We had a thing at work where we were being trained to handle payments. As part of the class, we had to run through United Ways poverty simulator and talk about the experience. The idea was to reinforce empathy or something before unleashing us on the payment lines.
One of the girls gets on mic and says she doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. She never has to worry about money or poor people because “god provides for me.” And she laughed about it.
This was following the rest of sharing our own hardships we’ve been through and the troubles we’ve heard from other callers on the phones.
Fucking psychopath.
So sickening and what a lot of people think right now. Wealth is gods reward. The poors are just not Christian enough. It’s all part of gods plan.
I call it neo liberal calvinism. Really pisses them off. (Mainly coz i think they dont know what it means.)
Whatever it is it’s not Christianity. Christianity has plenty of faults but this is a whole new horror of its own. They kept the branding and swapped out literally everything else. It’s just putting a cross of Republican politics and pretending it’s a religion now.
And the definition of neoliberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
Sorry here is some context on what calvinism is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformed_Christianity
It’s called the “prosperity gospel”.
It was invented by televangelists who told their audiences “give me all your money and God will reward you by making you rich.”
And then it spread to mainstream churches, supported by wealthy “Christians” who wanted to believe God had blessed them with wealth for their righteousness and punished sinners with poverty.
It’s Christianity, yes. And it’s the most repugnant Christian heresy I’ve ever heard of.
The prosperity gospel is not Christianity any more than a McDonald’s burger is actually a cow.
Does it believe Christ is the son of God? Yes? Then it’s Christianity. A particularly ugly version, yes, but Christianity has come up with some really awful versions of itself over the millennia.
It contradicts literally all of the teachings of their Christ. So it literally cannot be Christianity. When I said it kept the branding that covers exactly what your last assertion is. They kept the branding.
as you said, it’s a Christian Heresy. in that sense, you’re both correct.
Seems to me like that bunny should GET A JOBBBBBB
Also i really want the government to be run by unregistered sex offenders. Every night I pray that God will let my guy get away with it.
This reminds of the line from the Charles Dickens book. I’m pretty sure the Muppets Christmas Carol was actually one of the carol versions that took many of its lines from the book and followed it very accurately.
Anyway, the line is scrooge responding to the insufficient state of the poor houses and that some people would rather die than live in them. He says:
If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population
It’s interesting how even in Dickens times this idea of the problem being “too many people” was used as an excuse for poverty and inequality by the capitalist and bankers. Seeing as it’s still being done today. And many people still fall for this lie.
This is a report on industry contemporary to the time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_on_Hand-Loom_Weavers
Although keep in mind this was in the context of England plundering India of wealth at the same time. So it’s as much about inequality as anything, as always.
One of my favorite lit analysis videos is about this! The ghost’s reply to him on this is so fucking based
Oh, did the ghosts bring up his quote, right? The Ghost of Christmas Present if I remember. It hit so hard coming from the marry and happy ghost just dropping that line at the most painful time. The Muppets version literally did Dickens book justice. It’s literally my favorite adaptation of it.
I’ve never seen A Muppet Christmas Carol, but just looking at these pictures has caused me to start weeping uncontrollably.
It’s considered one of the better adaptations. Gonzo plays Charles Dickens, as Dickens historically made a fair bit of money in his later years narrating his stories in person. Michael Caine plays Scrooge. It’s excellent. Kermit and Piggy are Bob and Emily Crathit.
Michael Caine put more love and care into playing the role straight than I would have expected.
Agreed. He treated the muppets as fellow actors and it created a wonderful energy that still shines through all these years later.
There’s a few Scrooge movies I like to catch each year: Muppet Christmas Carol, Scrooged, and Spirited has joined the ranks recently. There’s one particular scene in that last one that absolutely horrifies me in the best way. They modernized a lot of it and made it more accessible to people who might otherwise see these concerns as outdated.
i cri evrytiem 😭😭😭
We watch it every Christmas Eve, it’s great.
We’ve watched Scrooged (NSFW) at Christmastime for the last few years.
The bitch hit me with a toaster!
I’m still partial to the mouse antler scene, or the nipple scene.
Check out spirited too!
Bean bunny deserves better. Wildly underrated muppet.
Why isn’t he burrowing? He would be much comfier in a nice den.
They stopped teaching that in schools.
Watched this tonight and yeah that was heartbreaking.
I bet that you think you might, but id wager you’d be wrong.
LOL
The minimum wage has been 7 bucks for almost 20 years, across multiple Democratic and Republican administrations, but sure, one party is totally anti-poverty.
The votes to raise the minimum wage that have reached the floor since then have been split on party lines, and the Republicans are the ones voting against.
So, what you’re saying is, when Democrats have power there isn’t a vote at all.
Funny coincidence, that.
In the time period that you are talking about the Dems controlled the house, Senate, and Whitehouse for something like 3-4 months. They were busy with the ACA during that time period. They should have raised the minimum wage then, but I don’t think they realized they would keep losing the house and Senate for the next 15 years
That’s crazy because they acted like they would lose it even then.
Dems controlled the house, Senate, and Whitehouse for something like 3-4 months.
So it’s perfectly reasonable to expect that they do something. Yes.
You live in a Dreamworld.
You’re right.
Expecting Democrats to actually do what they say when they have the power to do so is a dream.
Ya huh. Repubs have all the power now and they’re still doing shit illegally or by executive order because governmental obstruction is such an issue. Ie. You live in a Dreamworld.
I totally get when people say both parties are bad and don’t vote at all or vote third parties. I live in a multi party system so the whole concept is foreign to me. But the meme isn’t pro Democrats but against Republicans. Sure, voting Dems won’t save the US, change always comes through pressure from below, from the street. But voting for Rep*blicans is just Evil at this point.
Voting for either is evil.
Just two different flavors of it. Hell, Biden was helping Israel genocide a whole ethnic group and systemically starve them. Not exactly feel-good stuff from the leader of the Democratic Party.
Democrats largely are for the status quo and maybe adding a few more popular progressive ideas that don’t rock the boat or affect their benefactors. It seems like Israel is in a place that is too convenient to keep the current geopolitical status quo.
Unfortunately, we also have a voting system on the federal level that promotes two parties and both are really just tools used against the proletariat to keep everyone just preoccupied enough to keep from mass rioting.
