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The unworthy poor
According to Think Progress, the state of Tennessee is prepared to pass a law that ties welfare benefits to the academic achievement of recipients’ children. As the article states:
The bill is sponsored by Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, and Rep. Vance Dennis, R-Savannah. It calls for a 30 percent reduction in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits to parents whose children are not making satisfactory progress in school.
The bill is sponsored by Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, and Rep. Vance Dennis, R-Savannah. It calls for a 30 percent reduction in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits to parents whose children are not making satisfactory progress in school.
SNIP:
The real purpose of these laws is to serve the only tactic which the Right uses: divide and conquer. It’s a means to attain and maintain political power, setting what’s left of the hard-pressed middle class against the poor. And make no mistake: although all this legislation is aimed at “welfare cheats”, the real targets are the American poor, made so by decades of de-industrialization which sent well-paying, blue collar jobs off to low-wage countries; jobs which have been replaced by far lower earning service sector occupations.
The Right has to keep juggling these distractions; if the remaining middle class and the poor ever joined together to aim their ire at the true cause of their problems, the Right and its backers among the 1% would be swept away in a tidal wave of anger. We are starting to see this in the indebted countries of Europe, where citizens protest daily against the austerity measures imposed from Brussels and Berlin. China is starting to experience labor unrest at a level which might threaten the one-party state. The Right in this country has to create a target at which the middle class can direct its anger, fighting over crumbs rather than realizing that there is an entire pie held out of view in very few hands.
The sheer lack of empathy built up by the Right and its enablers in the media since the days of Ronald Reagan has been one of its greatest successes. When homelessness exploded in the 1980?s, it wasn’t long before there were news reports of “compassion fatigue”, where a middle class beginning to feel the effects of conservative economics just couldn’t care about those falling through the gaping holes in the safety net. The steady drumbeat castigating the unworthy poor built up and reached a crescendo in the welfare “reforms” of the 1990?s. Its maintained that plateau, as the middle class shrinks and is made more resentful of the undeserving. This resentment, stoked by the Right, is one of the few things still allowing it to hold onto the power it has. If that ever dissipates, its end will come all the quicker.
The Right has to keep juggling these distractions; if the remaining middle class and the poor ever joined together to aim their ire at the true cause of their problems, the Right and its backers among the 1% would be swept away in a tidal wave of anger. We are starting to see this in the indebted countries of Europe, where citizens protest daily against the austerity measures imposed from Brussels and Berlin. China is starting to experience labor unrest at a level which might threaten the one-party state. The Right in this country has to create a target at which the middle class can direct its anger, fighting over crumbs rather than realizing that there is an entire pie held out of view in very few hands.
The sheer lack of empathy built up by the Right and its enablers in the media since the days of Ronald Reagan has been one of its greatest successes. When homelessness exploded in the 1980?s, it wasn’t long before there were news reports of “compassion fatigue”, where a middle class beginning to feel the effects of conservative economics just couldn’t care about those falling through the gaping holes in the safety net. The steady drumbeat castigating the unworthy poor built up and reached a crescendo in the welfare “reforms” of the 1990?s. Its maintained that plateau, as the middle class shrinks and is made more resentful of the undeserving. This resentment, stoked by the Right, is one of the few things still allowing it to hold onto the power it has. If that ever dissipates, its end will come all the quicker.
MORE:
http://theobamadiary.com/2013/04/03/the-unworthy-poor/
