Thursday, March 12, 2009

Tent Cities: Welcome to the new Bushvilles

 
 

MSNBC has been reporting on the huge tent city forming outside Sacramento, including a remarkable photo essay on the encampment. Similarly, a Daily Mail piece offers more detail:

Mikkel Fishman at The Moderate Voice has more details on the economic and political background.

As Chris Jansing reports, this isn't the only "tent city" gaining in size: So are similar encampments near Seattle, and Reno, and Nashville. Down in Dallas, the need for an encampment is rising quickly.

In other words, by mid-summer, we may see these encampments around the country. And they deserve a name:

Bushvilles.

When Americans had to endure such hardships 80 years ago -- forming shantytowns made of wood shacks and canvas tents -- they named them in honor of the president who had done nothing to prevent the oncoming recession and ultimately Depression into which he had led them.

They called them Hoovervilles:

hooverville_bb9c1.jpgA Hooverville was the popular name for shanty towns built by homeless men during the Great Depression. They were named after the President at the time, Herbert Hoover, because he allegedly let the nation slide into depression. The term was coined by Charles Michelson, publicity chief of the Democratic National Committee.[1] The name Hooverville has also been used to describe the tent cities commonly found in modern-day America.

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/tent-cities-welcome-new-bushvilles?=2

 

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