Life is full of coincidences tonight. I just got this email and thought
I'd share it with y'all. After all what's good for the goose is good for
the gander they say.
Robert
Fitzsimon File
*A month of compassion, eleven months of scorn*
by Chris Fitzsimon <mailto:chris@ncpolicywatch.com>
Every year around this time an odd phenomenon occurs in the political
world, particularly in right-wing circles. Many of the same folks who
spend most of the year demonizing the poor and trying to convince us
that poverty is a choice all of a sudden start encouraging everyone to
lend their neighbor a hand, donate to a food bank or soup kitchen, or
give their kids a couple extra boxes of macaroni and cheese for the
annual canned goods drive at the elementary school.
Thats all good advice of course, but it raises an interesting question.
Why are the poor people that progressives want to help with public
investments in affordable housing, child care, and health care programs
considered lazy and unmotivated by the right wingers 11 months out of
the year, but people who deserve our help with food and money and
clothing in November and December?
President Bush visited a Richmond food bank Monday before giving his
first official Thanksgiving speech in which urged Americans to give back
by volunteering in a shelter or helping an elderly neighbor.
He talked about the compassion of the American people but didnt see fit
to mention his veto of legislation that would allow several million
uninsured children to see a doctor regularly.
President Bush has said that everyone has access to health care in the
United States because all they have to do is visit their local emergency
room, one of the most inefficient and ineffective forms of universal
care imaginable.
Bush and many of his ideological allies not only believe that government
shouldnt be providing health care, but that the people who would enroll
in an expanded childrens health care program would take advantage of
the system. In other words, they are looking for a handout and ought to
be paying for their childrens health care themselves.
It is the current version of President Ronald Reagans welfare queen,
a woman he claimed defrauded the government out of $150,000, facts that
could never be verified because they simply werent true. But it didnt
matter. Reagan used the welfare queen not only to ridicule public
assistance programs, but also to demonize and stereotype the poor.
to be continued.......
_______________________________________________
Edit your replies
http://www.team.net/archive
http://autox.team.net/mailman/listinfo/spridgets
|