Do you live in "healthy poverty" as defined by founder of John Birch society?

[madfloridian]

Healthy Poverty -- the Radical Right's Fantasy

The words of Claire Conner on her Facebook page in January 2014.

"A lot of folks tell me that the John Birch Society is irrelevant: their ideas are dead and they have no real influence today."

But, here are the facts, folks. The radical right (which is running the House of Representatives) has embraced so many John Birch policies that I can hardly keep count. Slashing food stamps and gutting unemployment compensation--harken back to the views of Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society.

..... Listen to Welch's description of the first decade of the 1900s. "The spirit of growth, of adventure, and of opportunity permeated the very atmosphere which everybody breathed."

"There was still plenty of poverty in many areas, of course. But it was a HEALTHY KIND OF POVERTY, where every man took for granted that relief from dire want was entirely his own problem and responsibility. . .. And even the poverty was thus offset by the enormous blessing of freedom." (John Birch Society Bulletin, July 1976).

This same Welch called Social Security "a gigantic embezzlement."
He also opined, in 1964, about the necessities of life. Listen to this: "While food, shelter and clothing are necessities for an individual in a civilized community, the guarantee that he will always have them is not."

If you've been paying attention to drumbeat against food stamps and unemployment, you're hearing Robert Welch in a new suit. He's Paul Ryan, Steve Stockman, Tim Heulskamp, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell.

More at at the link.

Claire Conner said in her book she did not believe her mother when she said the Birchers would be ready when the liberals failed.

[alarimer]

1. Trouble is, you can't eat freedom.

Why are these people so hung up on the idea of freedom? What, precisely, do they mean by it?

Do they actually believe it is tyranny for a society to make sure people have enough to eat? That we don't starve because we lose our jobs? I guess failure is always only the fault of the person who fails. Even if they are laid off by a company that goes out of business, for instance.

Do they think that Norway, with perhaps the best social safety net of any country, must be an oppressive society? Ask any Norwegian. I bet they'd say they weren't oppressed at all.

[ND-Dem]

19. they mean they shouldn't be impeded from doing anything they want, but others should.

that's what it comes down to.

[WinkyDink]

2. The John Birch Society:

[hollysmom]

3. I believe you don't need everything perfect and can survive on a little, but that little get pretty

big when you add a kid. Yes, we had a roach infested apartment and learned how to not attract them, but kids can develop asthma from roaches and need more medical care. We ate a lot of liver to save money, I became a liver expert, but organ meats eaten for a long time can kill you with cholesterol. We did not have a phone (phone companies demanded more than I earned in a week for a deposit for women, they asked no deposit from men., It was hard to get a job without a phone, I actually got one through a telegram. When I ran into money problems, I borrowed it from my parents - not every can do that, then end up with interest payments. When I needed expensive dental work my father cosigned, other wise I would have had to live with painful TMJ.

There is a pattern here, I could get out of poverty after one year because I had education, friends with money and parents to back me. Also the market for women improved, I would hate to see it go backwards.

Being poor is like being in a big trap, So yes you can live frugally, but when there is an emergency, you can't.

[madfloridian]

5. One thing I don't believe is....

When a man is poor it is "entirely his own problem and responsibility". Esp. not when the jobs are not available.

I think the Bircher/Teaparty mentality actually shows contempt for the poor and needy.

[Vinca]

4. That "enormous blessing of freedom" doesn't fill an empty stomach.

What it all shakes out to is a bunch of self-centered, greedy individuals who are afraid a dime of their loot might go to someone else.

[Agony]

6. Koch is all you need,

birchers through and through.

[appalachiablue]

7. Daddy Fred Koch was a founder. In the current GOP crop I see John Birch Jr. is here.

Claire Connor was on a program a couple years ago, interesting account of her experience. Her mother was right about the Birch redux unfortunately. Ultraconservative regression to the 1950s- or 1550s?
Healthy Poverty, an oxymoron and straight out of the RW stink tank playbook like Trickle Down, Compassionate Conservative.

[madfloridian]

8. Ayn Randian philosophy...I got mine, don't care about you.

It's like if you are rich you deserve it, if you are poor you deserve it. Hateful woman, hateful philosophy.

[appalachiablue]

9. Yep, totally selfish & ruthless which the Dems. & we know well by now. Stop at nothing esp. after

the midterm election win in both houses in Congress. The power surge since then is palpable & so is their rush to get as much done as possible in two years.
Did you see that awful story of a crazed white FL man assaulting a black man who was carrying, posted on GD I think. The innocent man wasn't injured, but another wacky story from the 'Gunshine' state, a first I read here today, so bad, beautiful Florida.

[Tsiyu]

10. And being self-reliant means relying on jobs where a month's wages

won't even cover apartment rent in many places. Do the John Birchers believe one person should have to work 24 hours a day to have basic needs met?

Food, housing and other expenses have soared through the roof, while pay is less than it has ever been in decades.

You can't tell someone "hard work will bring you out" and then keep him a slave by not fairly compensating him for his hard work.

We are to believe that the wealthy deserve more than any human will ever need, and the working, the disabled, the children and the elderly deserve nothing they do not claw from the dirt with their own hands.

How does the rich man make his living? He hires workers others paid to educate. He uses roads and highways others paid to have built. He uses the courts, the cops and the systems that are paid for by the very same taxpayers he cheats out of wages.

And yet today's John Birchers call the working person the freeloader? Ha! Open your eyes, you ignorant fools.

[madfloridian]

11. For years there's been no one loudly calling them out on it.

There has been no group getting on TV talking about how greedy and selfish they are. We have been kept busy keeping our conservative Democrats from voting with them.

[Tsiyu]

15. Newtie and Rush and then Rove and now FOX played a shame game

It works very well in the South.

Preachers scream at people and berate them - that is gawd's love. People don't want to be ostracized or shamed, so they go along with family traditions or social customs that they know are dead wrong and dangerous just to feel like part of a safe group.

Repukes just took the hellfire and brimstone national, preaching the hate for Beelzebub's spawn - a.k.a. librulls - and the shame and fear-based people ate it up like Krispy Kremes.

It's time to make the cretins back down. They've already shown their sexual purity and their god-like qualities don't extend past their tongues. They are the ones who must be shamed.

[appalachiablue]

13. +10. They don't really care if we have to work 24/7, we don't exist to them. Our entire

society & economy has been radically altered & damaged. Everything is about money practically, sorry to say.
No country especially the wealthiest if it cares, lets its citizens, communities & young people struggle & decline like this, desperate for nonexistent jobs, living in economic insecurity, young people with student loans worried about their future, the climate issue, all of it. Real regression backwards, socially & economically for the people. The New John Birch and the New Jim Crow, and as one DUer wrote, people will be living in an authoritarian, market feudal society similar to the South before 1964. (I'm not usually this upbeat, ha!).

[Tsiyu]

16. Je Suis Debbie Downer!

Well, people could have completely disconnected from the system when the writing started appearing on the wall, but we had no prophets who could be heard above the commercials.

People on DU and elsewhere insisted we must all keep buying so that we could keep the system going. Funny how the bejillionaires needed us then.

But, oh. The system shook all of those loyal consumers and corporate apologists out like crumbs from a tablecloth. And they were so sure their six figure incomes were set for life. Why should they care about what the minimum wage is, or how hard the poor have it?

Now, many of them would sell their souls for a full time, minimum wage job. How the mighty have fallen. And they still suffer in silence, in shame.

I tried to own my home - it is muy humble but it's mine - and have as few expenses as possible. Work from home, low carbon footprint, low expectations, DIY and self-sufficiency oriented. It ain't pretty, easy or elegant, but it's peaceful for the most part and stress is minimized greatly.

I don't know how others stay plugged in to the madness; I admire their courage.

[Octafish]

12. Back in the day, a man could shoot a buffalo and feed his tribe.

After the white man came, though, not so much.



Burton Historical Collection/Detroit Public Library Pile of American bison skulls waiting to be ground for fertilizer, circa 1870.

http://www.cowboysindians.com/Cowboys-Indians/October-2009/Bison-bones-From-bloodlust-to-nourishment-for-a-growing-countrys-land/

[madfloridian]

14. What a disgusting picture.

Such a tragic waste of a source that provided so much for so many, food, clothing, etc.

[Tsiyu]

17. Some people measure success

by their ability to Kill All The Things.

If there's a resource, Kill It.

A way of life? Kill It.

People whose shite we want? Kill Them.

Rights that say we cant exploit people? Kill All The Rights.

Now we are all hard at work Killing All The Ocean ; not sure whats next on the agenda to Kill.




I do wish we had more old growth forests. I can only imagine how beautiful the trees once were in "murrica.

[jwirr]

18. It is interesting that this John Bircher is equating poverty today with poverty in the first decade

of the 1900s. Let's equate a little more. I don't have stats but back then 2% of the people lived in a city. Today 2% live in a rural area. That family back then was poor but many had means by which they could help themselves - land for a garden. They might have lived in a tar paper shack but many also had access to wood to burn to heat that shack. Also back then the law enforcement did not come tear down your shack because it is not up to standards. Back then many young men were apprentices and learned a trade from someone who they worked for unlike today when education is costing a fortune. Many learned to farm from their own parent.

The freedom they had to help themselves had nothing to do with personal opportunity. It had to do with having resources to work with. Resources that do not exist in our modern cities and even in most rural areas today. .