Lame Colorado Snowstorm email - part deux...

[Blue Belle]

This morning I posted about an email I received comparing a record Snowstorm in Denver to Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.phpaz=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=292164&mesg_id=292164

So... my question is, does anyone have any statistics on how many Americans are now at the poverty level, homeless, and how many/percentage of that group are veterans? I ask because I received the following email:

The continual barrage of lame excuses to bash our
President grows old. I wonder what happened to a
people that could stand on their own two feet and do
for themselves rather than depend on the President or
the federal government!!

I haven't written a response... but I'm taking suggestions.

[muntrv]

1. Tell the e-mailer that you can shovel snow but you can't shovel water.

[frazzledmom]

2. Well not all of us can be as independant as the sheep in the

republic party. I'm sure if this person lost his house, his car, his job and his whole city, and then was told by his insurance company to "take a hike we don't do natural disasters" he'd be back up on his feet in a week :eyes:

[Blue Belle]

4. I was thinking about saying something like that...

but I heard some statistics on the radio the other day about the increased number of homeless and improvrished - and a suprising number of them were vets. After hearing about all the stories out of Wlater Reed and feeling the smugness of these yellow ribbon on our SUV driving righties for the past 6 years, I really wanted to throw down some numbers to go with my lame barrage of excuses to bash this president.

[eleny]

3. I live in Colorado

The Denver metro area, to be specific. And there's no way that the storms this season left us like Katrina left the Gulf coast. That email is a real load of nonsense.

[Blue Belle]

5. Oh I know it is...

This is just another one of those right wing chain mails that make them feel better about being ignorant and gives their inner prejudice more food for thought.

[blondie58]

6. yeah - there is NO comparison

I am also a Colorado native and a mail carrier.

This year has been extra snowy, making my job much more difficult than it already is. Usually when we have this snow, we have our strong sunshine afterwards to melt it all. It has made our routes longer on the street by two and three hours per day. I haven't enjoyed it, but it is part of life and yes, you DO deal with it.

HOWEVER! what happened in Katrina has no camparison. They were warned about the failure of the levees to protect the city and nothing was done about it. Bush just continued with his photo-ops, while Gore organized and paid for a charter plane to rescue some of those that were stuck in the New Orleans hospitals who sorely needed medical help.

I'm sorry, I have no info about veterans or poverty stricken people, but these people were stuck. They HAD no transportation out of the city and no money to secure any better conditions.

This kind of talk angers me also. Sure, we need to respect our CIC, but Bush, imho has done nothing to earn that respect. And he leaves us with so many opportunities to bash him, with each new mishap or scandal.

[eleny]

8. Bless you!

You folks really had it hard this season. We're just south of you in Lakewood and we missed lots of a mail days. Our street is small and was totally impassable for days. It feels odd that the snow is almost all gone now!

:hi:

[blondie58]

10. wow!

yep, I work out of the Lakewood P.O.- zip code 80215.

This has been so weird, I grew up here and never remember having 'dirty snow', as it melts too fast- and to see drifts weeks after the storm is unreal.

Thanks!

[eleny]

12. That's my zip!

I've lived here since 1976 and dirty snow is a new one to me out here. Common in NYC but not in 80215!

[blondie58]

15. maybe I deliver your mail!

I am a string floater, so I do the day off for five different routes around 80215.

If you've seen a blonde, middle aged woman delivering- it might have been me.

Small world!

[frazzledmom]

7. Got some Stats... a third of homeless are vets

There is an estimated 300,000 veterans who are Homeless on any given night and twice that number experience homelessness over the course of a year.

1/3 of the homeless have served in the United States Military.

Most homeless veterans are male and account for at least 60% of the nation's homeless men.

More than 90% of the homeless veterans are high school graduates, a third have some collage education. Most are unemployed, but nearly all have worked in the past year.

The single largest segment of homeless veterans, approximately 58%, is from the Vietnam Era. 3% from WWII, 14% Korean War, and 25% from the Post Vietnam Era, including Desert Storm.

http://www.vvnw.org/Veteran_Services/Beacon_House/uvbh.htm

It's hard to get accurate counts and there are many different sites full of info.. I just googled homeless vets stats. This site was the easiest to navigate.

edit: I'm looking for the stats on general poverty and homelessness, I saw those same reports you did but forgot to bookmark.. DOH!

[Blue Belle]

11. This is so great...

I did a google search earlier, but I think my search criteria was too broad. I was hoping someone here might have it off the top of their head - everyone knows the DU has the most brilliant and up-to-date bloggers (at least I'm biased that way).

Thanks so much for you help. I don't know why it's so important to me, but I just get so pissed when I think about those poor soldiers, and I'm so angry that the right refuses to get their heads out of the sand.

[niyad]

9. the last time this piece of garbage made the rounds, it was about ND-- and it is getting

quite tiresome seeing this over and over again as though 3 feet of snow was the same as 10 feet of toxic, polluted water (remember that the area around NOLA is known as "chemical alley"

[Blue Belle]

13. Okay... so I just finished writing my response...

Here it is:

You're right. I bet if your home, car, job, and city were completely wiped out in one fail swoop you'd pull yourself up by your own bootstraps even if you didn't have any boots left. Sure members of your family may be displaced or dead, and never mind that your insurance company told you to get lost. You'd probably bounce right back in a few weeks. I bet you'd never think of asking for help because it was probably your own darn fault for choosing to live where you live in the first place.

I thought about giving you statistics about the increase in poverty and homelessness in this country since 2000, but I know you won't listen. I can site statistics of the rising amount of homeless and impoverished veterans and I know you won't care - they're probably drug-addicted freaks anyway... right? If I talk about the disappearing middle class, or tell you that the largest percentage of homeless Americans are white children you'll just think I'm making it up because I want to pick on your president. But the reality is all this happened on Bush's watch, and the only ones who have benefited are the richest 10% of Americans. The rest of the country is buckling underneath this extravagance waiting for the economics to trickle down.

You know what is really getting old? The continual barrage of factually ignorant emails designed to prop up a poor excuse for a president.

[blondie58]

14. right on, Blue Belle!

Great response.

Short, concise (helpful as the righties don't have the patience- or perhaps inteligence for a lengthy letter)

Bravo. And so evident to those of us in the know.

[Blue Belle]

16. Thank you...

I was wondering, since this thread was dropping quicker than a Bush twin off a barstool when I posted, if my response might be a little harsh, but then I thought that sometimes - in the face of such ignorance - you have to be.

I haven't received a response back... so we'll see.