If you ever wondered whether the people are as lab rats to the ruling class...

[Hannah Bell]

NEW YORK City cares about poverty. So much so, in fact, that the city is conducting an experiment in tracking homelessness--by denying aid to desperate poor people and studying whether they end up homeless as a result.

It may sound like a sick joke, but it's not. The city is conducting an experiment using a program called Homebase--which provides rental assistance, job training and emergency assistance to people facing "immediate housing problems that could result in becoming homeless."

As part of the experiment, according to the New York Times, "Half of the test subjects--people who are behind on rent and in danger of being evicted--are being denied assistance from the program for two years, with researchers tracking them to see if they end up homeless."

http://socialistworker.org/blog/couldnt-make-it-up/2010/12/13/experiment-in-human-misery


No words.

[Starry Messenger]

1. wtf???

What kind of sociopaths are these? >:(

[Chan790]

2. Likewise, no words.

(Literally, I'm reading this in stunned silence.)

[applegrove]

3. That is just sick.

[begin_within]

4. What are they expecting, to see if some of them end up in Park Avenue penthouses?

[Hello_Kitty]

6. I was just reminded of "Trading Places" now that you mentioned it.

Why doesn't anyone ever propose doing "experiments" on rich fucks? Let's relieve them of their fortunes and social positions and see what maladaptive behaviors they adopt.

[begin_within]

7. Wasn't that partly the premise of "Arthur?"

I'm not sure... been a long time since I saw that.
But it's a damned good idea if you ask me.
Oh, and it was the original premise of "The Simple Life" with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.
Of course they never really had to struggle or anything, but they adopted maladaptive behaviors to increase ratings.

[Hello_Kitty]

5. Let Them Eat Bootstraps!

Motherfuckers. :grr:

[leftstreet]

8. I propose we seize the assets of the Rich - let's see where they wind up!

Yes indeed, a scientific study of these test subjects

K&R

[Hannah Bell]

15. only the peons may be experimented on -- they aren't real people.

more seriously, i remember when the things that happened to people in third world countries seemed very far away to me -- i bought into the myth that the us was trying to "help" & "lift them up" out of their backwardness & poverty (so it didn't matter than what we were actually doing was killing people - breaking eggs, you know).

it occurred to me later in life that my attitude toward those "distant" people was the same attitude rich people must have to the peons -- they were far away & not very real, so it didn't really matter what was done to them as long as the motivation was "good".

i was really ashamed of myself.

[somone]

9. This kind of research is bullshit and ought to be banned

[Odin2005]

10. Holy evil-unethical BATMAN!

[socialist_n_TN]

18. "Holy Evil", (only change was to capitalize the "E".........

in that quote). That's the capitalism we all know and love! Do I really need the sarcasm thingy?

Evil with a capital "E".

[mudplanet]

11. Under Guliani they removed some of the signs on the social services

offices to deliberately make it difficult for people to find the offices and access the services. It worked. I'm kind of hoping he has a heart attack and the ambulance driver deliberately gets lost both on the way to pick him up and on the way back to the hospital.

[MadHound]

12. Some crusading lawyer needs to take up one of these cases

I think there would be be bucks and lots of fame for lawyer and client.

[Johnny Harpo]

13. This Needs To Go To KO & Rachel

n/t

[azul]

14. Patterns

"Like a rat in a maze
The path before me lies,
And the pattern never alters
Until the rat dies."
-Paul Simon


My aunt Laney's last husband was the last survivor of an army company that had been exposed to an atomic bomb's radiation. He told me that the others had all eventually died of cancer. He then died of cancer too about 15 years ago.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. Sick

[Hannah Bell]

17. k

[sarcasmo]

19. USA! USA! Any doubt we are in a third world country?

[TBF]

20. And I thought I'd seen everything. nt

[smokey nj]

21. This is absolutely sickening.

[tblue37]

22. This isn't surprising, though, considering other experiments done on American citizens.

Black men were left untreated for syphilis, to study the course of the disease. Children were deliberately emotionally abused to see if it would cause them to begin stuttering. Soldiers were secretly given LSD, to study the effects of the drug.

TPTB in the US often conduct ourtageously unethical experiments, usually on the most helpless and vulnerable populations.

[blindpig]

23. Hey, ya gotta have 'controls' in an experiment...

after all, they're only lab rats


After all, what good are they to Bloomberg and his pals?

[FiveGoodMen]

24. There is an appropriate response to this.

But I'm sure it's against the law to even type it.