August 01, 2004
No Shit, Sherm
"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed."All these years later the Repukes have their "thinktanks" workin' overtime to find ways to blame the poor for their plight. They don't work enough, they don't get married enough, they use drugs and alcohol and tobacco (Like they're the only ones.), they have an inferior culture, etc. ad infinitum, cuz the people haters on the right will always find some excuse to blame the poor rather than helping the poor. That's what Puritanism and Calvinism and their various permutations lead to. A sad-ass, sick and twisted version of Christianity.
- Herman Melville
By dint of stubborn effort, the right wing never considers the possibility of other explanations. Maybe a lot of poor people don't work much because they can't due to "mental" or physical illness. (Mental is physical to me.) It's just possible (Actually, it looks more probable all the time.) that many of the behaviors that right wing whack jobs think cause poverty are actually caused by poverty.
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Search4Blogs The Me What I Am I took the name Phaedrus from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Not that I'm as smart as that Phaedrus, but I am a ghost. Sort of. I started doing odd jobs at a motel when I was 14. I lasted one day at a McDonald's, quit, lasted a lot longer at Taco Bell. I've been a gas station attendant, janitor, die cast production worker, day laborer, course maintenance at a miniature golf course, warehouse, union janitor, cabbie, statistical clerk, pool cleaner, working homeless for a few weeks (day labor), and several other things I can't remember. And I've survived. Sort of. I'm not a Marxist, but I am a genuine member of the lumpen proletariat. Largely paraphrasing the secular saint Woody Guthrie: "This shit is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 000000 (cuz this part's not true), for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught using it without my permission, will be considered mighty good friends o' mine, cause I don't give a dern. Publish it. Twist it. Rewrite it. Swing to it. I wrote it, that's all I wanted to do."  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |