Right Wingers Still Don't Get It On Hunger And Food Stamps

In Joan Walsh's salon.com piece cited at the end of my May 26 post, she wrote:

if you’re in Wisconsin, and relying on food stamps, remember that Republicans don’t want you to have ketchup on your hamburger. They’d probably rather you didn’t have a hamburger at all, but Wisconsin farmers and ranchers have clout, and so proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program made room for Wisconsin products. But they still don’t want you to have “crab, lobster, shrimp, or any other shellfish.” Or ketchup. Or spaghetti sauce. Really.

This is the point the Right wingers continually dodge and evade.  They don't want the poorest, no matter their station, background or jobs (e.g. "tattoo artist") to have any comfort (or comfort food) whatsoever unless they're living in a low public services state (like AL or MS) and working their hands to the bone. It doesn't matter if they can't get enough benefits - tough shit - then they ought to move - say from a place like So. Colorado. Meanwhile, they are ok with the lazy rich getting anything they want out of the rest of our hides - using tax dodges, "trusts",  or whatever rentier gambits they can think of to avoid paying their fair share.

Another blogger believed he was very smart pulling up my earlier blog and questioning the image authenticity for a child I claimed to be in the throes of hunger. He said it was a "medical condition". But psychologists and health specialists will tell you that there is very little difference in a child's expression when in the maw of a developmental disability and the extreme anguish suffered in hunger and deprivation. Can he prove the child was not at some point in a similar state due to hunger? No he cannot. The blogger also questioned the circumstances pertaining to the image of Mashel McDonald making oats. He interrogated the setting and specifically pursued the background (D. Post) story to learn her dad was a tattoo artist that moved to Colo. to obtain "marijuana" for his sick child. But so what? This is irrelevant and a red herring. Many parents are now moving to this state precisely for this same reason and I wrote about this earlier, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/12/colorado-promised-land-for-marijuana.html

In most cases the MJ actually pursued is CBD or Cannabidiol,  the MJ-derived substance referred to  as 'Charlotte's Web'.  While CBD has been described as a "strain of marijuana" the fact is, it is not. According to MJ researcher Joel Stanley.

Its importance lay in treating assorted developmental disabilities, including Dravet syndrome, a form of epilepsy. SO why do the right wingers drag this stuff in, including that Pop may be using a bit of weed to calm his nerves too - after all he has to be worried about his sick child? Because it fits in with their noisome template portraying all the welfare or food stamp recipients as being either forlorn losers, slackers, alkies or druggies. In other words, to use Joan Walsh's term - to reduce all these people to "garbage"! But the fact of the matter is that MOST are working poor.

Never mind! Because anyone who's working poor disrupts the Right's druggie-loser caricature, so they don't wish to go there. Better to keep the drugged out, obese (from overeating) and alcoholic tripe going to push the narrative that these people don't deserve any more than they're getting and likely not even that! (Btw, $880 a month for disability in Colorado is not a lot! )

The other lame case made, despite over 300,000 poor families in Colorado - which I guess the blogger expects all to simply pack up and move to MS - is:'Why are they living in a state with high living costs?' But if we all thought that way, I guess we'd all move to Mississippi!  Hell, it's cheaper! The reasons not to are as diverse as there are problems endured by the resident families,  including: our state has more public services available along with the assistance to help people seek them out (my niece used to work for such a public service), our state has better education facilities including for bilingual kids, and our state has better medical facilities, free clinics for the poor.

So again, we have a red herring, a distraction. Besides, if cannabidol can provide relief for a kid's tics and seizures why not live here, where at least the caretakers aren't going to be busted as they would in AL or MS? 

The notion of  just packing up and moving to a "cheaper state" and lower living costs is also absurd on its face. For one thing the thousands of currently struggling Denver workers and families didn't START out living in expensive surroundings!  No , they began in affordable neighborhoods, but could not have foreseen how the fracking boom would lead to thousands moving to Denver and environs every year - buying up homes, renting apartments - and driving up costs. Or, the many rich "amenity migrants" moving here buying up second homes - driving home prices into the stratosphere.

Having already purchased homes, and having jobs - why would they now just move to a cheaper state with no assurance they can get the same work?  Also, where is there any assurance that some form of gentrification won't also occur in these cheap states and drive up home, rental prices? There isn't any! In fact, any movers could be going from the "frying pan into the fire"- especially if it's much more difficult to get benefits! Sure it would be easier for those in apts. and I already noted how many - owing to a state law - had their leases revoked because of "refurbishments".  But again, who is to provide support for these people - many of them seniors in their 70s, and 80s?

It is very easy to proffer "solutions" shot from the hip but more difficult to get at the underlying systemic problems that spawn poverty. Sadly, however, this is the biggest and hardest fact the RIght tries to avoid:: that poverty is a systemic result of irresponsible capitalism and not the fault of the poor (which marks the fundamental attribution error - blaming oneself instead of the fucked up society)

As I noted in a previous blog post on this issue:

ALL citizens are entitled to pursue happiness whether they are poor or rich!  To limit their pursuit using artificial laws is against the Constitution!

Thus, even SNAP recipients must be enabled to pursue happiness even on a limited scale - and this must be defended as their RIGHT under the ninth amendment. That means they ought to be able -  bogus state law or no - to enjoy a bit of luxury when they need to and if they have enough left from taking care of immediate needs to afford it.

They damned sure ought to be able to buy catsup if they want, or candy bars, ice cream or even fried chicken - to spice up their lives - and hell, smoke a little MJ now and then without the pseudo-moral scolds like Sam Brownback having a shit fit and wagging fingers. If we don't wag fingers at the parasitical rich why do we do it at the poor? Well, because we see the poor as powerless, while the rich can maybe give us some goodies. Thus, in our skewed and warped vision the rich become celebrities while the poor are downgraded to garbage.

We'd gladly kiss the rump of Donald Trump if he'd comp us a room and a meal at one of his hotels, but we'd spit on a poor, homeless man because well...."He's too lazy to work".  In such a warped vision it's easy to forget the words of Yeshua: "Whatever thou doest for the least of my brethren that you do unto me".

Note the key words: LEAST of my brethren, not greatest, or richest.

Poverty is not chosen! This is the biggest lie circulated by the Right's poltroons in the GOP - most of whom would happily lick the boots of the Koch brothers, or Sheldon Adelson - in order to get some extra campaign largesse.

I don't expect the likes of these charlatans to change stripes, but I do expect people, ordinary citizens, to have some modicum of compassion on those struggling without attacking them for their benefits - or proclaiming they don't deserve them because they may be a tad overweight, tattoo artists - or god forbid - smoke an MJ weed or two using their benefits $$.

Sheesh! How about we go after the REAL parasites, the rich?

Hungry Kids On Food Stamps Is No Freaking Joke!

A 12-year old in San Luis County, Colorado boils oats for her family's dinner. They are not living it up and abusing their benefits as too many lazy thinkers seem to believe.

I realize it's become 'cool' these days to mock those on food stamps and welfare - especially for the nattering nabobs on the Right - who have a penchant for portraying these critical programs as "gimmes" for "takers" and "welfare queens". But if the ones who pose this BS were to step out of their FOX-ified fairyland boxes they'd see a real story unfolding with millions of proud citizens (NOT slackers) struggling to get decent paying work and put food on the table without falling back.  All of these people would bristle at any suggestion that they aren't doing all they can to hold it together and often, government assistance comes as a last resort. (To satiate their kids' hunger, not theirs.)

By way of example, Colorado itself is now a hotbed of poverty, including child poverty - as the coded map below shows, with the greatest poverty for counties  coded in dark orange and ochre.

As a recent Denver Post investigation (May 23, 1B) showed, many kids don't get enough to eat at night - even with food stamps - and must be somehow consoled by their stricken parents when bed time arrives and their bellies are still growling These are people, by the way, often working two or more jobs but who are squeezed in the economic conditions now plaguing our state as well as many others. Can those who mock them as "parasites" on the public dole see through the evil PR spread about them (often by the denizens at FOX) to the truth? One wonders.

While some may whoop it up and make jokes about the situation and that it's being "exaggerated"  or "hyped" by the "loony Left", the reality is far more brutal. The causes are also a lot more complex than portraying needy recipients as  "welfare queens" a la caricatures in cartoons or set media (e.g. from FOX)  images . These actually comprise only the odd exceptions and belie the extent and sad reality of genuine desperation. Believe me, a kid in the throes of hunger is no laughing matter, or fodder for claims of liberal  'hype"!

Typical families in San Luis, County live in 500-700 sq. ft. homes  - many of adobe construction with no windows. They often must travel more than an hour just to get to work and taking even one sick day is an unheard of luxury. They know even one missed day, hell one missed hour to attend to a sick child - could well be their last. (Our state like many others has businesses which have fought ferociously against paid sick leave. The best most can expect now is to have sick days bungled in with vacation days.)

 These people are fiercely proud and independent,  beholden to no one or to government handouts.  They only file for SNAP benefits as a last resort because their children are suffering and no parent of any mettle can allow that!  Further, they don't use those benefits to skylark and live high on the hog since in most cases - even with just simple purchases of rice, oats, and a tiny bit of chicken - the money often expires with a week or more left. And so they must try to make up the difference at food banks, such as Care & Share. It is a stressful, difficult existence always subject to contingencies.

 The children - including two of those shown in the accompanying images, are among the one-third of kids living in poverty in Southern  Colorado counties, including San Luis and Rio Grande.  All the families live in deadly fear of something as simple as getting a small raise - since a jump in pay can mean an increase in rent (or loss of public housing if the income now renders them disqualified), loss of free child care and a reduction in food stamps.  This is owing to the draconian laws which insist on "offsetting" benefits  if by some chance a family's financial circumstances improve - even a smidgeon. In this way the families can never ever get ahead.

In Denver and its suburbs there are often just as many impoverished, hungry kids- but concentrated in smaller areas near the urban core. Many of the reasons have to do with issues that outsiders may not grasp - chiefly "amenity migrants" (tr.  rich fucks) moving to places like Aspen, Boulder and Denver to be closer to recreational opportunities (and the mountains). In the process of buying 2nd homes - vacation homes - they drive up the prices and rents so much that no one of average means can afford them. This applies to most ordinary workers making maybe $50,000 a year or less.

How long will that last in an overheated housing and rental market? You figure it out given average rents now of $1350 a month and average home prices of $294,000 each in the Denver Metro area.  The dire effect of this imbalance is that either the communities' actual workers ( firefighters, teachers, cops, cooks, housekeepers) have to move far away to where home-rental prices are more reasonable, OR they are forced to go on food stamps to make up the difference if they remain. To make jokes that they are abusing their benefits is beyond the pale especially as MOST of those receiving food stamps via the federal programs are working.

But these insipid portrayals continue in the right wing mega-media as well as in assorted lesser media like blogs and Facebook pages. The modus operandi also never changes: portraying the abuses of a few as the generic norm of the many. Paint the recipients - including the starving kids - as craven whelps on the take just trying to grab what they can at taxpayer expense. As opposed to hard workers, or disabled people trying to make ends meet. It is also interesting that this is the same M.O. employed to try to make a specious case for tougher  voter I.D. laws when all sensible people know that the instances of deliberate voter malfeasance by fake I.D.  are fewer than the number of medium-sized asteroids that have crashed to Earth in the past 20 years.

Instead of making jokes about the plight of these people  such as 12-year old Mashel McDonald  trying to boil enough oats for her family to eat for dinner in their 500 sq. foot adobe home - we ought to be applauding them for their stoic and proud demeanor and "keeping on keeping on".  Despite getting no breaks and only minimal SNAP benefits,  they have valiantly succeeded in sustaining their lives in a hostile environment.  They have asked for no more gov't support than they absolutely need - ditto for most of San Luis' residents.

See also:
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/25/gops_demonic_new_crusade_right_wing_zealots_look_for_even_crueler_ways_to_treat_the_poor_like_garbage/



Excerpt:

"if you’re in Wisconsin, and relying on food stamps, remember that Republicans don’t want you to have ketchup on your hamburger. They’d probably rather you didn’t have a hamburger at all, but Wisconsin farmers and ranchers have clout, and so proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program made room for Wisconsin products. But they still don’t want you to have “crab, lobster, shrimp, or any other shellfish.” Or ketchup. Or spaghetti sauce. Really.

For now, that’s all grandstanding. SNAP is a federal program, and the Obama administration hasn’t allowed states to restrict food purchases that way. But that hasn’t stopped GOP legislators from trying."

Ok, Maybe The 3rd Time's the "Charm" - Re: SNAP Benefits Spending

It appears a fellow blogger who believes I am a "pretty good chess player" (I am, I nearly always beat my 'Grandmaster Chess' program at the grandmaster level) has misconstrued my recent post on limiting SNAP benefits. He appears to mistake the external claim of gov't "largesse" and perceived welfare - as applied to all gov't benefits to being my own. But let me make this clear, they are emphatically not.

When I referred to VA benefits, Social Security (including SSI and regular S.S.) as well as Medicare being lumped in the same category as SNAP benefits I was not referring to how I perceive them but to how they are seen by the austerity hawks. Of course, S.S. is "earned" as those of us receiving it had to pay into it over years we didn't just have it handed to us. Vets, meanwhile, earned their benefits by putting themselves on the line to defend their country (never mind many of the 'wars' were bogus - they still complied!). Also Medicare was earned by the same qualifying rules as for S.S. 

My point was that none of this matters to those like Peter G. Peterson, David M. Walker, or Richard Haas- who uniformly see all of them more or less in the same "wheel house" as general welfare benefits because: a) they issue from the tax commons, and b) all add to the federal deficit.

This is why Michelle Caruso Cabrera argued on 'Real Time' for Social Security privatization - again not that I would defend such a thing-  my past posts show I do not, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-social-security-privatization.html

 but rather that SHE and her ilk see things that way. That is, one would need a separate privatized account to justify spending however one wants. Of course this is nuts, but that is how THEY see it. I merely report it as the messenger.

Here is where the problem lies for my blogger friend: No benefits are 100 percent secure - even his SSI and VA benefits. Any can be repealed at any time, on any whim or for any congressional bogus reason or tantrum. Whether specific "spending rules" apply to one subset of gov't benefits or not is in the large sense immaterial to the fact ALL benefits are subject to cutbacks, or even cancellation.

As one website (http://www.ssa.gov/history/nestor.html ) notes:

The fact that workers contribute to the Social Security program's funding through a dedicated payroll tax establishes a unique connection between those tax payments and future benefits. More so than general federal income taxes can be said to establish "rights" to certain government services. 

This is often expressed in the idea that Social Security benefits are "an earned right." This is true enough in a moral and political sense. But like all federal entitlement programs, Congress can change the rules regarding eligibility--and it has done so many times over the years. The rules can be made more generous, or they can be made more restrictive. Benefits which are granted at one time can be withdrawn, as for example with student benefits, which were substantially scaled-back in the 1983 Amendments

I point this out, again, not to be a pain in the ass, but to make the salient point that no beneficiary is sitting pretty as far as security goes no matter how much he or she may believe they "earned their benefits".  In effect, even VA benefits can be rescinded or cancelled, as the recent repuke congress in fact tried to do. The harsh fact in these United States is that like the myth of "private property" (which can always be taken under some ruse, say like eminent domain claims) the myth of secure benefits doesn't wash. Any benefit can be removed at congressional whim at any time. We keep those benefits at the pleasure of whatever congress (and President) we get at the time and well, if they turn out to be craven rat assholes, we're all sunk - as much as all those on SNAP or welfare would be.

In effect, if a Supreme Court can rule (as in Flemming v. Nestor) that there is no contractual right to receive Social Security then this can be extended to any other government benefits, including VA disability and medical benefits, as well as Medicare and Medicaid. But the fact most of those now living haven't observed such drastic actions doesn't mean they can never occur.

Again, I am in firm defense of these government benefits but unlike those who adhere to the "submerged" idea of preferential benefits, I insist they need to be protected for ALL - not just  special subsets. The idea of "fairness" again, only entered the picture in the sense that ALL benefits of whatever form are viewed as "welfare" by the austerity hawks and this indeed, isn't fair. So my blogger friend was right to have his outrage evoked when his VA benefits were noted, but that is not MY doing but the perceptions of the austerity hawks. So, if he wishes to vociferously defend his right to those benefits he needs to write the likes of David Walker, Richard Haas et al and take it up with them.

Rather than play the game of beneficiaries fighting one another over who has "the most right" to their own benefits, why not join together in common cause and defend the right to benefits for all - with NO strings attached?  Thus, the state laws declaring SNAP recipients can only spend so much on such and such ought to be shelved, the same way other artificial laws (and all laws in the end are somewhat artificial in that they were generally created by power brokers for their own benefit, with money contributions) ought to be  - including those for eminent domain. Not to mention the recent spate of laws in many cities making homelessness a crime. No place to rest or sit, or one is arrested, as in Denver. This is bullshit and I am glad to see the ACLU and others taking the issue up.

The overriding law ought to be the Constitution and that ought to trump all penny ante state laws set up by temporary political whores who happened to get elected because they gerrymandered their states to enable it.  Thus, the preamble to the Constitution bears the only welfare declaration that matters and it plainly states:

We the PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity….”

This passage has been a source of never-ending squabbling over every issue from states’ rights, to the degree of control vis-à-vis the individual vs. the collective or common good.

Much of this, I believe, is unnecessary and merely discloses an inability of current citizens to think or even conceive of the community or the commons. So brainwashed have we become by the screeds of either ‘rugged individualism’ or Social Darwinism.

Let’s begin by quickly dispatching some of the more common canards, often circulated by the Right's darlings, like the Tea Baggers. One is that the clause refers only to military defense, or that "no positive social rights inhere in the Constitution". (All rights are ipso facto, "negative",  expressing what gov't may not do).This conveniently excludes any basis for social spending, but is erroneous on inspection

The reason is that the phrase – “provide for the common defense” is separate from that to “promote the general welfare.” Hence, the two have no commonality in terms of language, unless one supposes the writer was deliberately redundant.

Another common error is to invoke the ‘fallacy of division’ in this case, disputing that “promotion of the general welfare” refers to anything other than the United States as the entity whose ‘welfare’ is being considered. This again is falsified on inspection. Note that the Preamble begins:

“We the PEOPLE…”


Not “The United States”. In fact, the United States is itself an artifact of the people’s will and their creation, as elucidated say in 'The Federalist Papers', by James Madison, i.e. comparing the federal system to the solar system.. The Constitution, composed by the “people”, engendered the United States as a new national entity. In the context, therefore, the United States as this manufactured entity and abstraction cannot of itself have a “general welfare”. Only PEOPLE (citizens) can possess or aspire to a general welfare.

And THAT, I argue, also inheres in the benefits they are entitled to whether VA disability, Social Security or SNAP. And none of those benefits ought to have artificial limits appended! Instead, the recipients are enabled to use their benefits for whatever they wish - but of course they must be cognizant of the limits or they will run out before the month expires. (Another reason, as Emily Badger of the WaPo noted, the idea of SNAP people running wild buying beer, gambling etc. is bogus as a three dollar bill, because of the limited money they have to start!)

But neither can separate individuals possess a “general welfare”! Since, to say so is to mix the particular with the general. Clearly then, general welfare and its promotion must refer to something essential to the general collective and its good, which also would contribute to the goals set out in The Constitution.

What are these goals, that we might give at least one example of the general welfare?

One is “the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness”.

What  manner of “general welfare” might be associated with this?

Without a doubt, one form is “health care”. Why? Because the accessibility to health care (of a form that doesn’t bankrupt) implies a prerequisite for the opportunity to pursue “life, liberty and happiness.” Without the potential to access such affordable care, a person – say with a severe back injury or chronic disease – cannot pursue the goal. And assuming s/he can, it will not be a pursuit with achievement at the end, in all probability.

But another aspect of this happiness pursuit is it must not be sequestered for some special subsets of citizens while excluding others. ALL citizens are entitled to pursue it whether they are poor or rich!  To limit their pursuit using artificial laws is against the Constitution!

Thus, even SNAP recipients must be enabled to pursue happiness even on a limited scale - and this must be defended as their RIGHT under the ninth amendment. That means they ought to be able -  bogus state law or no - to enjoy a bit of luxury when they need to and if they have enough left from taking care of immediate needs to afford it.

Prof. Garry Wills (‘A Necessary Evil: A History Of American Distrust of Government’, Simon & Schuster, 1999) further reinforces this point in his chapter ‘Constitutional Myths’(p. 108). He notes that citizens alone possess rights, which neither the states nor the federal government share. Both the latter retain powers and prerogatives, but not rights.

The Ninth Amendment states that “the people retain unenumerated rights.” "The people:"  here refers to flesh and blood citizens, not to a bunch of contractual abstractions (states), or to corporations, as Mitt Romney seems to believe.. As Wills emphasizes and underscores (ibid.):

“The states have no natural rights. Their powers are artificial, not natural – they are things made by contract.”

My argument then is that the unenumerated rights of citizens trump any specious rights claimed by states, OR their prerogatives. This is also why I reiterate again Charles Reich's words to do with welfare:

"The claim that government is free to reduce or cut off welfare and other forms of support for people in economic need is totally mistaken. Welfare is not a gift, nor is it, despite frequent assertions, a transfer from those who earn a living to those who are not.  Welfare is rather an obligation from society – and from those who are working- to those who have been deprived of work and the opportunity to earn a living."


I hope that my blogger friend now understands why it's in his interest to defend the rights of SNAP beneficiaries to their benefits, as much as he aggressively defends his own. We are all in this together and to the extent we allow the state to split us apart we all become vulnerable to having our rights - and benefits - taken away!
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Update: My fellow blogger asks me to address the question: "If everyone is jumping on the bandwagon - then who is left pulling the cart?"   First, not "everyone is jumping on the bandwagon" - i.e. for SNAP benefits, only the most needy citizens are. A position that ANY of us could be in if - god forbid - we're struck by a horrible disease, or injury or disability from an accident. Thereby making it impossible to earn enough to support ourselves.

Second, the rest of us need to pick up the support slack by enabling a greater pool for the tax commons, so that 16 million kids (also under the SNAP program) don't have to go to bed hungry each night. Thus, if enough were made available for these benefits programs - less for military and wars - there would be no problem, and we wouldn't face these constant cuts for budget reasons - as we saw in November, 2013.

In the end,  all the difficulties of not enough "pulling the cart" arise because our priorities are misplaced. We are giving much too much to  overseas military involvement in places we shouldn't be and not enough for domestic needs. We need to be building bridges and new water mains in Skokie and Buffalo not in Ramadi or Kandahar.  We need to be increasing SNAP benefits, not paying good tax dollars for even more F-35 cost overruns.


See also:

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/22/white_americas_gwyneth_paltrow_problem_how_its_playing_games_with_the_lives_of_poor_people/

Excerpt:

Conservative disdain for the poor has reached new heights with the recent passage of the HOPE Act in Kansas earlier this month. This bill, signed into law by Governor Sam Brownback, prohibits those who receive TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) from using funds to go to movies, to go swimming, to go theme parks, to gamble, to visit strip clubs or bars.

Many Americans fundamentally believe that one’s income bracket should determine one’s access to fun, pleasure, and entertainment. The resentment and the lack of empathy that undergirds most of the social policy that emerges from the right prove just how out-of-touch and mean-spirited such social policy is.

....Rather than attend to the systemic causes of poverty, they remain firmly committed to a stance that has no political integrity: that poverty is caused by laziness – not by poor schools, over-criminalization, the outsourcing of jobs, and a lack of living wage. And lazy people, the thinking goes, don’t deserve any forms of pleasure.