Meet the hobos
A Republican cartoon version of the future
Meet the hobos
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
If you're currently out of work and waiting for your next unemployment check, you might be out of luck. Republican Senator Jim Bunning - a politician so out of touch that even the Republican leaders considered him unfit to run for reelection this year - has been single-handedly blocking an extension of jobless benefits. For 1.1 million affected Americans, the jobless pay ran out last night. Senate Democrats will try to help the jobless by overriding Bunning this week. He insists that, as a matter of fiscal principle, it would be wrong to add to the deficit, but his real message was actually more pungent. Late last week, when Senate Democrats begged him to drop his objections and, in essence, to stop screwing around with people's lives, Bunning was overheard saying, "Tough s--t."
That would make a fine GOP bumper sticker, but perhaps it's Dean Heller, a heretofore obscure Republican congressman from Nevada, who best exemplifies his party's attitude toward the everyday straits of the struggling millions. At a Republican dinner in his state the other night, Heller questioned the wisdom of extending unemployment benefits over a span of several years. He feared that, by doing so, the federal government might turn us into a nation of slackers. Or, as he suggested to his listeners...and I kid you not, this is what he said...
"Is the government now creating hobos?"
Absolutely, that must be the Democrats' ultimate game plan. I happen to have an exclusive iPhone application called iFuture, which allows me to upload text and video of events that haven't even happened yet. I've just tapped the icon. Here's a news story from 2012. Or perhaps it's the Republican cartoon version:
HOBOHEMIA - Riding the rails from all over America, unshaven hobos by the millions descended on the federally-mandated city of Hobohemia, intent on celebrating the creation of their own community and vowing to live out their once-productive lives on the government dole.
Everybody had a story to tell. Strumming a Woody Guthrie tune on his five-string banjo, Joe Hill smiled at the sun as he lolled on his back in the town square. He pulled a cigarette butt from behind his ear, stuck it between his lips, lit the match on his stubble, and said, "I was a middle manager at a manufacturing plant for 35 years until I got laid off back in '09. I suppose I should've kept looking for work so that I could support my family, but there's no need for any of that, now that I've got my jobless check from the government. Long as those checks keep coming, I'm gonna choose to be a bum. The heck with the family - right, Harry?"
His friend, Harry McClintock, looked up from his well-thumbed John Steinbeck novel, and smirked toothlessly. "I'm fixed up real good, Joe," he said. "Just got my latest check from DHS (the federal Department of Hobo Services), and I used it to buy a new iPod. I'm thinking tonight I might try to download that old Red Skelton comedy sketch, Freddy the Freeloader, and maybe that old Johnny Cash ditty, The Hobo Song."
"Good thing we jumped off that train, Harry," said Hill, "because those boxcars didn't have free wi-fi. Which is outrageous. DHS should work up some rules requiring that the freight trains get wireless. The other night I tried to download Big Rock Candy Mountain, and I couldn't even get a signal."
"Great song!" McClintock exclaimed. Hill fired it up on the banjo, and McClintock sang: "In the big rock candy mountains/ There's a land that's fair and bright/ Where the handouts grow on bushes/ And you sleep out every night...Awesome, that part about the handouts. So much more fun than being an out-of-work engineer with a wife and kids and a house in foreclosure. Joe, what say we hit that Starucks over there, then go to Banana Republic for some new glad rags?"
"I guess so," Hill yawned. "But that involves getting to my feet and walking across the street. I've been telling DHS that my checks need to be bigger, to cover the cost of those Frappuccinos, and they keep saying, 'next month, next month.' I keep telling them, 'Jeez, don't I have any rights anymore?'" He shook his head sadly, and started strumming John Lee Hooker's Hobo Blues.
"Buck up, Joe. See the sign in Starbucks? There's a week-long reading of Jack Kerouac."
"Well, OK," said Hill, brightening. "But only if they let us sleep out on the sidewalk between readings."
"DHS already says that's your right as a hobo," McClintock pointed out. Then his phone buzzed. "Hang on, Joe, I got a text coming in. Two, actually." He read and groaned. "First one's from the wife. She wants me to come home, says there are 'now hiring' signs being put up all over town. No frickin way. I like it better when the handouts grow on bushes."
"You got that right," Hill murmured, his eyes growing heavy. "Whuz the other text?"
"It's from the Obama re-election campaign again. They're asking for our vote. They created us hobos, we should be grateful, that sort of thing. But I don't know. Weren't we planning to hop a freight train to Montana that week?"
"I dearly hope there's no jobs for us up there," Hill yawned. "But the heck with the train this time. We'll rent a car - get the DHS discount, ride in style." Fighting sleep and fumbling for the banjo, he began to play Woody Guthrie's Hobo Lullabye.
Lulled by the strumming, McClintock slid his Steinbeck novel under his head and began to nod off. His last words were, "Mmmm, OK. But only if the rental has XM radio."
I wouldn't consult Castro on the best method to stuff corn flakes down people's throats or how to market a flat screen TV but I'd ask him what he did to help Cuba (44th) have a lower infant mortality rate than the United States (46th) (CIA World Fact Book). Considering it's such a wretched place, it's not a bad accomplishment.— Rabe56- swedesboromike: back to the ACORN thing. Again, I am no fan of ACORN. I am no fan generally of the federal goverment funding private groups. You made a SPECIFIC charge. You claimed that Obama "trained ACORN ... workers to secure mortgages for unqualified people in sufficient numbers to collapse the housing and home-financing industries." You, as per usual, can't substantiate this claim. When I point this out, apparent socialist that I am, you claim I'm quibbling. As I put in the last blog : "quibbling –noun - 2.the act of a person who quibbles" ... "quibble - noun - 4. an instance of asking swedesboromike to provide evidence of or factual basis for any of his statements".... I shall do my best not to quibble in the future.— still_independent
- Still Independent - Yes, Obama conducted leadership training seminars for an organization who activities include intimidating bankers into making loans to people with no means to pay back the loans. I guess I make the wrong conclusion.
- Hanknik: "You think that the majority of people in America aren't just as bad off as the majority in Cuba, Mike?" I'm not goign to throw out a reflexive "America, love it or leave it", but to answer your question, NO. I hear of very few people drowning trying to float across on makeshift rafts to Cuba. Infant mortality is a single statistic. On many other measures, they lag far behind.— still_independent
- This feels like a reach.— tjm333126
- Independent: You must remember the party line from the echo chamber is that Obama is a "socialist - community organizer - citizenship doubtful" individual. You'll never win an argument with a propagandist. The latest: The Drudge Report is implying Obama has a drinking problem. As for ACORN, it's not perfect, but conservatives have been screaming BAD GOVERNMENT for generations, so what happens when poor people group together to try to help themselves with government's help? They're called socialist. What's wrong with being a "community organizer"? It's a good thing. But in the echo chamber, community organizer has a dark nefarious connotation. The problem is that right wing propaganda has become accepted by the msm. Notice that "union" is a dirty word. A person who cares for the environment is a "tree-hugger". The word "liberal" equates to "lazy, not smart, I hate America". It's unfair, but we have ourselves to blame. And for all of their complaining, the echo chamber has won because they control the language now, they know it and they are winking at each other all the way to the bank.— Rabe56
- I wholeheartedly agree with Still Independent's comeback to Handnik. Kumbaya
- MOCKY: Here are your next 5 accomplishments from Bush-Cheney. 36. LIBBY'S ILLEGAL OBSTRUCTION for Cheney with lies. What reason did he have to lie for Cheney? ....... 37. BUSH'S KNOWLEDGE ABOUT PLAME was in the book by Scott McClellen. Bush's remarks were that he knew what happened, and allowed his people to be above the law. .......... 38. NO ACCOUNTABILITY for the $700B bailout was written into TARP. Yeah, I know no time to read the bill, no step-by-step, and Congress was forced to work the weekend to meet the Monday-a.m. deadline from the previous Friday. ............... 39. THE RESPONSE TO KATRINA by Bush is self-explanatory. Yeah, there are others to blame, but that doesn't make the slow response by Bush bogus. ............... 40. WITTMAN USED by Cheney to fool people like me. Her appointment was one of the few things the admin. did I liked, and Cheney fixed that mistake. Money is always more important than anything but war. War is the only thing we can afford.— Talvenada
Jim Bunning is somewhere between cantankerous and crazy. As a young man who idolized his pitching prowess during his stint with the Phillies, I met him in a Tampa airport elevator in spring '74 after he became a Phils coach, on his way to spring training at Clearwater. "Oh wow, you're Jim Bunning...I'll always remember how great a pitcher you were for the Phillies!" He barely acknowledged me, and without a smile. All I can say is it sent chills through me. I never thought of him in the same light.- Smike, Watson has been there for two terms and she's leaving - 'nuff said there. As to her representing the collective idaes of all Dems, I doubt it. She represents a district in/near LA. Refer to my comment on 'people of reason' And do we judge all conservative ideas by Bunning? (whose career peaked on Father's day '64) or maybe CD75?— JimR
- Dick, What Bunning said was before more money is spent, let's get the money from a designated place. Big difference Mr. Smear and Distort. I think you dem allies in congress call that "paygo". Nice smear job.— CD75
Comment removed.- Reilly: Why do you think Castro would charm me? In other words, I'm a naive liberal who beileves anything. Not fair to assume that. The point that I hope that isn't missed isn't about Castro,it's how in the world does the country with the best medical system rate 46th in infant mortality? Did every other country lie. Yes, the Cuban abortion rate is 3x higher but that doesn't exlain the difference between the U.S. and other countries.— Rabe56
- The Right-Wing Noise Machine bloviates for hours everyday on the AM Band about how Cuba and other third world countries pad their health stats. They love to throw around the abortion issue. Nothing like stirring up the base. Fact is, who cares if Cuba or the US have better numbers, the mere fact that they can be compared is pathetic. Rush and Hannity and the like never seem to understand millions of Americans will have babies every year in third-world conditions. Our "me first" NIMBY nation seems ok with this, clearly Rush is, and now the Republican Party is on board. The Democrats aren't far behind, but at least they can cling to their Socialism moniker as some sort of booby prize. I love how you clowns think socialism is Armageddon, but yet you have ZERO concern for the millions of poverty stricken babies in this SUPER POWER nation. The right wing has spent all their energy red-bating and have completely neglected their own innocent citizens- are these babies welfare defrauders? I thought Republicans were mostly "Christians". I don't think that word means what they think it means...— pagoda
- Comment removed.
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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