The Invisible Ones
No one knew about Maria Fernandes' struggle to survive in the harsh reality of a conservative ideological stronghold on the subconscious of America’s hoi-polloi. Since Ronald Reagan’s’ Boot Strap’ revival, people of low (or no) income have been sliding fast into despair, living on a sure-fire pitiful pittance from working as many as one, two or more low wage jobs. Trying to come up with enough honest ‘sweat of the brow’ scratch to live the old worn-out cliché ‘A Roof and Food Upon A Table’. No one knew or cared until Maria Fernandes was found dead in her car trying to get some needed sleep that might have given her enough energy to go on to her next low-wage, part-time job.
I swear, the next time I hear some Fox News, indoctrinated conservative, boot-strapper, utter the phrases of a Ronald Reagan’s Rose Colored Glasses World about the poor and the working poor… ( i.e. welfare queen driving her Cadillac, and the “strapping young buck” using food stamps to buy T-bone steaks)… I’m going to HOWL some pathetic immature words at them like: Butt-face, Meany-head, Meany-face, Butt-head and poop-squat and then walk away feeling an overwhelming sorrow for their pitiless and hateful outlook on life and those in need. thinkingblue
PS: I wish there was something more, I could do beside childish name-calling, to show the "R" types that following today's far right-wing (Fox News) ideology is not conducive to their own Christian Ideology but I can't. Therefore, I'll just keep blogging and making videos that perhaps might or will convince one or two of them to sit up and say... Hey, what am I doing, what am I saying, what am I thinking...? The Liberals are and were right all along.
(I still dream after all these years)
Ronald Reagan loved to tell stories. When he ran for president in 1976, many of Reagan’s anecdotes converged on a single point: The welfare state is broken, and I’m the man to fix it. On the trail, the Republican candidate told a tale about a fancy public housing complex with a gym and a swimming pool. There was also someone in California, he’d explain incredulously, who supported herself with food stamps while learning the art of witchcraft. And in stump speech after stump speech, Reagan regaled his supporters with the story of an Illinois woman whose feats of deception were too amazing to be believed.
“In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record,” the former California governor declared at a campaign rally in January 1976. “She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.” As soon as he quoted that dollar amount, the crowd gasped.
Four decades later, Reagan’s soliloquies on welfare fraud are often remembered as shameless demagoguery. Many accounts report that Reagan coined the term “welfare queen,” and that this woman in Chicago was a fictional character. In 2007, the New York Times’ Paul Krugman wrote that “the bogus story of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen [was] a gross exaggeration of a minor case of welfare fraud.” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews says the whole thing is racist malarkey—a coded reference to black indolence and criminality designed to appeal to working-class whites.
“In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record,” the former California governor declared at a campaign rally in January 1976. “She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.” As soon as he quoted that dollar amount, the crowd gasped.
Four decades later, Reagan’s soliloquies on welfare fraud are often remembered as shameless demagoguery. Many accounts report that Reagan coined the term “welfare queen,” and that this woman in Chicago was a fictional character. In 2007, the New York Times’ Paul Krugman wrote that “the bogus story of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen [was] a gross exaggeration of a minor case of welfare fraud.” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews says the whole thing is racist malarkey—a coded reference to black indolence and criminality designed to appeal to working-class whites.
Also Read:
More than three quarters of conservative Americans - those in the steadfast conservative, business conservative, and young outsider typology groups - agree that "poor people have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything." Only seven percent of steadfast conservatives say that the poor "have hard lives."
posted by thinkingblue at 3:48 PM
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