BS: The Poor

Subject: BS: The Poor
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 11:46 AM

The mor I read him, the more I respect Leonard Pitt, Jr.

Contempt for the Poor

"If he'd said it of Jews, he would still be apologizing.

"If he'd said it of blacks, he'd be on BET, begging absolution.

"If he'd said it of women, the National Organization for Women would have his carcass turning slowly on a spit over an open flame.

"But he said it of the poor, so he got away with it.

"He" is South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, running for governor on the GOP ticket. Speaking of those who receive public assistance, he recently told an audience, "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better."

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Amos
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 12:07 PM

Mebbe we should have a Poor Union to stand up to these guys. No-one with ten grand to their name allowed in...


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Janie
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 12:07 PM

I was absolutely stunned when I heard Bauer's remarks. The terrifying thing to me is that he simply said what too many people believe.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Bettynh
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 12:07 PM

Jon Stewart had some comments on this on The Daily Show in the second segment. This probably won't work unless you've a pretty fast connection, however, and you're stuck with commercials.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 12:10 PM

S. Carolina seems to breed that sort of attitude...along with total obliviousness to its impact.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 02:00 PM

The government has wisely suspended all other business to direct more effectually the measures proposed for the alleviation of the misery and distress that is now depopulating Ireland. Our sympathies, in common with those of the inhabitants of all England, go with ministers in their object and their endeavours. Party spirit is hushed, public opinion undivided, when the necessity is urged of immediately and sufficiently supplying the wants of our suffering fellow-countrymen, unable from their situation and circumstances to do ought in favor of themselves. To help them now, indeed, is our immediate duty; to teach them better habits, a wiser social economy, and a less selfish nationality, must be reserved for more fortunate times, when, perchance, our readiness to assist them in adversity will have prepared even the most prejudiced against us, to receive our advice without questioning our sincerity.
            --Pictorial Times, Jan. 30, 1847, on the famine in Ireland

Everyone KNOWS that if you give people food they will just sit back and consume it without care for the future or thrift, breeding more of their sort. I mean, look at the people who starved in Ireland: simple louts who slept with their pigs and sometimes would riot against their caring, benevolent landlords or the landlords' representatives. And the same was true all over Europe: the knout was never used in Russia, for instance, nor the whip in Germany or France. It's really amazing that people left such paradises to come to the US and Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: michaelr
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 06:46 PM

Another Southern knuckle-dragger. I'll bet he gets elected, too.

Who was it that said "people get the government they deserve"?

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: gnu
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 06:52 PM

Nobody deserves that. Sick fuck.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: olddude
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 06:53 PM

to quote my grandpa
"can't expect more from a pig then a grunt"

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 07:10 PM

And much the same applies to medical care.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Janie
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 07:10 PM

I have every reason to think the sentiment expressed by Bauer is not confined to only powerful white men of the southern persuasion.   

michaelr and Bill D, I believe that the 1st line of defense against the malignancies in society brought about by negative stereotyping is to recognize and change one's own tendencies to stereotype.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 07:35 PM

I see your point, Janie... I guess I just was appalled at the list of politicians from S.C that we have right now. Many of them got where they are by appealing to sentiments that we are decrying in Bauer.

Of COURSE such attitudes are not confined to southern, white men... but Bauer and Jim DeMint would have a much harder time getting elected to office in Oregon or Vermont.

It was S. Carolina which resisted for years removing the Confederate battle flag from the state house...and when the NAACP finally mounted a lawsuit to insist, one state senator made remarks that went beyond anything that Bauer ever considered!

stereotypes? They are usually inappropriate, but often based on some awkward facts.

I'll try to avoid sounding like those I am criticizing.....

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Janie
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 08:23 PM

True Bill. It is hard work sometimes to think beyond the stereotypes, because there are nearly always some awkward facts behind them, and because our brains are built to organize information into broad categories and generalizations.    However, it is not the facts that make a stereotype. It is the assumptions.

Sometime, over coffee, I'd like to share with you a story, with demographic details altered to protect confidentiality. It includes the rebel flag, gang symbols, drug dealers, behaviorally challenged kids, extreme poverty, kindness, meaness, racism, and the struggle to survive.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 09:00 PM

hmmm...ok, I'd be interested... sounds, ummm.... convoluted

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 09:27 PM

1 out of 5 children go to bed hungry at night in the United Sttes... Our poverty levels are higher now than they were 30 years ago... Welfare reform was not reform at all...

The way to break the cycle of poverty is not to increase the suffering but to lesson it and create an environment where folks can get an education without suffering from malnutrition... Malnutrition does not increase one's ability to learn... It decreases it...

Ya' know, when I hear rednecks say stuff like this I just wish that they would wake up in some fuckin' housing project one day without any food in the kitchen...

Some folks should just never say the stupid stuff they think...

Yeah, I heard about this bozo and that's what he is... A bozo... The fact that anyone would actually vote for this creep is a sad commentary on just how dumbed down the US has become...

'Nuff said here...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: mousethief
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 09:30 PM

Dumbed down, or ethically numb.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: olddude
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 09:35 PM

Janie is correct, stupid is not the exclusive right of politican's from the south. One only has to look at my state of New York. It is at epidemic proportions here

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 10:11 PM

What is Andre Bauer was talking about poor, white males, the real victims of affirmative action?

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: GUEST,999
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 10:18 PM

"When a dog pisses on a fire hydrant it is not committing an act of vandalism. It's simply being a dog."

That's the only piece of philosophy I have to add to this thread.

From Ebbie's link: "One hopes Andre Bauer's words will provide a wakeup call - in South Carolina and elsewhere - for people who have been down too long and fooled too often, that it will encourage them to organize their votes, raise their voices, push their issues into the public discourse. In America, one is invisible and powerless only so long as one chooses to be."

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: maeve
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 11:00 PM

Thank you, Janie.

There has been no shortage of ignorance or lack of compassion in any region in which I've lived, and that covers quite a few widely differing places. My father, mother, grandfather, and grandmother grew up in or lived much of their adult lives in South Carolina yet were/are articulate, intelligent, socially flexible, and compassionate people who strove to do right by their fellow human beings...of any race, culture, educational level, or social standing.

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: GUEST,999
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 11:00 PM

He endorsed Huckabee in 2008. What's left to say?

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 11:41 PM

The world is only 6,000 years old!

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Janie
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 11:50 PM

LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: GUEST,999
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 11:53 PM

Yeah, Rig, but in dog years.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 11:08 AM

It's not just people's opinions on the poor but just about every issue out there... There is a segment (sub-culture) of folks who are so caught up in what they think society ***owes*** them that they will say anything, regardless of any factual basis... The "Tea baggers" come to mind... I know folks like this... They shout at the top of their lungs that the governemnt is the problems and then when it comes to their own situations they come to ya' with a handfull of ***gimmi's*** (give me)... Yeah, I hear them all the time complaining about why Uncle had to sell this or that in order for Medicare to pay for his long term care or how terrible that Auntie has to pay so much fir her meds... Yeah, when things go bad for these folks quess where they go??? To the governemnt, that's where... And with a righteos attitude, too...

I'm sure Janie has met alot of folks like this in her work... I know I did when I was a social worker... These are the Tea Baggers and theAndy Bauers of the world... And guess what... If you pointed it out to them they would be clueless that you were talkin' about them...

Go figure???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 11:30 AM

The tea-baggers, the Andy Bauers and the Douggie-Boys.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 11:37 AM

I think that attitude is prevalent around the world....and those who buy their £4,000 handbags, in varying shades, to go with their dozens of cars..as Mr. and Mrs. Beckham do, have nowt but my contempt.

This bloke should be made to live the life of those he regards as stray animals...for the rest of his life..

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: GUEST,999
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 12:13 PM

I swuppose next Bauer will be trying to introduce sterilization procedures for people who are living in poverty.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 12:35 PM

Oh, even HE probably won't say that, but similar ideas pop up now & then.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 12:43 PM

How do we know he ever actually said that? All Ebbie's linked article says is "he recently told an audience..." That's remarkably vague.

Where did he say that? When? To whom? Is there a video of him, personally, actually saying such a thing?

Or did some opponent make it all up?

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 12:54 PM

South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer said Monday night that he regrets comparing those who live off government assistance to "stray animals."

In an interview Monday night with POLITICO, Bauer defended the sentiment of what he was trying to say last Friday, but rejected the metaphor he used that landed him in hot water.

Bauer – one of the frontrunners in the state's GOP gubernatorial primary – said during a town hall event focused on reducing the number of South Carolinians on government assistance that "my grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed."

"You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply," he said.

"They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that."

Bauer has come under attack from some of his gubernatorial rivals and his comments were subject of much scrutiny Monday by the national political press.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31996.html#ixzz0eUr0XRIL

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 12:56 PM

Bauer apologizes - sort of

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 02:00 PM

I watched a video of him saying it. Despicable.

Today, I heard the city of Boulder, which used to be such a liberal, tolerant place, is now fining homeless people whom they catch sleeping outside without a camping permit! Most of them cannot pay the fine, so wind up in jail. Asinine!

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 02:20 PM

"But there is an undercurrent of people that are fed up."

Yup, and they're called poor people, arsehole. Maybe he has a Marie Antoinette tatoo, under his cityslicker shirt?

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 04:34 PM

Shoot, kat...

I heard about some city in Florida that makes anyone convicted of a sex offense live under a bridge with other sex offenders, homeless folks and menatlly ill people...

This entire idea of justice is way too slanted toward Talibanish revenge when it comes to certain people...

This ain't going to make our country any safer... We allready have the highest incarceration and homeless rates in the civilized world...

Some very backward fundamentalist thinkin' going on...

B~

BTW, our ex-sherrif, Danny Presgraves, was arrested for 22 counts of dambass stuff, at least 8 charges involving him forcing his female deputies to do sexual stuff with him, and he cooped a plea to one charge (using inmate labor at his private residency) and all the other charges were dropped... He got 19 months for the plea while the charges that were dropped would have gotten him over 200 years... This is a true story...

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 04:49 PM

That story, Bobert, about the sheriff, shows a similarity in thought patterns to the ideas folks who make remarks like Bauer did about the poor, and to the way slave holders did about slaves.....and to the way some Cambodians think about Burmese....etc. Women? Ha! They are meant to be toys for men!...anything goes! The poor? Ha! They are 'that way' because of sloth or ignorance... why not 'cull' them! And so on....
All that is necessary is to 'decide' that some group, whether racial or ethnic or gender, is inferior or 'defined' to be subservient to one's own, and immediately almost any behavior toward them seems to be justified.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Amos
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 04:56 PM

This is the mindset from which eugenics was born.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: GUEST,999
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 05:13 PM

"In 1928, the Province of Alberta, Canada, passed legislation that enabled the government to perform involuntary sterilizations on individuals classified as mentally deficient. In order to implement the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta in 1928, a four-person Alberta Eugenics Board was created. These four individuals were responsible for approving sterilization procedures. In 1972, the Sexual Sterilization Act was repealed, and the Eugenics Board dismantled. During the 43 years of the Eugenics Board, it approved nearly 5,000 individual sterilizations, and 2,832 procedures were actually performed."


I would take up arms were the government to try anything like that today.

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 05:29 PM

Involuntary sterilizations were done in the US..

http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1367

Subject: RE: BS: The Poor
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 05:46 PM

I watched him say that 2 weeks ago. So?

His remarks are in context with current evangelical rhetoric.

Tolerence is the enemy, You should directly oppose tolerence.
Things or people that are abhorent, should not be tolerated.
Celebrate your intolerence and fight against these abominations here on Earth. Go beyond Zero Tolerence - attack tolerence.

This includes gays, gay marriage, the lazy poor, unbelievers, abortion etc.
If you don't fight them, they will breed like rabbits.



Its like the gospel according to a demented Elmer Fudd.

Jeeziz Kwiest
kiww da wabbit, kiww da wabbit, at weast dont feed'im my cawwits.