Charity program at work

[LuckyTheDog]

I got a report today about some seniors we at my workplace recently helped out by paying for "care packages" during the holidays. I was appalled by how badly they needed our help.

This is what the right-wing, anti-welfare-state idiots don't get: Some people really ARE needy. And, in my view, those people should not have to rely on charity to get by. The poor elderly and others who can't care for themselves have a right to life and some semblance of personal dignity. And our society has an obligation to provide it. Yet, we don't. We use our resentment of fictional "welfare queens" and a misguided ethic of extreme personal responsibility as an excuse to turn our backs on out duty as human beings. It makes me sick.

The sick, the old, the very young are the responsibility of all of us. Period.

End of rant. Please resume your regularly scheduled day.

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. The neo-con ethic on charity

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, sir."

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."

"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?"

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.

"You wish to be anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Public domain.

[LuckyTheDog]

4. Social Darwinism

The believe in survival of the richest. Fall behind, they'll say, and you deserve to be "weeded out." The elderly and the sick are "surplus population" to them.

[salin]

2. not to mention that charities can not keep up with the needs

especially in this economy where needs continue to grow rapidly.

[Maggie_May]

3. Whats really sad

is we our the richest country in the world and we are still letting people go hungry.The Clinton administration pulled more people out of poverty and this administration put more in poverty.Hell this administration watched as people drowned in New Orleans. We all know that the Bush and Company could care less about what happens to the poor and even for that matter us poor bastards that are lucking enough to have a regular job.