What is Wrong with These People?
I admit that I have a thing about people not having enough to eat. A principal recipient of my charitable giving has always been food pantries. I also have a thing about wasting food. I imagine that came from my childhood–I was never hungry, but my parents always told me that there were people who were and to this day I plan my meals around leftovers so very little gets thrown out. That is why Trump’s ending USAID and the GOP cutting SNAP benefits has bothered me as much as anything, particularly because both actions hurt not only hungry/starving people, but U.S. farmers as well.
Today I read about an article by Hana Kirus in the Atlantic, that the Trump Administration is destroying 500 metric tons of food that USAID had purchased late in the Biden Administration for distribution through the World Food Program. The food had been stored in Dubai and with the gutting of USAID never got to the World Food Program or to the 1.5 million children it would have fed for a week. It has now expired and so they are incinerating it. The article does not attempt to determine whether the wasting of this food was deliberate or the result of the general incompetence and chaos of Trump, but clearly it was not caused by an attempt to root out waste and inefficiency.
I am going to speculate that it was deliberate, based on the experience I had nearly 20 years ago with a Republican, Fox News watching couple who at the time were friends. For many years my wife and I have visited Las Vegas a couple of times a year. We gamble a little, but mostly we go to shows and drive out and visit sites in the desert. Typically, we stay in condominium style resorts and we cook many of our meals. We invited our friends along and had a nice time, but on the last night of our stay I collected the leftover food and headed out the door to give it to some of the homeless people who hung out around the resort. The couple were absolutely apoplectic that I would give food to homeless people. According to this couple–they had seen it on Fox News– the homeless people were not mentally ill, alcoholics and drug abusers, but con men who were taking advantage of hard working people. Even if that was true, I pointed out that the food would go to a landfill so why not give it to people who could use it. The couple was not convinced and I think the paranoia that the MAGA crowd has that they are being taken advantage of by people with less than them is one of the major reasons they support the party that is actually taking advantage of them.
I think it was Johnson who said (something to the effect) that if you convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best not-white he’ll ignore you’re picking his pocket; convince them they’re better than the least white they’ll empty their pockets for you (end paraphrase)
To my read around this hasn’t seen the light it should, and I don’t know if that’s because everyone is as stunned at the sheer veniality, the utter churlishness as I …
@Ten,
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets”
~Lyndon B. Johnson
The idea of not individually providing aid directly to the homeless is pretty common, including among Democrats. I accept that it’s more likely that a Democrat favor public aid, but Democrats I know very well (relatives and friends of theirs in New York) have told me to not give anything directly to the homeless anywhere near where they live. I think it’s complicated to compare what happens at a resort where the residents are temporary to places where people are permanent and many times raising children like the New Yorkers I mention. The possible consequences to the donors are different.
Back in the 50’s we would have people come to our door fairly often and ask for food or money. My mother would always give to someone who asked for food. Sometimes they would share our meal, sometimes she would fix them scrambled eggs & bacon if it was not near mealtime. They always got a sandwich or two to go. Anyone who asked for money got turned away. If someone offered to work for money that was different. If we didn’t have something that needed to be done she would have them wash clean windows.
The city now has signs encouraging people to not give to anyone soliciting money, and instead refer them to the city shelter programs. I don’t see nearly as many people asking for money as we did a few years ago, for whatever reason.
I agree that the destruction of USAID food supplies was probably deliberate. It isn’t as if they were not told they were already paid for and could be used.
For the record, I do not give money to panhandlers. If they have a story about being hungry or need gasoline to get home, I will offer to buy food for them or put a couple of gallons in their tank. The folks in serious need take me up on it especially food. I gave not yet bought gas for anybody although I have offered maybe half a dozen times.
I also get folks not wanting to attract homeless to their neighborhoods–if I had some leftovers in my refrigerator which I could not finish myself, I would not walk around my neighborhood looking for someone to give it to. The folks I gave the leftovers to in Las Vegas were panhandlers who would sleep on sidewalks in 100 degree heat near the resort and I am confident that my gesture did not attract them–they had probably been bused over from California at some point.
Fair enough . . .