More Wingnut Facebook Wisdom. Today: The Irony of Food Stamps

[OmahaBlueDog]

[Sherman A1]

1. Charming,

simply charming......

[Xipe Totec]

2. Yes, I have a question.

Since chicks can feed themselves as soon as they are hatched, should wingnuts let their children fend for themselves as soon as they are born?

I mean, since animals are the proper model for human behavior...

[Walk away]

3. Since poor children benefit most from food stamps, do republicans hate children and...

want them to starve???? Do they think poor children should be treated like animals and left to fend for themselves and live outdoors?

[upaloopa]

4. Yes they do so long as you don't raise their taxes.

[OmahaBlueDog]

7. Bob Dole A Total Communist Now, Apparently

Here is a nice remembrance of George McGovern from his friend, Bob Dole. (“BOB DOLE!”) It is one of those pieces where old men talk about how things were so much better in their day, when after a long work sesh, Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan would get together, drink some Cosmos, and go bum-hunting. That’s all well and good. Those hoboes aren’t going to chase down and murder themselves! But buried in Dole’s opinion-editorial whatsit is some disturbing news for Republicans: not only did Bob Dole (“BOB DOLE!”) not try to murder the last living liberal, George McGovern, when he had the chance, but there used to be Republicans who tried to expand food stamps and school lunch. How will today’s GOP go on, knowing that it is descended from Kenyan anticolonial socialist Ho Chi Minhs?

Blah blah blah, we both killed some Jerrys, yadda yadda yadda “BOB DOLE!” We would both come to understand that our most important commonality — the one that would unite us during and after our service on Capitol Hill — was our shared desire to eliminate hunger in this country and around the world. As colleagues in the 1970s on the Senate Hunger and Human Needs Committee, we worked together to reform the Food Stamp Program, expand the domestic school lunch program and establish the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children.

Beg pardon? Did Bob Dole (“BOB DOLE!”) just say he helped establish WIC? And that like Bill Clinton was the first black president, Bob Dole would have been the first Food Stamp President? Oh, GOPpies, it gets worse.

More than a quarter-century later, with political ambitions long behind us, we joined together again. Soon after President Bill Clinton named George ambassador to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in 1998, he called to ask for my help in strengthening global school feeding, nutrition and education programs. We jointly proposed a program to provide poor children with meals at schools in countries throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. In 2000, President Clinton authorized a two-year pilot program based on our proposal, and in 2002, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed into law the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. Since its inception, the program has provided meals to 22 million children in 41 countries

.

http://wonkette.com/487375/bob-dole-a-total-communist-now-apparently

[Curmudgeoness]

6. Well, the hate them, after they get out of the womb.

From conception to the day they are born, they are considered human beings. After that, all bets are off.

[progree]

11. Republican Platform in a nutshell: Unless you are a fetus, you are disposable n/t

[libodem]

5. The whole community benefits

Every food stamp dollar spent generates. $3.00 more in the community. It boosts the economy all around. Plus it helps compensate red states like mine who charge 5% tax on every food dollar spent. That is so regressive because it is such a higher percentage of the poors' total income. MF'ers.

[SheilaT]

8. Do those idiots not see a fundamental difference

between a program that keeps people from starving and feeding animals that already have access to food and are in no danger of starvation?

Apparently not.

When I was young we were very poor. Had food stamps existed then, we would have qualified. Just because we managed without them, does not mean anyone else in similar circumstances ought to somehow manage without as well.

Another aspect of food stamps that bothers me mightily is hearing someone who does qualify but says the don't want to accept handouts, or something like that. As far as I'm concerned, we're all in this together. If the taxes I pay keep someone else from going to bed hungry, then that's good.

I participate in feeding the homeless at our local homeless shelter. It's the most gratifying thing I do. When it's my church's turn to do it, I try very hard to make something *I* would like to eat, and fix it well. I can tell you that our guests at the shelter are enormously grateful for what we provide. It would be so easy to start judging them for poor choices or whatever, but I just concentrate on the fact that when they come to me they're hungry, and I can give them food.

[OmahaBlueDog]

9. In the minds of many conservatives...

In the minds of many conservatives...poor people are just laying around, living the life of Riley, chowing down on food bought with food stamps and using their welfare checks to buy liquor -- all the while spending their watching Jerry Springer.

Reality -- the working poor are just as likely to use SNAP (because there are no food "stamps" any more) and WIC, as well as Section 8 rental assistance. Very few individuals are eligible for any kind of direct payment for living expenses unless they are a) unemployed and collecting unemploument insurance or b) diaabled. In those states in which welfare as they envision it still exists, you have to work to collect it. If you can't get remunerative employment, you generally have to perform volunteer work as part of the TANF program.

Sensible solutions to these problems could include raising the minimum wage to something that helps support a family of four and offering any and every incentive for people to attend CC/JC to expand their job skill set. Conservatives favor more Dickensian solutinns. First, they basically want to prevent any government assistance of any kind going to anyone who drinks, smokes a joint, buys a pack of cigarettes, or chews gum. Furthermore, they want to bring back work houses and debtors prison. Their basic attitude: You are poor because you suck. Suck less, and you won't be poor. I won't give a dime of my money to people who suck.

In any event, I will cease ranting and instead heap praise upon you and your church. Feeding the homeless and the poor is doing the Lord's work. And so, for the second time in an evening, I will make a rare quotation of scripture on DU -- this time, in honor of your work:

Matthew 25:31-46



31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

[Jasana]

10. So I was just wandering around the site trying to get to know stuff better and I come in here and

BAM! My eye catches "Facebook Wisdom... Irony of Foodstamps." To my horror I think - No, no, not this, please don't let it be what I think it is. So I open up the OP and it is exactly what I think it is.

I saw this on FB two days ago, posted by a real life friend, and I just cracked. When I say I cracked, I mean I went ballistic. There were tears slowly rolling down my eyes but the fire that crackled out of my fingers could in no way be stopped. I slammed down that comment bar and growled something like...

"What? WTF is this? I am disabled. I get $70.00 per month foodstamps and somehow this likens me to a wild animal? What is wrong with you? Seriously, WHAT IS YOUR MALFUNCTION? We need to find the horrific monsters who write this garbage and tell them to STFU!"

I logged off FB and haven't been back since. Who knows if I cause a shitstorm or whether anyone even noticed but it's been weighing on my mind. This shit hurts and it's tearing people apart.

Sorry if I bumbled into the wrong area.