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While drinking my coffee this morning in an effort to get my St. Patrick’s Recovery Day going, the local news went off and the national news came on. A few minutes later, an outraged Senator Chuck Schumer appeared, all aflutter in a fit of righteous indignation.
Who's more important to our leaders -- Hurricane Sandy victims or inconvenienced cruise ship passengers?
Cruise ship passengers, he declared, should never be “forced to live in Third World conditions.” Something must be done! Whereupon he promised to get right down to the all-important task of regulating the cruise ship industry to insure that their relatively well-heeled customers never have to endure, for a few hours or even a few (gasp!) days, the conditions that many New Yorkers either normally live in or have been forced to live in for months due to the government’s pathetic performance in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
I did a little research on the latter, and it seems the media have grown bored with the topic of the state of Hurricane Sandy victims. The most recent article I could find was this March 6 piece from HuffPo:
Superstorm Sandy punished low-income people in New York and New Jersey, especially renters who are now at risk of being unable to find new homes, according to a pair of studies released on Wednesday said.
Forty-three percent of the 518,000 households in New York and New Jersey asking for federal aid after Superstorm Sandy reported annual incomes of less than $30,000, according to the study from the affordable housing financing firm Enterprise Community Partners.
Of those making claims to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as of mid-February, 68 percent of renters and 24 percent of homeowners were low-income, the Enterprise study said.
Apparently, there are still thousands of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans who still don’t know where they will be living later on this year, and I don’t know how many are still in temporary shelters, trailers, or tents.
But that’s old news. Who can forget the grossly obese woman complaining about standing in line for hours for a hamburger while her cruise ship was being towed to Alabama? Or the horror stories from passengers deprived of electricity and indoor plumbing for several DAYS! And then we were treated to another story last week where these inncocent passengers had to go without working toilets or electricity for HOURS! Horrors!
Why, there might have been campaign contributors on those ships. After all, if you have enough money to go on a cruise, you probably have enough money to donate to some Senator’s re-election campaign. And Senator Schumer is going to go out of his way to make sure you notice his clarion call to insure that you never have to experience what millions of your fellow Americans go through on a regular basis. Especially when you’ve spent your no doubt hard-earned(actually, I do have doubts about that) money on a dream vacation.
The message I see loud and clear is this: Poor people made homeless by a nasty hurricane that was likely helped along by climate change may just have to suck it up. Middle class and wealthier people who can afford to go on cruises must never even be inconvenienced.
It pisses me off, it does.
cross-posted at Voices on the Square
Photo by Cyprus Pictures released under a Creative Commons No Derivatives license.
16 Comments
CNN should be happy, they have at least one connected viewer in Schumer (D- Wall Street/Israel) out there.
Ohio Barbarian, you were the only person who commented on my diary “A question no politician can answer.” It’s rather complex to many, and that’s because never in the history of this country has it been necessary for the “public at large” to understand such things. I would appreciate it if you would expound on the significance of this diary.
Your diary as well as mine illustrate “Politicians” doing what politicians do. Any and everything that gets them on TV or in the news, but nothing for us. The 3 amigos destroyed Barack Obama’s economy while he was celebrating his election victory, and he never uttered a peep. That’s because this escaped the attention of the “public at large”, and his “fellow politicians” committed this crime; even though it was against him, he knew he wouldn’t suffer for it, $4.00 a gallon gasoline never cost Obama 1 red cent.
We no longer have Democrats and Republicans, we have two sets of politicians working for the same people, and putting on “theater” for our benefit.
Good rant. Schumer doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about some ridiculous Carnival Cruisers, whether they actually truly suffer or not… as lakota indicates, it’s mainly about the optics. Let Schumer get his ugly, greedy mug on the tube ranting ‘n tirading, and then: bupkiss… whether it’s for cruise “victims” or for the real victims of Hurricane Sandy.
These sociopathic shysters only care about one thing, and one thing only: what’s in it for MEEEEEEEEEEEE?????
The significance has to do with socioeconomic class. Most of the people who lost their homes in Hurricane Sandy and still have no permanent place to live are not in the class of people who could afford a Carnival Cruise. At best, they might have been employees on one of those ships, but there’s no way they could plop a few grand down on a vacation like that.
The class of people who composed the majority of the passengers were, I’m sure, more likely to vote, more likely to be able to contribute to political campaigns, and far more likely to actually know the likes of Schumer or even to know someone who knows him.
IOW, they are closer to his world. He seldom sees the world in which, say, the displaced working class people of Staten Island or Long Island or the Bronx live in. They’re not really REAL to the likes of him.
Just like the effect of $4/gallon gas on someone like me who has a 25 mile commute to work each day are unreal to President Obama and the people he allowed, without protest as you pointed out, to manipulate the markets to their advantage and causing the rise in fuel prices.
This is just another example of the class warfare that’s been waged against the poor since at least the 1980′s and against the middle classes themselves since the 1990′s, and those dates are very conservative.
Oh, it’s about optics, all right, but it’s interesting how the optics are played. The corporate media certainly empathized with the plight of the inconvenienced passengers, just like Joe Scarborough used to routinely complain about being inconvenienced at airports.
These people are portrayed as “average Americans,” but most of them are in the top 20% of wealth-holders. They’re not average. Most of the Carnival employees probably are, but they weren’t even mentioned except in the complaints made by the outraged vacationers.
I feel for them. Can you imagine some cook or waiter being assailed 24-7 about how they ruined some doctor’s wife’s vacation for days while knowing if they talked back they would get fired? I can. Easily.
Poor bastards.
Oh, one more thing. The fact that Schumer was outraged by Carnival Cruise passengers living in what he called “Third World conditions” demonstrates that he doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, that tens of millions of Americans live in those conditions every day.
This shows just how out of touch our PTB are. They just don’t get it.
Everything is so very much worse than it’s ever been in my lifetime. While things have never been good on the bottom, they are now suffering from the psychiatric consequences of poverty; deprived people become depraved people. This is the fundamental reason for murder in the ghetto, but that’s related to sociology, and that’s a science that’s no longer needed. It was replaced by “law and order” decades ago.
“We no longer have Democrats and Republicans, we have two sets of politicians working for the same people, and putting on “theater” for our benefit.”
This is absolutely right!! A pretty decent analysis of how we got to this scary place can be found in the last few chapters of C.H. Ferguson’s book: Predator Nation.
Very nice post Ohio Barbarian! Rec’d
Thanks Ohio Barbarian, another fine post. rec,d.
These kind of stories are getting commonplace,eh ? Is it something in the water?
The PTB do not have a clue and they’re proving it almost every day now.
Won’t Schumer and his ilk be surprised when the shit(literally) hits the fan? This will not be a drill. p.s. Watch your blood pressure,we need your voice.
PEACE
I have read that Schumer was the man responsible for the SEC cover up of one of his biggest contributors, Bernie Madoff. Crooked pols are the scourge of America regardless of their Party.
Schumer is a political opportunist always protecting cronies with money first and rarely a progressive defender of the people, egalitarianism or common interests. He’s a typical political hack who uses his power to help those with money and power, while throwing out a crumb to humble masses.
I compliment you on juxtaposing Schumer’s concern for the upper crust to the plight of the less well off of his constituents, OB. I only wish I knew more about New York politics so as to say something intelligent about what underlies his attitude. His wiki paints him as something of a publicity hound, and as interested in “consumer issues,” but that doesn’t say much.
BTW this post currently scores 5th in a Google search of “senator schumer carnival cruise lines.”
Well I for one refuse to take any of those horrible and disgusting cruses. The very idea.
Heh! Why take one of those after one has been haze gray and underway at taxpayer expense? You even get free beer after 90 days.
Thanks for the pic, mod!
Thanks. I don’t think you have to know all that much about New York politics to say something intelligent about the attitudes of people like Schumer. They live in comfortable bubbles that are unaffected by the rapacious policies they pursue or allow.
For a good example of that mindset, see Cmaukonen’s “Pushed to the Edge and Really Pissed Off” that was posted on FDL today. The picture of that bulldozer in Cyprus is priceless. I bet Angela Merkel never saw that one coming. How could she? She’s in the same class as Schumer and ilk.