“Over the last forty years, sadly, I think there's been an effort to either make folks mad at folks at the top or mad at folks at the bottom. And I think the effort to suggest that the poor are sponges, leeches, don’t want to work, are lazy, you know are undeserving, got traction. And look it's still being propagated. I mean I have to say that if you watch FOX News on a regular basis, it is a constant menu. They will find folks who make ME mad. I don’t even know where they find them. They're all like, ‘I don’t want to work, I just want a free Obamaphone or whatever.' And that becomes an entire narrative that gets worked up, right? And very rarely do you hear an interview of a waitress, which is much more typical who is raising a couple of kids and doing everything right, but still can’t pay the bills.”
The President, of course, is right to call out Fox News over their unfair portrayal of poor people as lazy, and as people who use food stamps and public assistance as "leeches."
Possibly the most famous case of this was the case of "food stamp surfer" who, with Fox News cameras in tow, went to the local store to purchase lobster for dinner with his food stamps.
This was literally shown on a loop at Fox News, and was referred to by Congressman seeking to cut social programs that serve the neediest people in the country.
All of this is reminiscent of the famous Welfare Queen meme that Ronald Reagan used back in 1976 to smear recipients of food stamps and other social welfare programs. (By the way there was an actual person who inspired Reagan's anti-welfare stories, but she was a criminal who did far worse than take advantage of the system, and who ultimately was jailed for her crimes.)
Since then, and actually even before, vilifying the poor as lazy and unworthy of help has been a constant theme among the conservatives and on their media outlets.
There are of course always those that take advantage, but the majority of Americans receiving public assistance are hard working people who simply cannot make ends meet. At least not yet.
But I guess reporting that would not exactly fit the conservative mythology of the haves being taken advantage of by the slothful and duplicitous have nots.
Wonder why Fox & co. forgot to mention corporate welfare?
ReplyDeleteSarahPac?
ReplyDeleteFox demonizes the poor so no one mentions all the Corporate Welfare and FAT tax breaks the Corps get while a person working at Kmart pays more taxes. That's why.
DeleteFox and Republicans = a huge stain on our country and its people! They do nothing but provide fear, hate, racism, no leadership skills and greed to our country.
ReplyDeleteVoters in America - pay attention!!!
Good for the President! I think Everyone should start taking a public stand and take back this false narrative about public assistance, health insurance, war, etc.
ReplyDeleteI am sick to death of the small majority always blabbering their crap all over the place. Shame on any of us who don't knock it down every.damn.time.it comes up from now on! I have reached my breaking point. I have already lost family members and friends because I am just so freaking tired of their uninformed crap that I will not shut up any longer.
It appears to be no great loss and I feel I am contributing, at least in a small way, to trying to get this country back on track.
RIGHT ON! It is the only way to stop it in it's tracks..One caution..Those people (old so called friends and family) with guns and ammo can do the same.. Be Careful. Walk away if you must..
DeleteIf you have lost family members and friends for speaking out, they are dead weight anyway. Keep up the good work!
Delete"And I think the effort to suggest that the poor are sponges, leeches, don’t want to work, are lazy, you know are undeserving, "
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me of the Palins. Sarah was poor and found ways to scam the taxpayers of Wasilla then the state of Alaska and now scams the American public without having a job.
One big step - done in a very positive way - is the shutting up and shutting down of Sarah Palin. FOX even stopped having her on their shows months ago!
ReplyDeleteHer relevance is non existent today. Yea!!!
She was allowed to spread the most crap, evil and hate and the media covered all of it. Not any more!!
I'm so thankful we've had President Obama leading our country. Truly wish he could serve another term, but I'm sure he and First Lady Michelle will continue doing good things for our country in the years ahead.
O/T 100 MPH..WTF?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/13/amtrak-train-crash_n_7274392.html
Arrgh. I just posted my rant for this topic on the Elizabeth Warren post downthread. I'm going to repeat that quote from Proverbs 17:5 here - Whoever mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker; whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished.
ReplyDeleteIt's about time more people call out Fox News and the Right-Wing hypocrites on their incessant stereotyping of the poor. They draw a few cases out and love to imply all welfare recipients waste their checks on frivolities.
No one wants to address the true problem; that we will always have poor among us, or that we could easily become poor, by some unexpected event. So, it's only natural to help out the poor. If Fox and conservatives had their way, they would certainly reward the strong and healthy and rich, and punish the poor. Feed the rich, deprive the poor, that way the poor will either die young or work slave-labor. Notice how the wealthy love their undocumented workers.
President Obama has been one of the finest, most caring Presidents in U.S. history.
I would love to know if anyone else on this blog is getting sick and tired of the dialog constantly put 'out there' by Elizabeth Warren?
DeleteShe's on 'over kill' as far as I'm concerned and quickly losing her impact. I'm especially tired of her constant anti President Obama dialog!
It's way past time she speak positively about President Obama and the good he has done!
The constant Republican negative speech for the past years - against President Obama - has done them huge harm and will show in 2016.
I think Elizabeth's (and, Republicans) stand on the trade issue is going to backfire!
I guess the bible grazers must have missed that part. (among others)
DeleteThey only remember the parts of the bible that support their hate.
I do remember one of Christ's reported miracles: the loaves and fishes that fed many people who did not have food because they were poor. The right wing only uses selected Bible verses to further their own agenda, often missing the entire point of Christ's message.
DeleteThat would involve interpretation. They don't think. They just believe verbatim.
DeleteSarahPAC is selling bootstraps to poor people for $29.95 plus shipping.
ReplyDeleteFor an extra $50 she will autograph on it.
Ahem!
ReplyDeleteThe beach bum story is a lie.
That guy sells products and has a well organized website!
http://www.rattlife.com/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rattlife/sets/72157631750325035/show/?rb=1
Fox News is trying to gaslight us on this.
Who uses food stamps? The working poor, working at minimum wage (starvation wage) jobs, the elderly unemployables, the disabled (physically and mentally) and, I suppose the very few lazy people. Didn't I read some statistics about the great numbers of Walmart employees requiring food stamps because they couldn't survive on their paycheques? But do the GOTP ever mention any of the above, other than the few lazy folk? Nope.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget the many members of the military whose families also use the SNAP program because we pay them so little to serve our country.
DeleteThe GOP loves to wave their flags and proclaim their undying patriotism, but they fail miserably when it comes down to providing our military with salaries they can live on and proper equipment to keep them safe. And when they return home after serving, heaven forbid they need medical or psychological help from the woefully underfunded VA.
Today's Republican Party believes that rich people are rich because they deserve to be - even if they've never worked a day in their lives and instead inherited their wealth.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's why they don't believe in an estate tax.
Today's Republicans also believe that poor people are poor - even though the vast majority of poor people work at jobs - they are poor because they deserve to be poor.
Guess the days of: "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country"...
ReplyDeleteare long gone.
The new mantra is to praise the intelligence of having kids on a waitress salary, you are 'doing everything right' (lol- except for being able to pay your bills, because you are trying to raise kids on a waitress salary). We will reward that.
Not everyone collects a paycheck for being a knocked-up, illiterate grifter like Bristol Palin. There's absolutely nothing wrong with working a job--the Pay-me family should try it sometime.
DeleteAnd there we have the cognitive dissonance of the right. Don't dare have an abortion, but how dare you have kids while poor? Or how dare you have kids if there were any chance at all that your finances might change?
DeleteYou should only have kids when you are absolutely 100% positive that nothing bad can ever ever happen to you that might adversely affect your finances.
As for things you can't control, like layoffs or asinine laws or dishonest employers, etc., well you should make sure that you have all the power in the world before you have kids.
You know what the rule of thumb is, right?
ReplyDeleteFor Fox, Republicans and others, if it costs money that doesn't make them money it's a waste. I.E. social net, public schools, environment, etc. That is just a waste of tax payer dollars, my taxes are too high, yadda yadda.
This is different from what makes them money. If it is, for instance, the military budget, they are all for raising that until it's 100% of the budget. Because they all have stock in war. They have stocks in companies that profit from war and the military. So, of course, that isn't a waste of tax payer money.
It basically comes down to what is a universal good, like clean air, clean water, educated children, healthcare is BAD. What is a personal good, like profits in stocks, bonds, etc. is GOOD no matter the cost to the country, the earth, etc. It is a very narrow minded, self-centered view of priorities. Very twisted and toxic.
That is why, in general, if Republicans are for it I'm against it because they tend to support these narrow, twisted, toxic actions. (FastTrack and Keystone are two examples.)
Haha wasn't fox talking about Sarah that deranged vp one time candidate that john mcane selected without vetting!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteWow, that is one powerful post Gryphen, thanks for the read!
ReplyDeletefollow_the_news
I liked hearing the jab at Fox, too, but Vox has a good piece up explaining that the Georgetown panel was more nuanced, and scolded other liberal online outlets for reducing the whole thing to just this tribal insult:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vox.com/2015/5/13/8597743/obama-georgetown-fox-news