higher. Could have bought a SS refrigerator for the price a big screen tv. But churches are easy pickings. Same for the pantry kitchens.
Admin, just when we think you have covered all the bases in West Philly you hit another home run.
I was at a Church in Newark tonight, meeting with people on the MBS/foreclosure fraud.
As I drove along MLK Blvd past Rutgers, Essex County Government Buildings, I felt like I was touring a ruin. The once grand brownstones, wide boulevards that signaled affluence all covered in weeds. Broken bottles, windows and dreams everywhere.
West Philly and Newark are our future. It’s very clear what is in store. God help us.
AnAverageJoe says: Now I’m living in Murder central, Nawlins, or just outside the city, in Slidell.
I take it you didn’t find your joy then?
“AWD says:
Hilarious. When you don’t have a job or have to work for anything.”
They have jobs now. Under the latest EO via HHS definitions of work, standing in line waiting for FS is considered a job.