Thanks for this - your mention of the British induced genocide of the Irish strikes home for me as a 2nd generation Irish/American. My great grandfather (Mom's side) came to Hartford to save his family as did my grandfather (Dad's side). While they escaped likely chances of death they arrived in Waspy Hartford where the Irish were denigrated and worse. In the late 60's RFK traveled to Appalachia after which he had an Epiphany! His up close and personal witnessing the abject poverty affected him deeply. In Hartford, the capitol city to one of the wealthiest states in the USA poverty abounds, yet little has been done to change the paradigm. The ignorance to this social cancer is a cause for so many of our problems too numerous to mention in my rambling reply. Thanks again Susan for drawing attention to politicians like Haley who continue to put division over unity and healing!
Amen times three. My husband is third-generation. I'm ninth. We still pay attention to this stuff. I never went hungry but I knew people who did (from church work and in my school) and if these politicians who cling to a discredited and false narrative would take a moment -- a moment -- to get out from behind the podium and do a little research, we'd all be better off.
For sure, I think the debates should be scheduled in Appalachia, east LA, the bowels of Bridgeport....let these candidates who are so insulated have a walking tour to see first hand what it is like living in poverty...oh but "they" have better cell phones than me? I have heard that refrain TOO many times from ex-friends!?!
Great stuff Susan, thanks for this! About 30 years ago I spent one Saturday per month helping highly disadvantaged people in South Philadelphia fix up their houses. Until then I'd never been around truly impoverished people, never been inside their houses, never walked in their neighborhoods. The experience profoundly changed my worldview. Poor people are exactly the same as the more well off except that they don't have as much money, as much opportunity, as much education or as much safety. They are not less deserving. They are not lazier. They are for sure not less strong or less kind. Having seen their circumstances up close I knew then and know now that had I been born in those same neighborhoods with a different skin color I'd absolutely still be there myself. Only very, very exceptional people can escape circumstances like that and I am not one of them.
I got that experience working on a church bus in Joplin. We were in homes and with children. I saw desperation and love, industry and hope. Malthus based his ignorant theories on his own observations. There was no science, no peer review, just a nasty man showing his disgust for the have-nots. And thus was born ugly policies that linger like a foul smell today.
The pandemic boost to SNAP benefits is set to expire, or already has expired, which will affect millions of children, the people the anti-woke GOP claims to care so much about. One aspect of the potato famine that requires highlighting is that it was perpetrated by white people on white people. It doesn't seem like that story has sensitized us at all. If anything, it seems to energize the GOP, whose only policy is Maximize Human Suffering.
"The Earth has enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed." ~variously attributed, often to Gandhi.
Great post, Susan. Haley and her like are insulting and ignorant. For a time during my first marriage, while in a cult, while raising a child, and long before getting a college degree and good work, I was one of the very poor in this country. Haley has no idea what she's talking about.
Haley says she moved 35,000 South Carolinians from welfare to work but she doesn’t mention she she was governor from 2011 to 2017 during the economic recovery following the crash during the aughts. She says she personally faced prejudice as a “brown girl” but says the US isn’t a racist country (after enabling a racist president). She complains about Medicaid but fails to mention the the overwhelming number of Americans that receive it are children, the elderly and the disabled and that millions people who are not in those groups and receive benefits, work full or part time. What’s next Nikki, abolish child labor laws, soylent green? If only she would wake up to her hypocrisy. But then that would make her………uh, that would make her…....Oh, right……Never mind.
Thanks for this - your mention of the British induced genocide of the Irish strikes home for me as a 2nd generation Irish/American. My great grandfather (Mom's side) came to Hartford to save his family as did my grandfather (Dad's side). While they escaped likely chances of death they arrived in Waspy Hartford where the Irish were denigrated and worse. In the late 60's RFK traveled to Appalachia after which he had an Epiphany! His up close and personal witnessing the abject poverty affected him deeply. In Hartford, the capitol city to one of the wealthiest states in the USA poverty abounds, yet little has been done to change the paradigm. The ignorance to this social cancer is a cause for so many of our problems too numerous to mention in my rambling reply. Thanks again Susan for drawing attention to politicians like Haley who continue to put division over unity and healing!
Amen times three. My husband is third-generation. I'm ninth. We still pay attention to this stuff. I never went hungry but I knew people who did (from church work and in my school) and if these politicians who cling to a discredited and false narrative would take a moment -- a moment -- to get out from behind the podium and do a little research, we'd all be better off.
For sure, I think the debates should be scheduled in Appalachia, east LA, the bowels of Bridgeport....let these candidates who are so insulated have a walking tour to see first hand what it is like living in poverty...oh but "they" have better cell phones than me? I have heard that refrain TOO many times from ex-friends!?!
It's stunning, isn't it?
Great stuff Susan, thanks for this! About 30 years ago I spent one Saturday per month helping highly disadvantaged people in South Philadelphia fix up their houses. Until then I'd never been around truly impoverished people, never been inside their houses, never walked in their neighborhoods. The experience profoundly changed my worldview. Poor people are exactly the same as the more well off except that they don't have as much money, as much opportunity, as much education or as much safety. They are not less deserving. They are not lazier. They are for sure not less strong or less kind. Having seen their circumstances up close I knew then and know now that had I been born in those same neighborhoods with a different skin color I'd absolutely still be there myself. Only very, very exceptional people can escape circumstances like that and I am not one of them.
I got that experience working on a church bus in Joplin. We were in homes and with children. I saw desperation and love, industry and hope. Malthus based his ignorant theories on his own observations. There was no science, no peer review, just a nasty man showing his disgust for the have-nots. And thus was born ugly policies that linger like a foul smell today.
The pandemic boost to SNAP benefits is set to expire, or already has expired, which will affect millions of children, the people the anti-woke GOP claims to care so much about. One aspect of the potato famine that requires highlighting is that it was perpetrated by white people on white people. It doesn't seem like that story has sensitized us at all. If anything, it seems to energize the GOP, whose only policy is Maximize Human Suffering.
"The Earth has enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed." ~variously attributed, often to Gandhi.
I'd like to see a politician look a hungry child in the eyes and say, "Sorry. No can do."
And as with "supply side economics" results of the natural experiment are irrelevant to faith.
Great post, Susan. Haley and her like are insulting and ignorant. For a time during my first marriage, while in a cult, while raising a child, and long before getting a college degree and good work, I was one of the very poor in this country. Haley has no idea what she's talking about.
It feels like people who spout this nonsense never once ate government peanut butter -- or even talked to someone who did.
Yep
Haley says she moved 35,000 South Carolinians from welfare to work but she doesn’t mention she she was governor from 2011 to 2017 during the economic recovery following the crash during the aughts. She says she personally faced prejudice as a “brown girl” but says the US isn’t a racist country (after enabling a racist president). She complains about Medicaid but fails to mention the the overwhelming number of Americans that receive it are children, the elderly and the disabled and that millions people who are not in those groups and receive benefits, work full or part time. What’s next Nikki, abolish child labor laws, soylent green? If only she would wake up to her hypocrisy. But then that would make her………uh, that would make her…....Oh, right……Never mind.
Ha. You're right. That IS part of her pitch to voters. Hell, I could have moved people into the workforce during 2011-17. Context is all.