Candice Bergen | 04/20/2009 12:00 am

Candice Bergen: A Level Playing Field

In response to: As we fight through difficult times, what might be the blessings of adversity?

I don’t think for most people adversity is a blessing. They are struggling too hard to survive, feed their family. But perhaps a sense of community springs up that was absent before. A caring, a closeness with others that brings comfort. And it might level the playing field, which was desperately in need of it.

Read more about: Adversity, Economic Crisis, Lifestyle, Money

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Except you’re living under it now. Globalism is great for the businesses achieving cheap labor, and allowing only the goods THEY want to be sold here. The socialistic "failures" are the countries that are financing our debt. Our system is much superior if you don’t count corporate thievery and governmental approval of it. There will be no one punished for the last 8 years of plundering the American people. Ever notice in China, how they kill corporate thieves, and here we barely punish them?

By albertmiller on 04/22/2009 1:47 am

Your ideas are so refreshing among the flowery responses that sound like they’ve never experienced hardship. Thank you, Candace.

There is no joy in painful losses of any kind. Lessons learned are not something you can wear to show off, but often painful reminders. Life isn’t easy and I do not try to let it get me down, but when the favor of good times seems to fall like a mantle on some where others constantly struggle - to flower it up can often be simply cruel.

By ChrisBroersma on 04/22/2009 1:26 pm

That communty you spoke of might be true for the struggling non-welfare; but, for those that choose to accept Welfare to keep their families alive and together the opposite happens. The moment one accepts Welfare her support network is gone. she becomes more hated then the worst of criminals. And because she is so hated her family suffers the consequences right along with her.m The day I left my husband I tradded one abuser for thousands. Since then he has received more support and helps then my children and I have. I may have saved them from him; but, I threw them to a society of enraged Welfare haters. Their lives were still destroyed and I am still being slowly nothinged to death.

By ChristineCline on 06/13/2009 5:00 pm

So many respones and views to consider!

Dad told me and I beleive to this day "When the times are Tough, the Tough get going." Not everyone has an out, not everyone can have a good education and job, I have a sister who had all the advantages we all have, but she choose welfare and was on it until the state of NY made changes. She was on it for almost 20 yrs, and she’s only 44 now. I don’t understand how children from the same home can all turn out so VERY different.

Christine I firmly beleive only we can set the course of our lives. We have to be responsible for our own actions. My life has SUCKED big time, but NOT all the time. When it sucked it was for reasons out of my control (cheating husband, cancer, car accident), if a person doesn’t get up and brush off his/her’s bottom and continue forward, it’s their own fault.

Christine, welfare is for people in your situation, not pepole like my sister who could have worked and chose not to. Your the type of person I’d reach out to and help what every way I could, give you a ride somewhere, cook dinner for you and the kids, share what cloths I have you could use.

Welfare was suppose to be a band-aid, not a way of life and some have been on it for 2-3 generations, those are the ones society needs to kick off it and make them be responsible for thier lives.

By DeniseannTaylor on 06/14/2009 11:10 pm

What is this welfare people can be on for decades? All states now have time limits on receiving at least certain benefits. What benefits don’t end?

By KarenR1 on 06/15/2009 3:35 am

But this new reform is not fixing things. It has just found a way to hide the poor from the public. It limited one problem while making another bigger. They are throwing people off of welfare. But they are still not giving them the resources to get off themselves. In this reform there are no provisions to provide transportation and childcare for mothers while job hunting. So they are stopped dead at thier front doors. Would you hire a woman with a hot, tired, hungry, screaming baby in her lap, a toddler tugging at her skirts to leave and she herself looking like she just stepped right off the farm or out of a hurricane? LOL. This sounds implausible; but, sadly that is the case. Would you hire someone that is drenched in sweat from walking two miles to drop off the kids at daycare and then another seven to get to your business? Of course not! And these are just two of the main issues. Sometimes clothes and makeup are a factor. My shirts are my sons old work shirts and my jeans are from the dumpster. I have some makeup but the newest is over five years old so it may not be any good. Would you hire me? Then there are job skills. Even a job $2.00 above minimum wage is not going to support a woman with only one child. What about two or three or more children? Where I am the going rate for childcare is $155.00 a week for one child. Before you answer college scholorships, how will she get to school? Without that first a scholorship is moot point. As for benefits that do not end they do not end if you are diabled. Yes a blessing for us that are disabled. But also a curse. We are forever relegated to a life on the sidelines forever just watching LIFE pass us by, never able to join in the game.

By ChristineCline on 06/21/2009 11:56 am

You have given me what help you could. You have given me kindness. For that I am truely grateful.

By ChristineCline on 06/21/2009 11:58 am

that old saying "when theres a will there’s a way," I will continue on my quest of getting information, i’ve been sick for the last three days and pray it’s gone by tommorow, but I’m looking into a few things. I can’t say what until I’m sure. Hang in there Sister, someone is watching over us.

By DeniseannTaylor on 06/21/2009 9:19 pm

Thanks, kiddo. I just hope that someone kicks it up into high gear. I do not think I can survive another summer of same old same old. I miss the ocean so much my heart is reduced to tatters. 21 years is just pure torture. 21 years having surgeries, homeless shelters, homes owned by slum land lords. Homes that should have been condemed; yet, Section 8 approved them for living in. 21 years of hearing about other peoples vacations. Watching others move up into better homes, furnishings, cars, etc while my stuff just deterioted and was never replaced. Or replaced with other ‘junk’. Watching others pile into their cars to go to a pool or restaurant or amusement park while we go for "another walk". I feel like I am finally losing the fight to keep my sanity. So I hope He does something and fast. I have been told that I can’t have it all overnight; but, the way I see it I kind of deserve it. I’ve got 21 years of back pay, 21 years of LIVING coming to me. I have served 21 years in the prison of poverty and obscurity all for the crime of being hurt on the job and loopholed out of suing and for leaving an abusive husband. I left him and he received compassion and helps while I have been hated, villafied and raked through the coals thousands of times. the last vacation I experienced I was 14 years old. Now I am 46. I just want what anyone else wants LIFE. not survival. You hang in there too, sister.

By ChristineCline on 06/22/2009 12:23 am

Christine, I know what you mean by vacations, the last one I had was 21 yrs ago when I took my kids to Disney in Calif. Any time I would go to ny was because someone died, got married, or had major surgery. I arranged 4 military furnerals and one civilian (my wonderful Grandmother), because I was in the military they figured I’d know what to do, and I did, but none of my siblings or mother didn’t take into consideration that I was injust as much pain as them.

I’m what my shrink calls a giver, doesn’t matter who, if their in need I’ll go to hell and back to help. My shrink also says that this is the usual way an Adult Child of Acholoics do, and he’s right I think I’ve got the market covered as a GREAT Codependent.

People like you and I always slip through the cracks. I never let anyone anyone see me when I’m sick, and I"m really good at hiding my pain, and needs. I’ve taken care of myself for over 40 years, and I’m real tired.

Christine when I was growing up and right up to present I have had to fend for myself. My mother would go off sometimes for wks leaving my older @@@@@sister in charge, which ment she made me do everything, i resented them for a long time. my mother lied up to the day she died about my older sister to anyone who would listen, she’d tell them my sister graduated from college and is an math-engineer, but in fact she was kicked out in the first semister for doing durgs on campus. I on the other hand worked two jobs, got some grants and put myself through college, and I though my mother would have been proud of me. When i went to visit her over the years not one of her friends even knew I existed. i was the one she called when she needed money, when her tv broke I bought her a new one, when she needed a new materss I bought her one, the day before she died she mentions each kids name but mine, and I’m sorry to say I have not forgiven her for not just keeping me out, but for not moving out of the stepfathers house after I was raped, instead I left and found my father.

Work is something I’ve been doing for a very long time,and now that I can’t work and earn a decent living I’m stuck in a system that is so screwed up I can’t even find a place to live, my income is two low. some nites when i go to sleep I pray that God takes me, it would be so much easier then living in pain and stressed out all the time

By DeniseannTaylor on 06/22/2009 2:18 pm

I’m sorry your mother was such a jerk. But for your own sake please forgive not her but yourself. By doing that you forgive yourself for allowing her to hurt you. My mother is a jerk too. She told me that when she found me in the adoption agency at three years old she had my IQ tested. I tested at 142. She adopted me expecting me to grow up and become a successful business woman. Instead I have no interest in business. I do not even understand the mind of a business person. I am an artist. That is how I think. She has let me know hundreds of times over the past wenty years how disappointed she is in me. She has told me time and again, "See I told you you are not good enough to be an artist. If you were you would have already been successful at it." When I told her that it was resources that held me back she just blew it off. she has never supported my aspirations. That is why she knows nothing about my photography or poetry. I too have begged God to just kill me. I sometimes still do. It is so hard surviving day to day while surrounded by life. thanks to corruption these cracks we fall through are huge. I want people to wake up and see that. I do not want to be just another Welfare peice of trash that finally died taking one more person off the rolls. I do not want to die having accomplished nothing. Surviving pain and hardship is nothing to brag about. Those that say it is have never lived it. Hang in there, girl.

By ChristineCline on 06/22/2009 2:42 pm

Karen till just a few yrs ago, maybe four, NY state made no effort getting people off Welfare. Some had more kids so they could continue getting the benefits. My sister was literally on it for 20 years, they put her through the following schools: Hair Dresser, Secretary, Nurse’s Assistant, and the last Computer Networking. When they forced her off, the last time she still received Food Stamps and Medical for her and her son, her daughter started receiving her own benefits, after the State put her through college (Univeristy of NY at Buffalo) and that kid went to Catholic school until high school.

When they kicked her off she got a job with some Bug Extermination Company and she was only there a few weeks, she’d been in a rear end accident and hurt her back, so while at work she lifited something wrong and is now on Workmens Comp.

I think the woman may have worked about 2 full yrs in her adult life.

When I was 18 I was standing on the sidewalk waiting for my older sister to come out of the sub joint and I got hit by a car. I was already living out side my parental home so I was on my own. I went on welfare because I couldn’t continue to work, after two operations and a lot of work, I was able to return to college and my job. I sued the guy who hit me, when he got out of the car (which was still holding me to a wall) he had a beer in one hand a joint in the other, it was a NO Brainer.

I didn’t receive the settlement until I was 26 and when it came in I paid off my student loans, my car, bought my baby girl her first bedroom set and contact NY state to see how much they provided me in the yr I was out of commission, 19,000, I had a cashier’s check made out and sent it to them with a big Thank You for helping me when I was down. I didn’t have to pay for the surgeries because the insurance company had to pay them directly. At the time this occured they didn’t require repayment if you were on welfare due to an accident and a settlement was due.

I looked at it this way, If I ever needed their help again, they would see I was an honorable person who doesn’t take advantage of the gov’t, As a disabled Vet, and retired gov’t employee (worked for the gov’t after I got out of the Navy) I knew first hand how so many take advantage and then it’s up to the taxpayers to pick up the tab.

My sister angers me because she’s always found a way around everything and worked for nothing. She has no idea how good it feels to be acknowledged for a job well done, or that letter of appreciation from your boss because you went on and above the call of duty. She’s the one who’s lost out.

Welfare is suppose to be a short term assistance while you get back on your feet, not a way of life, like I said I know a lot of people who are thrid generaton welfare, they just don’t know how to regulate it, and there really isn’t enough people to police it.

By DeniseannTaylor on 06/15/2009 4:42 am

I can see NO blessing in Adversity. Yeah what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, yada yada yada

Until you’ve walked a mile yada yada yada

Some is true but mostly not.

I’m tired of fighting to put food on my table, or losing the use of a phone because I can’t afford one, if it weren’t for my daughter putting me on her cell plan I’d never talk to anyone.

thank God for free internet access or this wouldn’t be written.

No I’m tired of fighting, and going without, and it’s not going to change because I can’t work, so I have to iive on my disability from the VA.

Adversity I’ve seen too much of it in my life and it sucks.

By DeniseannTaylor on 06/15/2009 4:49 am

Oh, how many millions of times I’ve felt the same way. But, I rise up again if only for a moment and then again. We need to fight! Because we DO NOT deserve this meager existence. We need need to raise our voices up to the heavens and shout with all our mights. We need to talk and talk until people finally listen. We can not affect change from our lowly postions ourselves. So we need to get others, others who have more pull, more clout to join us in our quests for equality. You especially served this country to the best of your ability, you deserve better. You deserve to be honored not thrown away into some dusty corner of obscurity. Yell, Deniseann! Yell with all your might!

By ChristineCline on 06/21/2009 11:40 am

Christine, I tell everyone I know that God has to have a hernea from carrying me so much. Because if I didn’t have faith in him I would get through another day. On Friday I was told my income was too low and lost the apartment I’ve been packing for. Now I have to start all over again trying to locate a place to move too. There sending my checks back to me and when there in my hands then I can send a check for applicaton approval. The one thing that really sucks is the divorce is following me, my credit went to the pot because of it, the house was forclosed on, they took my car, all because the X@@@@@ husband decided he didn’t want to pay the bills anymore. The thing that really hurts is I worked two jobs, did all the house work, raised the kids basically by myself, did all the yard work and he never contributed to anything, he had his own bank account, and I would tell him what I needed to keep things going or for extras like prom for the kids, shoot for my daughters school ring I started selling Mary Kay for extra money, after I got the ring I quit, it just wasn’t for me. I even bought my own engagement ring and wedding ring. We used my VA loan for the house, and I’ll never get that back, and every lick of furniture we had I bought with my own money, otherwise we’d be using used for ever. My children learned from my example they told me on friday, that if they’d had a different mother, same father they’d not be the responsible people they are.

After hearing I didn’t get the apartment after they told me was a shoe in, I got sick and for the last few days (fri thru today) I have spend 90% of my time on the throne sick. I don’t do stess very well, my body shuts down and acts up and I hate it.

So Christine I have five wks to find another place or I become like so many other VETs - homeless, not that I can’t pay rent, it’s that it’s so high I can’t afford what their asking, and since this recession it seems like rent, gas, food prices have all gone up.

God will see me through, of this I am certain.

By DeniseannTaylor on 06/21/2009 9:15 pm