I'm nyhcmaven84, an entrepreneur and writer very active on Alternet. Former tax advisor who was disturbed by the massive wealth disparity I saw and became morally opposed to the system I had to help keep in place, and the clients I was charged to advocate for. This is my first diary based on something I observed this weekend.
Just a head's up, I like to use fun language to make my points. You may want to skip this diary if dirty words offend you.
I was waiting for the A train at 168th Street on a sunny Friday afternoon.
In rifling through my backpack, I noticed that a man in his sixties or thereabouts sat down at the bench. His gray beard was matted and grizzled and he wore a worn faded coat.
He audibly sighed and pulled out a Payday candy bar. He had only broken off a small piece about the size of an eraser but he looked at it like it was one of those Serendipity sundaes that could provide dessert for a whole building. He just sounded so satisfied when he bit into it.
It made me think of how that in Maine they now want to police how poor people eat, and in Kansas another sociopath wants poor people to know they are never ever allowed to have one modicum of fun...not just in what foods can be purchased with EBT cards but also in limiting cash withdrawals on (possibly fee-laden) benefit cards to $25 per day as if impoverished adults are middle class teenagers who need to be taught how to reign in their spending.
A candy bar is what, a fucking dollar?
A bag of candy to give a pregnant or PMSing woman some relief, or attempting to have a birthday party for a child, is maybe $3-5? Get off your high horses, you asshats. Maybe if employers stopped demanding college degrees for $12/hour jobs, the minimum wage was raised to $15 nationwide and indexed for inflation, just-in-time scheduling became illegal, and we had BASIC INCOME there wouldn't have to be anymore bullshit infantilizing from stone-hearted Republican fuckwits who LOVE to whine about "nanny states" while they police things such as what people eat and how much cash they can have.
I think that Payday was all that man could afford on his payday and looked at it like it was a million bucks. But I guess you only deserve a sweet reward if you're rich and make the taxpayers pay for your fuckups.