Screwing The Poor For Jesus

Approximately ignored in the nonstop coverage of the problems associated with a law and its website aimed at helping the poor, is the actual, right-now, unconscionable effect on the hungry from the cuts in food stamps begun this month. Brought to us by our legislative Christian right. While they continue subsidies for the wealthy.

This disconnect is astounding to me. For devil-worshipers, sure. Or, you know, those godless atheists. But for the party of Jesus? Unabashedly to build its ideological center around succor for the wealthy and disregarding the poor? In America, where there's more money in the vaults of a single hedge-fund manager than has been spent by all the food banks across the land, ever? While people go hungry, and that party of god clinks its glasses in celebration. Getting tough on moochers. Picking on people not their own size, because they can.

It's nothing more than responsibility-avoiding justification for the most selfish and shortsighted among us. How do such people, non one-percenter supporters of a shamefully regressive and heartless party, live with themselves? Easy: they have 24/7 sources of reinforcement, telling them that it's not their problem; that the poor in this country deserve it, that they're the ones robbing us of a future. Click on Fox "news" or right-wing radio and be bathed in the warmth of reassurance that their niggardly coldness is just fine. Godly, even. There's never been a more finely tuned network of messaging, geared toward numbification and dumbification; and justification for Robin Unhoodery. (BTW, the guy Bill Maher points to, above, as justifying his nastiness with biblical certainty, is this guy.)

I can see how Wall Street loves the message. But Joe and Jane Teabagger? Honestly. I don't doubt that many of them are decent people, and yet, there it is: the more we ignore the needy, the less we spend ensuring that the next generation has a functioning country, the happier they seem to be. All but dancing on the graves of those whose health care they'd deny, on whose tables they'd see to it that there's inadequate food. How can this be?

Wanna live in ignorance? Wanna be given justifications for not caring about anyone but yourself, not even whether your grandkids will have roads to drive on (in their polluting cars, because, you know, there's no such thing as climate change) or schools to attend (which are just brainwashing, anyway)? Pas de problemmo: be a member of today's Republican Party. Join the gang: tune into Fox and Rush and Glenn, listen to Ted Cruz' dad, and tune out reality. It works. It works, obviously, really really well.