The Origins of ‘Get a Life!’
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During Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign, Herblock did a cartoon of him telling tenement dwellers, “Why don’t you go out and inherit a department store like I did?” The angry and abrasive “Get a life!” sounds like the ‘90s version of that attitude, the haves telling the have-nots to get a job, house and bank account so we don’t have to look at you any more--and don’t have to think about the complex sacrifices it would take to solve the tragic problems of the disadvantaged.
SAUL KAHAN
Los Angeles
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