I hope people aren't surprised to see headlines like this because the war on the poor has has been underway for a very long time. Yeah, you're right, you're too tired to pay attention because you're too busy working your two or three jobs so that you can pay your bills and eat each day, or worse, you're simply exhausted from the endless walking to service after service as you spend your time homeless and hoping to eke out enough resources to survive another day.
But make no mistake, there are those eating a filet mignon and sipping their Chteau La Mondotte Saint-Emilion (1996 - about $600 a bottle) right now who are hoping to do away with pesky profit reducers like the minimum wage, worker benefits, overtime for exceeding the 40 hour work week and reducing the age at which a child can begin working the same hours as an adult. Of no less interest for the them is ensuring that you are a docile, obedient servant who does what you're told when you're told to do it, and woe to those who dare complain.
To be sure, the poor and working classes have had some victories. Of course, you'd have to go back to about the Roosevelt Administration to find any real meaningful ones. And every time the individual worker is able to take a step forward in obtaining some protections for his/her labor, strident, insistent and well-funded voices emanating from boardrooms and private country clubs around the country work feverishly to push all of us who work backwards with greed-driven support of corporate values and ideals.
These individuals work diligently and constantly to roll back as many worker protections and perks as possible while attempting to silence immediately those who speak out in favor of the worker versus the corporation.
Added to this is the often subtle but sometimes blatant stigmatization of the poor, done to sway public opinion further towards the corporate ideal of maintaining and wielding potent and dictatorial control over every aspect of the worker's life (smoking policies, drug testing, credit histories, all can play a role in determining whether you are even hired or not). Not only are the poor victimized and marginalized by the incessant greed for more profits, they are stigmatized in order to provoke anger, even hatred, among those who are told (by those same corporations) that their tax dollars are supporting fat, lazy, and fecund bums.
Ratcheting up the vitriol, they attempt to frame the perception in such a way that by helping the poor we are simply enabling them because they are now conditioned (and in the process conditioning their offspring as well) to a sense of entitlement while gorging themselves hourly at public troughs on YOUR tax dollars.
Many angles are used to get these points across to those of us lucky enough, and obedient enough to our "employment-masters" to still have a job. The messages are loud and clear too; those without jobs are scum and if you don't want to be considered scum, you'll do what your employer wants you to do or risk joining the ranks of the "parasites."
As individuals in cities around the country find themselves devastated and hungry by Republican driven, Democrat supported (no matter what they say to us publicly), policies that place the onus of the nation's life-support squarely upon our backs, desperation becomes the norm and individuals who still believe they can make it "if they just work hard enough" are forced to take whatever they can find in the way of employment to feed themselves and any family members they may have depending upon them.
Upton Sinclair must surely be spinning like a lathe in his grave right now because he knew all too well that employers absolutely love this mindset. They are able to work the desperate to death for a mere pittance and threaten them with termination unless they continually provide herculean efforts with no complaining. The workers, knowing (as do their employers) full well that there are literally hundreds of applicants waiting for their chance at enslavement, bend to the will of the almighty employer and throw their dignity, their hopes for a better future, and their self respect into the trash can as they struggle simply to survive from paycheck to paycheck.
After all, anything's better than being one of those parasites....
As more Rhode Islanders seek food aid, advocates fear impact of federal cuts
01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, August 6, 2011
Catalina Vidal, left, serves lunch at Amos House in Providence with Tinisha Pona, Shaleeya Liberty and Daniel Cooper. Amos House relies on a small amount of federal food and shelter money for the operation of its kitchen, which serves free meals to the needy.
The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy
PROVIDENCE — Advocates for the poor worry that federal cuts tied to the debt ceiling deal could hurt programs at a time when the need has never been greater.
While it’s unclear what cuts Congress might make, economists say a reduction in spending will slow economic growth and spur more layoffs.
That, in turn, will fray an already-strained safety net, say local experts.
“The budget deal overall is terrible for low-income households,” said Kathleen Gorman, director of the Feinstein Center for a Hunger Free America at the University of Rhode Island. “It’s bad for the economy and it’s only going to increase demand for programs.”
Food stamp use is already at a record level.
In June, the number of Rhode Islanders getting help from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), the old food stamp program, soared to a record 163,608, from 87,235 in June 2008, a nearly 88 percent jump, according to new figures from the state Department of Human Services.
That’s about 1 in 6 Rhode Islanders who rely on the federal program.
The number of users has grown for 36 consecutive months and topped 100,000 in spring 2009.
In the last quarter, an average of 1,000 Rhode Islanders a month signed up for SNAP benefits.
Officials at the Rhode Island Community Food Bank have seen a similar spike.
In June, about 60,000 people got food at emergency pantries in the state, compared with 37,000 Rhode Islanders in June 2008, said CEO Andrew Schiff.
Nearly a fifth of them have no income, Schiff said. “This is the only way they can feed their family.”
About 60 percent of those who get groceries from food pantries also rely on SNAP benefits.
The state’s high jobless rate and a sluggish economy are partly to blame, said DHS spokesman Frederick Sneesby.
Also, outreach workers are signing up more Rhode Islanders who qualify for help, Sneesby said. And the state has streamlined the process.
The U.S. Senate Tuesday voted to raise the government’s debt ceiling and cut trillions of dollars from its spending. As part of the deal, a bipartisan committee must find at least $1.2 trillion more in deficit cuts spread over the next decade.
If the committee deadlocks or if the House or Senate rejects the panel’s recommendations, it could trigger deep, across-the-board spending cuts in defense and programs for the poor.
DHS officials won’t speculate on what might happen, Sneesby said.
“Although we understand why there might be questions about reductions in federal spending for the SNAP program … the fact is that the Department of Human Services has received no word of reductions in SNAP benefits,” he said
Benefit and eligibility levels remain unchanged, he said.
“Part of our mission is responding to changing circumstances,” so DHS “will be ready to do so going forward as we’ve demonstrated in the past,” Sneesby said.
Some agencies are already struggling with a recent cut in federal spending.
After receiving nearly $1 million in federal money for emergency food and shelter programs in 2010, agencies this year will receive $616,000 as a result of federal cutbacks.
The money — from the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency — last year helped local agencies provide 22,937 nights of shelter and over 400,000 meals to needy Rhode Islanders.
The cut “is going to have a huge impact,” said Russell Partridge, program director at the WARM Center in Westerly, where officials feed about 100 people a day.
WARM officials anticipated the cut, but the loss means the agency must make up the difference through donations and more fundraisers, said Partridge, who worries about other cuts. “There just isn’t enough to go around.”
At Amos House in Providence, officials rely on a small amount of federal food and shelter money for the operation of their kitchen, which serves free meals to the needy.
Still, the cut means the agency must depend on the community and donors for help.
“It’s not as big a hit as it could have been,” said Jessica Salter, director of development. “But any cut when times are tight has an impact on the services we provide.”
Local agencies have yet to receive the reduced FEMA money because of federal delays, said United Way of Rhode Island spokesman Chris Medici. As a result, some agencies are now operating in the red, said Jim Ryczek, executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless.
Said Ryczek, “We’re all in a position where we have fewer and fewer resources while facing a greater and greater need.”
The number of Rhode Islanders getting money for food under SNAP — the old food stamp program — is surging.
87,235
June 2008
107,891
June 2009
145,361
June 2010
163,608
June 2011
