by A. Daniel Bodine
PRESIDIO, TX—This is an awful thing to say, true, but let's say it: You can lead a horse to water but you can't make the damn thing drink. And you can give billions in food stamps to people via handy transaction cards, but it's not all going toward food. Some of it is going to buy new pickups; and some of it—a lot, it seems—is going to pay rich bankers to run the handy plastic card program that passes out the money.
Ain't that great?! Thru the wise use of tax dollars, legislators have created additional streams of income “out of thin air”--not just for the giants of agribusiness and food producers, but for the corporate owners of almost everything from liquor stores (Oh, that's so nice of you, Bro!) to illegal drug traffickers. It's enough to remind you that the great law of physics applies to economics, too—for every good deed laid out (an action), you'd better be prepared for an adverse one (a reaction) to come back at you.
Hee, hee. Down in Presidio (on slow days, of course!) all you had to do in recent years sometimes to gauge the national economy was to go to a grocery store parking lot; and watch who filled the new pickup trucks setting there, the people coming out from shopping. If it's some large woman stringin' 5-6 kids and 3-4 grocery carts stuffed full of food (to put all into a new, shiny family-cab pickup), you know you can sleep peacefully all the rest of that month. Money's flowing in from somewhere in the country where times are good, it is. And that makes it good in Presidio, too.
But you gotta know your history a bit here to fully appreciate this phenomenon, Jethro. Presidio is like El Paso, Del Rio, Laredo, Brownsville, all border towns enriched by President Reagan's Amnesty Act of 1986. They saw a sudden and sharp increase in population. Border towns are an ideal place for many migrant workers (resident aliens) and their families to maintain a permanent home; it gives them much quicker access to their “extended” families across the Rio Grande, in Mexico.
What this means, for some of you naïve gringos wondering where all the money finally went to some seasonal worker hired to pick your orchards, mow your yards, or help build your skyscrapers, begin by looking first at these enriched border towns like Presidio. It's a good chance that's where the worker has his family and his permanent home. Either on “this side or that side” of the river; it makes no difference—no le hace!! This is where the money flows to, out of America's heartland. And from where, in turn, bills are paid. The outgo. The littl' ol' (large) lady and the brood, got it?.
For the border region is where these people permanently live—not in some temporary apartment or RV park somewhere where the jobs are. Consider these people commuters, too. Even though sometimes they may be gone 6-9 months out of the year at some large construction site (new power plants, for instance). They and their families live honorably, and thru hard work. And in too many cases, yes, it's work local workers just don't want or refuse to do. Especially when unemployment and food stamps are available as an alternative.
Now this is a sore point to some, but let's get over it by simply saying people are people—regardless of their race, color or religion. You want strict compliance, then laws need to be ever changing 'cause times and people's situations are ever changing. The original intent of some law must be protected by constant vigilance and amending. On multiple levels.
If there's a fracture or leak anywhere (like water going out a bucket hole), people will find it; and someday one of their shady genes (we all carry some) will get the best of 'em; and they'll find a way to benefit from that weakness. Especially if they feel society's already trying denigrating them in some way. It's only natural.
Especially, too, you can add to that, when there's such a status that goes with, say, pickup trucks. Out here in the mountainous Chihuahuan Desert? Whooeee! You kidding, man?! You wouldn't turn on a little weakness in the law for that? Yeesh! Blow your nose right quick! What happens is the temptation we in society have placed on that status symbol is too great. And thus you hear a voice in your head say, You don't have to report all your money to the government come tax time, Jethro!
For example, one can easily reason, some of that hard income made from fixing some damn old woman's sink or commode somewhere, or mowing her lawn; planting and maintaining her yard... You can get by without reporting it! If she's willing to pay you cash for it. Or in some other trade currency that can't be documented. (And of course you're going to prefer cash, especially if she wants it done yesterday!)
It's stupid to report it, man! Not reporting it means you can collect more food stamps. Lower wages increases your eligibility amounts. To cover your family's higher grocery costs, of course! But what it really means is that the money you send your little ol' (large?) lady normally to spend on groceries each month, can instead (if indeed, she's gotten the increase in her food stamp allotment) be spent on something else, to ease the family's life. Hee, hee. Like a monthly payment on a new pickup truck! 'Ya with me?
...No? Aw, come on; you really balking here? What amounts to taking a kickback from Big Brother Sam (He's no uncle no more; our big family's been shrunk by Corpocracy!), for all the hard work and having to spend so much time away from your family as you do? For being the go-to person for all the nation's grunt work? Doing work local employers can't get locals to come out and do! Huh? You wouldn't do that?!
You're lying thru your teeth, man! You certainly would! You know you would! It's only natural! You may be religious and stuck in a 12th Night scene somewhere with someone, but you're not stupid! It just makes
sense. If the government wants to give you money, take it. Call them a fool; not yourself! And get over it!
You're lying thru your teeth, man! You certainly would! You know you would! It's only natural! You may be religious and stuck in a 12th Night scene somewhere with someone, but you're not stupid! It just makes
sense. If the government wants to give you money, take it. Call them a fool; not yourself! And get over it!
Now there are millions of cases no doubt—especially in this Great Recession—where food stamps have performed miracles for people; have assumed a respectful position right up there with God the Almighty's most decorated angels. I ain't arguing that. And in no way do I want to take from that.
But Life now is learning how to be more esoteric. Yesterday's call to join hands is gone with the wind, or at least has been bumped down several notches; and if I want to single out a bane to our country's great liberalism tradition, I'll use food stamps, I will. And none can be more dear than those used in dearly beloved Presidio, TX, in the desolate, mountainous land of Far West Texas' great Chihuahuan Desert! Umph! For they've helped illustrate, indeed, how far our nation has slid into the bowels of Corpocracy's irrelevancy.
Now America's food stamp program—the best I can remember, in its most recent Great Reincarnation--
was part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society effort. In theory, it was a 10: Lift the economy thru charity. Help the poor with food subsidies thru the purchase of surplus food products from farmers and growers. One fair deal complements another.
Politicians wore headiness like a rose at the time. In a mostly Christian nation, in politics, it's good to walk and talk like a Christian. And Christ's command, to roll up your sleeves and get busy with helping the poor—indeed, your brothers and sisters—thru meaningful, charitable acts (and not slither away somewhere into La-La land where you neither see nor feel their pain), is a hard act to follow, dude. I mean, it's
heavy! You got a real job to do.
So adding foot stamps to the welfare menu—more throwing sterile, public tax dollars at a humanity problem-- is a way we can, first, act like Christians to help feed and shelter the poor; and, two, by golly it's also a way we neither have to sacrifice any of our valuable time nor dirty any of our hands with direct involvement, down at that level. Hee, hee. We're free and clear, these folks thought. Dear God, job accomplished. Ain't that a kick!So a large governmental agency was created to do just that—Wash their hands of it! And the liberal elites--on their proud way to church on Sunday mornings--could sidestep with ease a new, rising crop of homeless people on the sidewalk (that seemed to emerge from nowhere in the program's wake), simply because the money to help them had already been put in the federal kitty.
I gave at the office! Ignore them! If they can't make it with all that help we gave 'em, it's their own damn fault!
And monkey see, monkey do. Along with other perfidious, bureaucratic Great Society welfare programs, what food stamps did to members of America's great middle class was weaken its core. Rather than encourage bulwark citizens to embrace liberalism's egalitarian principles (Shake hands with your neighbor, Jethro!), it prompted them instead to move further away from minorities. Massive white flight to the suburbs for decades. And it simply postponed true integration--reflecting the moral chicanery at the highest levels of government.
And huge corporations, such as JP Morgan, the nation's largest processor of food stamp benefits, saw this end-run by Congress as a tag-team match, of course. And they have benefited from it handsomely. Which means they'll be paying millions and millions more in the future to keep the program in place, or grow it even more. They pay thru lobbying and campaign spending, Jethro.
Exponentially increasing this practice really says something. In 2007, there were 26 million Americans on food stamps. Gulp! And the Great Recession saw that figure soar to 43 million by the end of 2010. Truly, the more difficult it is for the poor, the more JP Morgan is raking in money hand over fist, it seems.
And liberalism (society's traditional brakes on oligarchies) being clearly in a declining state, that means there is very little short of violence to stop the continuation of the trend now.
The already baneful Gimme my cadillac cry of the 60's became the even more baneful Gimme my pickup truck of the Ought's. From the way it's viewed by the public, liberalism it seems has completed the spectrum. As an ethos to follow God's commandments, it's ended up now in this caricatured sewer deluge of putative symbolism doing no more, ultimately, than marking man's further retreat from the humanities. Will it be stopped?
One way or another, history says. But we may have to learn to live on a lot less beans and potatoes, and more watered-down gravy in the meanwhile. Unless, for instance, something like a new Smart Growth urban design plan, now catching on with large cities, can stop the slide. If not, America's political scenario in a few years could get real ugly.
But that's us, isn't? It's not real healthy, yes, but that's the way we are. Creatures that we be--Infinitely creative; children infinitely wanting more, too. So pass the popcorn, Jethro. Running low? Hee, hee. May have to use my food stamps to go get some more. Andele, andele!
–
Bumper sticker sign on a new Presidio pickup, circa 2004:
If you don't think money
can buy you happiness,
you're not using it correctly.
– 30 --
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