lpetrich
22 Feb 2010, 04:13 PM
In hard times, Americans blame the poor | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/15/2010 (http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_left_story/20100215_In_hard_times__Americans_blame_the_poor.h tml?viewAll=y)
Let Them Eat...Whatever's In These Dented Cans From The Back Of My Pantry : Thus Spake Zuska (http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/2010/02/let_them_eatwhatevers_in_these.php)
Down, Out, and Hated : Casaubon's Book (http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/02/down_out_and_hated.php?utm_source=editorspicks)
Just shut up and obey. (http://adaptinginplace.blogspot.com/2009/11/ah-long-time-no-post.html)
From the Philly Inquirer article:
Last month, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer of South Carolina said that when the government helps the poor, it's like people feeding stray animals that continually "breed."
And just last week, Colorado state legislator Spencer Swalm said poor people in single-family homes are "dysfunctional."
Both statements riled some Americans from the Piedmont to the Rockies and underscored a widely held belief: In tough times, people are tough on the poor.
In an April 2009 poll by the Pew Research Center in Washington, 72 percent agreed with the statement that "poor people have become too dependent on government assistance programs." That's up from 69 percent in 2007.
"The economic downturn has made the middle class less generous toward others," said Guy Molyneux, a partner at Hart Research Associates, a Washington firm that researches attitudes toward the poor. "People are less supportive of the government helping the poor, because they feel they're not getting enough help themselves.
From Zuska:
I like to give to Philabundance (http://www.philabundance.org/). I like that their vision of hunger relief includes fresh produce and dignity, not dented expired mystery cans from the back of someone's pantry. I am grateful I have some extra to share (http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/monica_yant_kinney/20100214_Monica_Yant_Kinney__A_best-of-its-kind_cupboard.html).
And yet even the have-nots recognize that others may be worse off.
"If we're having a good month, I don't come," Borden says. "I leave it for someone else who needs it."
If only the "haves" in the state legislature had half as much empathy and sense.
From Casaubon's Book:
Robert S. McElvaine's _Down and Out in the Great Depression_ is a fascinating look at America during the Depression. Compiled from letters written to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, it presents Americans in their own words, saying what they thought was most important in the Depression. Besides the pleas for help and the accounts of the situation on the ground, there was a profound anger at those who needed help. "Paddle your own canoe or sink" one letter wrote. A "Poor Southern Arkansas Woman" wrote that she felt she was a slave required to carry thousands of idle men on her back. While others wrote about stealing coal from the railroad to keep warm, and about not being able to eat even on relief payments, overwhelmingly those not on relief wrote of their anger at the thought that others were taking advantage - their hatred is palpable, along with their sense of betrayal. ...
Prejudice against the poor is nothing new - it is mixed with racism (despite the fact that the average welfare recipient is a white woman) and a whole lot of assumptions, but at its root, both in the past and present is this fear - that other people are taking advantage, and getting more than you. And this anger - the idea that you are working and struggling and others aren't. ...
I can sympathize with the anger a poor working family feels when their taxes push them over the edge. But what's fascinating to me is that the anger then gets passed down to someone else poorer - it rarely goes up. It doesn't matter that the military budget for engagements that do nothing to keep you safe takes a much bigger hunk of one's paycheck than all the welfare recipients in your state together. The target is always down the hill, never up.
And the working poor, the becoming poor and the deeply poor *are* pitted against each other. I completely grasp the sense of betrayal of someone like Tammy, who posts here, and who is struggling to take care of her severely disabled child, getting minimal help and support from her state, and seeing her kids' resources pitted against other children, who may need it just as much. (http://www.prayingforparker.com/immigrant-families-please-move-to-the-head-of-the-medicaid-line/)
I find it curious that the extreme left is so weak. The closest we now have to a big left-wing movement is a lot of very earnest reformists, nothing like the Sixties radicals. There aren't even such very obvious forms of left-wing activism like sit-ins in foreclosed houses.
Robyn M. in "Just shut up and obey" proposes these rules for not aggravating anyone a little less poor than you:
1. Don't be dirty. ...
2. Don't be clean. ...
3. Never engage in any luxury activity at all, ever. ...
3a. In addition to money-costing activities, also remember that free activities that you might enjoy are also forbidden. ...
4. Never possess any item which could be construed as you spending money. ...
4a. To maintain the personal moral indignation of the taxpayer to our situations, it is acceptable to on occasion breach rule #4 in limited fashion. ...
5. Only purchase things deemed appropriate by the surrounding consumers. Again, the guiding principle here is that you are poor, and obviously incapable of making educated decisions (otherwise, again, you wouldn't be poor now, would you?). ...
6. Maintain an acceptable number of children. ...
If you follow these simple rules, you should lead exactly the joyless, grinding, depressing life you are meant to lead, while simultaneously having any sense of self-worth or pride expunged from you forever. Remember, if you work very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very hard, you may be able to get a job that will allow you to pay taxes, and then you can decry all the other people on public assistance for not "taking every opportunity to get yourself out of that mess like I did!" If you work even harder than that, you might someday be able to afford your own health insurance!
Let Them Eat...Whatever's In These Dented Cans From The Back Of My Pantry : Thus Spake Zuska (http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/2010/02/let_them_eatwhatevers_in_these.php)
Down, Out, and Hated : Casaubon's Book (http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/02/down_out_and_hated.php?utm_source=editorspicks)
Just shut up and obey. (http://adaptinginplace.blogspot.com/2009/11/ah-long-time-no-post.html)
From the Philly Inquirer article:
Last month, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer of South Carolina said that when the government helps the poor, it's like people feeding stray animals that continually "breed."
And just last week, Colorado state legislator Spencer Swalm said poor people in single-family homes are "dysfunctional."
Both statements riled some Americans from the Piedmont to the Rockies and underscored a widely held belief: In tough times, people are tough on the poor.
In an April 2009 poll by the Pew Research Center in Washington, 72 percent agreed with the statement that "poor people have become too dependent on government assistance programs." That's up from 69 percent in 2007.
"The economic downturn has made the middle class less generous toward others," said Guy Molyneux, a partner at Hart Research Associates, a Washington firm that researches attitudes toward the poor. "People are less supportive of the government helping the poor, because they feel they're not getting enough help themselves.
From Zuska:
I like to give to Philabundance (http://www.philabundance.org/). I like that their vision of hunger relief includes fresh produce and dignity, not dented expired mystery cans from the back of someone's pantry. I am grateful I have some extra to share (http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/monica_yant_kinney/20100214_Monica_Yant_Kinney__A_best-of-its-kind_cupboard.html).
And yet even the have-nots recognize that others may be worse off.
"If we're having a good month, I don't come," Borden says. "I leave it for someone else who needs it."
If only the "haves" in the state legislature had half as much empathy and sense.
From Casaubon's Book:
Robert S. McElvaine's _Down and Out in the Great Depression_ is a fascinating look at America during the Depression. Compiled from letters written to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, it presents Americans in their own words, saying what they thought was most important in the Depression. Besides the pleas for help and the accounts of the situation on the ground, there was a profound anger at those who needed help. "Paddle your own canoe or sink" one letter wrote. A "Poor Southern Arkansas Woman" wrote that she felt she was a slave required to carry thousands of idle men on her back. While others wrote about stealing coal from the railroad to keep warm, and about not being able to eat even on relief payments, overwhelmingly those not on relief wrote of their anger at the thought that others were taking advantage - their hatred is palpable, along with their sense of betrayal. ...
Prejudice against the poor is nothing new - it is mixed with racism (despite the fact that the average welfare recipient is a white woman) and a whole lot of assumptions, but at its root, both in the past and present is this fear - that other people are taking advantage, and getting more than you. And this anger - the idea that you are working and struggling and others aren't. ...
I can sympathize with the anger a poor working family feels when their taxes push them over the edge. But what's fascinating to me is that the anger then gets passed down to someone else poorer - it rarely goes up. It doesn't matter that the military budget for engagements that do nothing to keep you safe takes a much bigger hunk of one's paycheck than all the welfare recipients in your state together. The target is always down the hill, never up.
And the working poor, the becoming poor and the deeply poor *are* pitted against each other. I completely grasp the sense of betrayal of someone like Tammy, who posts here, and who is struggling to take care of her severely disabled child, getting minimal help and support from her state, and seeing her kids' resources pitted against other children, who may need it just as much. (http://www.prayingforparker.com/immigrant-families-please-move-to-the-head-of-the-medicaid-line/)
I find it curious that the extreme left is so weak. The closest we now have to a big left-wing movement is a lot of very earnest reformists, nothing like the Sixties radicals. There aren't even such very obvious forms of left-wing activism like sit-ins in foreclosed houses.
Robyn M. in "Just shut up and obey" proposes these rules for not aggravating anyone a little less poor than you:
1. Don't be dirty. ...
2. Don't be clean. ...
3. Never engage in any luxury activity at all, ever. ...
3a. In addition to money-costing activities, also remember that free activities that you might enjoy are also forbidden. ...
4. Never possess any item which could be construed as you spending money. ...
4a. To maintain the personal moral indignation of the taxpayer to our situations, it is acceptable to on occasion breach rule #4 in limited fashion. ...
5. Only purchase things deemed appropriate by the surrounding consumers. Again, the guiding principle here is that you are poor, and obviously incapable of making educated decisions (otherwise, again, you wouldn't be poor now, would you?). ...
6. Maintain an acceptable number of children. ...
If you follow these simple rules, you should lead exactly the joyless, grinding, depressing life you are meant to lead, while simultaneously having any sense of self-worth or pride expunged from you forever. Remember, if you work very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very hard, you may be able to get a job that will allow you to pay taxes, and then you can decry all the other people on public assistance for not "taking every opportunity to get yourself out of that mess like I did!" If you work even harder than that, you might someday be able to afford your own health insurance!