What impressed me early in life about Mormons is their collectivism.

[jtuck004]

(Funny - O'donnell just had a Mormon historian on who pointed out the same thing, seemed to see Rmoney as working against those teachings of the church. I waited to see if he would call him a rich asshole, but the segment wasn't long enough, I expect.)

Years and years ago I was invited to an LDS food pantry, and volunteered the day helping pack food and can it. Perhaps most people know they teach their members to store food, water, get a cash reserve - be ready for extended hard times. To facilitate that, they get together and collectively can food for themselves, others, and for the church pantry where it can be purchased.

(The government kind of teaches preparedness too, though they do a piss poor job compared to the Mormons.)

Mormons had a historical need to be independent of government rules and aid, and even of the communities around them (Perhaps because of the early sleeping habits of some, and a few judgmental bigots on the outside), so they learned to depend on each other and small farms, which even today can lose whole crops for a year or two.

If you have never seen one, they have whole commercial kitchens set up to can bulk food. Big, long tables, big cans and lids, easily operated can sealers, sinks. We canned peanut butter, dried spaghetti, some other things that day. Some are doing it for themselves, some for the store, or pantry, where the members can purchase it for meals or for their food storage. The bishop's office, (I am assuming some kind of upper mgmt in the church) had the office IN the pantry. It was, in fact, called "The Bishop's" pantry. (maybe they all are?), and it was explained to me that it was that position which made sure no families went hungry.

You can buy things if there is a pantry in your town. Call around and ask, (maybe better prices on bulk food than Costco or Walmart?). Much of it is cheap, enriched flour stuff, but better than nothing. The ones here seemed to be pretty friendly, (the Muslims at the local Mosque were friendlier, but that was another day).

I have known a couple of people who practice Mormonism that had to rely on free food from the pantry when they lost a job or suffered some other calamity. And food stamps.

From a purely practical point of view, this teaches co-operative, collective behavior like almost no other method. It is THEIR (the church's, i.e. the people) place, they own and maintain it. They talk and discuss their lives, and help each other. Even though I no longer have any use for religion (and not much for today's religious people), the collective and caring parts are timeless, and exist apart from that, and these are a DANDY idea for ANY community to set up. (Some non-religious public ones exist in other cities). I could see the Democrats putting these together, having neighborhood meetings after the canning sessions. Who knows, there still may be a need to reach people who won't ever touch Facebook again. But I know for certain there is NOTHING like face-to-face conversation to inoculate people against right-wing terrorists. I mean Republicans.

Frankly, we keep going with this recovery, replacing millions of mid-wage jobs with lower-paying crap jobs and cheering about it, we may NEED them in every community.