Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] Food Security

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Food Security
  • Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 10:51:03 EST



> I do NOT believe that everyone who gets welfare, handouts,
> assistance, whatever we want to call it WANTS to live that way.


I think you misunderstand Bev's point.

In threads such as this one, when the consequences of one's choices and
decisions are considered, it is often pointed out that no one WANTS to be
sick, in
debt, overweight, hungry, etc.

Of course not. When a person lights up a smoke, they don't say, "I'm doing
this because I WANT to get cancer." Nobody *wants* to, but it happens
anyway
as a result of the sum and cumulation of a life time of decisions each time
to
smoke or not smoke.

Where each of us stands today is almost entirely the result, the combined
result, of all the decisions we have made in our lives. Getting to some
other
place will be the result of all the decisions we make from here on out.

I have heard many times, just as expressed by some in this thread, that
almost everyone recieving food stamps (do they still call it 'food stamps'
now that
it's on those plastic cards?) really needs them and the abuse of the system
is rare. Don't see it that way, do I. Most of our food comes from the
farmstead here but from time to time I stop by a mart or grocery to pick up
this or
that. After I have agonized over getting the best bit of produce for the
stir
fry or the best possible deal on a gristly scrap of meat for tamales, almost
every time I am in line behind three buggies piled high with things I cannot
afford to buy and the score is paid with that plastic card with the American
flag.

Have I ever seen a buggy with flour, dried beans, canned and frozen
vegetables, ... the things that would make the food dollar from whatever
source go very
far ... have I ever seen those things in a basket paid for with the food
stamp card? Yes, on very rare occasions. Mostly I see convenience food and
expensive cuts of meat the cost of which I could feed twenty people for a
month.

Am I without compassion. Very likely. None the less I have a standing offer
that if anyone in my area is really hungry, really without food, I will buy
all their food, family of four, for six months just to show them how its
done.
Of course the food will consist of bulk rice, bulk dried beans, whole grains,
and the like.

In twenty years of the standing offer how many people have taken me up on it.

None.

The way out of that poverty/dependency cycle exists. It isn't easy, it isn't
pretty, and it doesn't start by saying "Poor baby, I'm sure this came upon
you as a fell swoop in a single night and you had nothing to do with ending
up
in your present circumstances."

So to say that someone in those dire circumstances doesn't WANT to be there
is true if by that one means that if you could wave a wand, or win the
lottery,
or some such and move to better digs around a better table, then they would
WANT to make the move. Buth that's like saying that someone with advanced
lung
cancer would *want* to suddenly have intact lungs and be in full health.
Your reckon?

But when there is a way out of the cycle no matter how hard, rocky,
unglamorous, difficult, it might be and the person instead remains in the
cycle, then,
yes, they WANT to be there compared to the alternatives.




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page