http://www.tmcvoice.com/

What we see here in this county and in similar areas of unemployment around this changing nation are the casualties of this economic war. War is the right word for what is happening, for it is a battle between those who work for a living and those who profit from their labors.
http://www.tmcvoice.com/web-co…..82604.html

Thirty-two percent of the population lives in poverty according to the Federal Guidelines, the second highest rate in Kentucky… Eighty-three percent of the students in the school system participate in the free or reduced-price lunch program. We estimate that seventy percent of the county’s third grade children do not have dictionaries in their homes.
http://www.tmcvoice.com/web-co…..31104.html

I do not believe you can understand the current approach to poverty and disadvantage without consideration of how thinking about morality distorts the debate. One needs the examine the concepts of “deservingness” and “undeservingness” which are rarely stated explicitly, but deeply embedded in the minds of many in the respectable (IE not poor) classes.
The concept of the “deserving poor” which originated in Victorian times is still around but only as the opposite of “the undeserving poor” which covers the vast majority of poor people.

In the mind of the moralist, the human race is divided into two disjoint classes, the Deserving and the undeserving. The deserving are good people who are deserving of good things regardless of their actual behavior. If one of them acts rightly they are deserving of effusive praise and rich reward, but if he acts wrongly, they do not warrant the vicious response from the organs of law and order that is reserved for the undeserving. The undeserving are judged and treated in the opposite manner, if one of them acts rightly it does not mean he deserves praise or reward, nor is it taken as evidence of good character, it only means that he has not yet been caught acting wrongly either because he is sufficiently clever and sly or because he is too unenterprising and stupid to conceive of the advantages of wrong action. When one of the undeserving acts wrongly though, it is evidence of irremediable bad character and justification for the severest punishment possible.

When applied to social issues, this thinking about the deserving and the undeserving gives rise to a moral imperative. It is morally wrong to spend resources on the undeserving in ways that benefit them. It might be argued by liberal bleeding heart types that rehabilitating criminals may in the long run save resources but the moral imperative rules it out. Therefore spending on police, prosecutors and prisons grows inevitably.
However when a son or daughter of the respectable such as your current president’s niece engages in behavior which would get a poor nigger a prison sentence the draconian penalties go missing. This unfortunate person is a basically good but made an one unfortunate choice and prison would be an inconvenience for them. The moral imperative is to find creative ways to avoid unnecessary damage, a bit of a grovel and a few months in rehab not available to one of the undeserving and they are welcomed back to society.

It may well be that generations back, the ancestors of today’s undeserving poor were of the deserving poor. But as they and their descendants behavior changed to that typical of the underclass they lost status as deserving. The thing about the underclass is that it corrodes those aspects of behavior that moralists see as evidence of good character and that are necessary for escape from the underclass to be possible. The underclass also encourages behavior such as quick resort to violence since that is the only means for a member to avoid victim status. Moralists look at the totality of the behavior of underclass and see all the choices that members make where they would have chosen differently without realizing that the perspective available to the moralist that allows them to conceive of different choice is not available to those stuck in the underclass.

No progress can be made against underclass poverty unless this moral imperative to do good to people one despises in manner which results in maximum harm to them is exposed and countered. The single worst case of this is the so called war on drugs.

[Mod Note; edited to remove terms offensive to many Americans but more common in Australia]

Brad@139

I was not talking per say about people just on welfare. I was talking about people who live in poverty or pretty damn close to it. It could be a man with a wife and child that works at Wal-Mart and has a second job after that. A woman that cleans offices or houses and then goes to work at McDonalds. I was stammered when the President of the United States congratulated a woman for working three jobs to support her and her kids. In this great country, why does a person have to work three jobs in order to survive? But if you want to talk about welfare lets talk about welfare. Why does the U.S. give tax breaks to corporations that close factories here and move them offshore? Why is there 15,700 U.S. corporations headquartered in a white 5 story building down in the Cayman Islands and not paying any U.S. taxes. I do not think any of these business want to get off of the dole either. And the last time I checked most people on welfare are white.

There is too much of a tendency to blame poor people for being poor. Most of us are far too close to poverty, one injury or illness. Lose six months or a year of work and you never recover. We finally decided as a society that racial and gender bias are wrong, and we’re awakening to the stupidity of homophobia. Now if only we could agree that bias against the needy is wrong. We knew that for a while after the depression. Without some major changes soon, we’re going to be reminded.

Amen. Unfortunately, I think another Great Depression is what it will take to hammer it home for most people.

If we need to fix povery in this coumtry then why on earth are you liberals for bringing in illegal aliens who once they become citizens we will have to take care of? Why not take care of our own first? How much of your paycheck would you be willing to give up to solve this problem? How many of you would be willing to let an illegal alien family live with you in your home? That’s what I thought.

Brad,

A recent study estimates that the Iraq war will end up costing us over $2 trillion. Bush is throwing money into the military as if there were no one else in America and no other problems but the “war on terror.” And there is no accountability. No matter how this administration screws up the war, and messes up Iraq, the money keeps pouring in.

I assure you, we are not spending anywhere near this amount of money on shoes or vaccinations for illegal immigrants.

That giant hole in your paycheck is your tax dollars tearing through it on their way to the Pentagon. I’d worry about that before you worry about illegal immigrants (at least from the pov of money being taken out of your pocket).

And Christy and everyone else, thanks for the warm welcome!

I was not talking per say about people just on welfare. I was talking about people who live in poverty or pretty damn close to it. It could be a man with a wife and child that works at Wal-Mart and has a second job after that. A woman that cleans offices or houses and then goes to work at McDonalds. I was stammered when the President of the United States congratulated a woman for working three jobs to support her and her kids. In this great country, why does a person have to work three jobs in order to survive? But if you want to talk about welfare lets talk about welfare. Why does the U.S. give tax breaks to corporations that close factories here and move them offshore? Why is there 15,700 U.S. corporations headquartered in a white 5 story building down in the Cayman Islands and not paying any U.S. taxes. I do not think any of these business want to get off of the dole either. And the last time I checked most people on welfare are white.

azapache @ 126

Middle class, upper middle class and wealthy citizens of America really do not have a grasp of poverty and what poverty causes. I mean, sure the company they work for has a charity fund they give money to, and once a year they have a good neighbors day, helping the less fortunate. For these people, to get a full understanding of how poverty affects them, I am sorry, but you’re going to have to slap them up side the head. And here is my reasoning. I work as an engineer at a major corp., I was talking to a couple of my Republican friends and of course they started to raze me about free government cheese. I am a Democrat. Unfortunately this just happen to be a bad day for me, so I asked them. “Have you ever have any of that government cheese?” This stunned them into silence. “Ever been on welfare?” “Ever use food stamps?” After I said “I have, I grew up poor, I grew up on welfare.” Looking at their jaw dropping, stupidified expression for a moment, I went back to work. They could not understand the concept of being poor, that poor people do not want to live in poverty. That some times people just need a hand to help them out of a bad situation, was a foreign concept to them. So unless you have worked with or been poor, how much do you really understand what they are going through. I purposely left out the lower middle class because they are only a paycheck or two away from being poor. One last thing, the “So unless…” and on statements, are a generalization and is not always the case.

The great thing about this is that you just shattered many of their preconceived notions about poor people in a matter of a few seconds. Way to go!

azapache @ 126

Middle class, upper middle class and wealthy citizens of America really do not have a grasp of poverty and what poverty causes. I mean, sure the company they work for has a charity fund they give money to, and once a year they have a good neighbors day, helping the less fortunate. For these people, to get a full understanding of how poverty affects them, I am sorry, but you’re going to have to slap them up side the head. And here is my reasoning. I work as an engineer at a major corp., I was talking to a couple of my Republican friends and of course they started to raze me about free government cheese. I am a Democrat. Unfortunately this just happen to be a bad day for me, so I asked them. “Have you ever have any of that government cheese?” This stunned them into silence. “Ever been on welfare?” “Ever use food stamps?” After I said “I have, I grew up poor, I grew up on welfare.” Looking at their jaw dropping, stupidified expression for a moment, I went back to work. They could not understand the concept of being poor, that poor people do not want to live in poverty. That some times people just need a hand to help them out of a bad situation, was a foreign concept to them. So unless you have worked with or been poor, how much do you really understand what they are going through. I purposely left out the lower middle class because they are only a paycheck or two away from being poor. One last thing, the “So unless…” and on statements, are a generalization and is not always the case.

I am a white male right winger but there was a time when I was on food stamps and it was a blessing. The problem is that there are a lot, and I mean a lot who never have any intention of getting off the dole. Government programs need to be there for those who really need them for anyone can fall and need help up. I personally know people who have been on assistance their entire lives. One woman in particular has had three illigitimate children all paid to be born by the tax payers. She now has section * housing, foodstamps, terrific free health care and has worked maybe two years in her entire life. this woman is white. Had this woman had to of paid for her children to be born and was actually made to pay for them she would never would have had them in the first place. Unfortunately those who are wealthy from their own work ( i do not include government employees in this class for they are even worse than welfare recipients) do not have an obligation to help anybody. they are taking care of themselves which is all they should be required to do. Welfare only helps the rich. What is happening os the middle class is being taxed to give money to the so called poor which makes them consumers for the products that the rich sell. Food companies, diaper companies, pharmacutical companies, etc. are making a killing through taxpayer government assistance. Even the owners of apartment buildings are making money through section eight housing. The rich will never allow welfare to be brokenb. Never.