he starts talking about john edwards, who actually made me pick up my ears in 2004 when he started talking about poor people. wow - a democrat talking not about the middle class, or 'working americans' that mythic bunch - but the poor.
and then he got on the ticket and poor dropped right out.
but he's been back working on poverty issues, and will starts talking about that...
But no one knows how to stop it. Anyway, spending at least $6.6 trillion on poverty-related programs in the four decades since President Johnson declared the "war on poverty" is not "nothing." In fact, it has purchased a new paradigm of poverty.
oooh! you're gonna start blaming the poor for being poor, ain't'cha?
here's the windup...
Edwards has a 1930s paradigm of poverty: Poor people are like everyone else, they just lack certain goods and services (housing, transportation, training, etc.)
...and the pitch...
The 1930s paradigm has been refuted by four decades of experience. The new paradigm is of behavior-driven poverty that results from individuals' nonmaterial deficits.
oh! my! god! it's a new paradigm of behavior-driven poverty! and could it possibly, somehow, maybe, be that this 'behavior-driven poverty' really means black people? let's look and see if he's got any racist crap to go with that sizzling fastball of reactionary political analysis...
It results from a scarcity of certain habits and mores -- punctuality, hygiene, industriousness, deferral of gratification, etc. -- that are not developed in disorganized homes.
yah see, leroy, them negros can't tell time (punctuality), they's dirty (hygiene), they's lazy (industriousness), and they cain't save for nuttin' - they lives like animules wi' no thought for the future (deferral of gratification). and they's full of broken homes.
ahm sorry - was you thinkin' i was talkin' about black folk? noooo... i'se just talkin' about po' folk. who choose to stay po'.
not only does he get that lovely 'the poor are poor because they deserve to be poor' (what a new paradigm! so clever! no-one ever thought of that before!), but there's also a slam on the 30s, when the country teetered on the brink of revolution and militant mass action by workers made capital cough up some serious change.
good thing we're over that... bowtied bastard...
No comments:
Post a Comment