Food stamp regulations

[Drowzy_Shooter]

http://www.thegrio.com/money/mississippi-bill-would-force-food-stamp-users-to-eat-healthy.php

(http://www.thegrio.com/money/mississippi-bill-would-force-food-stamp-users-to-eat-healthy.php)
What do we think about this?


IMO, it seems okay as it's attempting to help the poor eat healthy, rather then waste money on junk food. Though I haven't read the bill and am most certainly not taking a final position.

[danyboy27]

http://www.thegrio.com/money/mississippi-bill-would-force-food-stamp-users-to-eat-healthy.php

(http://www.thegrio.com/money/mississippi-bill-would-force-food-stamp-users-to-eat-healthy.php)
What do we think about this?


IMO, it seems okay as it's attempting to help the poor eat healthy, rather then waste money on junk food. Though I haven't read the bill and am most certainly not taking a final position.
Its bullshit, homemade cooking like the one my welfare mother used to cook can be has bad has a bag of cheetos or chips, sometimes even worst.

Vegetable are relatively pricey, ground beef, potatoes,white bread and bologna are not.
Do the math and i let you guess what the poor folks out there will do after one of these restriction are passed.

If they really wanted to help the poor to eat healthy, they should put price control on vegetable and fruits and put in place free cooking course.

[Chrisstanford]

This should only be a beginning. And the senator who passed this law should have to loose weight or loose his taxpayer funded health insurance.

It makes no sense to pay for someones health care and also pay for them to destroy their health care. Ignorance exemplified.

In the long run these individuals will be happier and healthier because of this law. These regulations will affect Children, in fantastic ways.

I have been waiting for this. I wait eagerly for more regulations like this.

[RedSonRising]

This should only be a beginning. And the senator who passed this law should have to loose weight or loose his taxpayer funded health insurance.

It makes no sense to pay for someones health care and also pay for them to destroy their health care. Ignorance exemplified.

In the long run these individuals will be happier and healthier because of this law. These regulations will affect Children, in fantastic ways.

I have been waiting for this. I wait eagerly for more regulations like this.

I hope you're aware that there's a dark side to welfare that serves as a very restrictive and counter-productive trap for struggling members of the working class.

Regulating a system that gives no long-term structural advancement and offers no meaningful change to people's lives is not the answer. If you're concerned about the costs of collective healthcare and the health of children, then your main concerns should be the disgusting corporate food industry, access to education and nutrition information, affordable quality sustenance, and ultimately, a democratization of all labor. More regulations that demean and control populations like dumb animals is not a progressive goal.

[Prometeo liberado]

I guess the price for for being poor and hungry is your dignity. Again these "well meaning" liberals are coming to the rescue of the poor. This is just like telling a woman to dress less slutty and she wont get raped. Always blame the one who is raped and never the rapist.

[Os Cangaceiros]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopower

[GoddessCleoLover]

The world needs the workers and the poor to be liberated from the chains of oppression and to have access to wholesome foods at affordable prices. Further regulation of the poor as suggested by the legislation introduced by that Dixiecrat senator is degrading to the poor and we ought to resolutely oppose such notions of social control of the poor. We ought to have learned this basic lesson from the writings of Cloward and Piven. It is a shame that we have to revisit this issue in 2012.

[danyboy27]

In the long run these individuals will be happier and healthier because of this law. These regulations will affect Children, in fantastic ways.

Has i said earlier, it wont make a lick of difference, poor families will adapt to the new regulation, purchase more ground beef and bread to cook filling, cheap, unhealthy meals, nothing will change.
I have been raised in family of people of welfare, and i do know its goddamn hard to have a fully healthy diet with the money they give you, especially if you have kids.

[Ostrinski]

My mom was on food stamps when I was growing up and I grew up on canned macaroni and cheese and corn chips. I used to love going to my grandparents so I could taste cooked vegetables and mango. How are they going to do this anyway?

[Red Noob]

How about a bill that will incentivize collectively owned community gardens that so healthy organic food can be provided at a cheaper price so the poor can actually afford healthy food? That sounds like something liberals would dig...

[RevSpetsnaz]

I have no problem with it.

[danyboy27]

My mom was on food stamps when I was growing up and I grew up on canned macaroni and cheese and corn chips. I used to love going to my grandparents so I could taste cooked vegetables and mango. How are they going to do this anyway?
I never actually was on food stamp only welfare but i guess it wouldnt be that difficult to add a list of ''forbidden'' item to the foodstamp federal database.
When someone goes to the grocery store and try to pay, only vegetable and other ''healthy'' item would be covered.

IF your question is how poor people could ever manage that kind of system, the answer is they cant, not without significant price drop for fruit and vegetables.

[Marvin the Marxian]

I hope you're aware that there's a dark side to welfare that serves as a very restrictive and counter-productive trap for struggling members of the working class.

Regulating a system that gives no long-term structural advancement and offers no meaningful change to people's lives is not the answer. If you're concerned about the costs of collective healthcare and the health of children, then your main concerns should be the disgusting corporate food industry, access to education and nutrition information, affordable quality sustenance, and ultimately, a democratization of all labor. More regulations that demean and control populations like dumb animals is not a progressive goal.

I don't see how the concerns you mention are mutually exclusive with these proposed restrictions. Regarding the costs of collective healthcare, I see these restrictions as helping to curb their rise. The more people buy and consume junk food, the more all workers have to pay for healthcare. How is that fair to the workers who aren't on food stamps?

[RedTrackWorker]

Is this in the opposing ideologies section? Because all this anti-poor rhetoric doesn't belong on revleft.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

As someone presently receiving food stamps, I'd love to eat healthier, but I can't afford to. Not on the amount they give me each month.

[RedSonRising]

I don't see how the concerns you mention are mutually exclusive with these proposed restrictions. Regarding the costs of collective healthcare, I see these restrictions as helping to curb their rise. The more people buy and consume junk food, the more all workers have to pay for healthcare. How is that fair to the workers who aren't on food stamps?

"Eating Healthy" isn't just a choice, it's a lifestyle that has to come with certain information and access to the right food stuffs. Saturated fats, sodium, corn oils, sugars, and tons of preservatives are in almost everything. Treating struggling workers like prisoners or animals with restrictions like that are not the answer to affordable healthcare, especially when the ones dishing out such restrictions are the same people protecting the property laws that put them on food stamps in the first place. It's trivial and pretty condescending to decide what "we" can and can't allow the oppressed to eat.

[Marvin the Marxian]

"Eating Healthy" isn't just a choice, it's a lifestyle that has to come with certain information and access to the right food stuffs. Saturated fats, sodium, corn oils, sugars, and tons of preservatives are in almost everything. Treating struggling workers like prisoners or animals with restrictions like that are not the answer to affordable healthcare, especially when the ones dishing out such restrictions are the same people protecting the property laws that put them on food stamps in the first place. It's trivial and pretty condescending to decide what "we" can and can't allow the oppressed to eat.

The proposed regulations would only disallow spending food stamps on food and beverages that are clearly junk, such as candy, soda, and potato chips. They wouldn't require that food stamps only be spent on food that is optimally healthy. Why should the working poor have to subsidize people consuming utter junk and possibly coming down with obesity, diabetes, and other such health problems as a result?

But again, please keep in mind that I also fully support the other things you mentioned, like greater nutritional education for the poor, more affordable high-quality food, and ultimately the democratization/socialization of all labor. Another poster in this thread advocated a subsidy for community gardens, and I'm in favor of that 100% too.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

The proposed regulations would only disallow spending food stamps on food and beverages that are clearly junk
Sometimes "junk" is all you can afford. Don't be so judgmental.

[Marvin the Marxian]

By "junk" I mean things like candy, soda, and potato chips. If a person can afford those on food stamps, surely she can afford healthier foods and beverages?

In any case, comrade, I don't mean to sound judgemental, and I'm sorry if I've offended you.

[GoddessCleoLover]

In a narrow sense, I see the validity of Marvin's point, that disallowing candy, soda, and potato chips might be doing the food stamp recipient a favor. OTOH I read Cloward & Piven back in the day and totally mistrust the bourgeois state when it comes to acting in the interests of the poor. I agree with Danielle's larger point that food stamps usually are insufficient to purchase healthy foods. Overall, I think this legislation is a smokescreen that avoids the real issue of the matter, the insufficiency of food stamp allowances to purchase healthy foods. Reactionaries love to deceive people into thinking that poverty is the fault of the poor rather than of the system.

[blake 3:17]

Cloward & Piven

Yes!

[Marvin the Marxian]

In a narrow sense, I see the validity of Marvin's point, that disallowing candy, soda, and potato chips might be doing the food stamp recipient a favor. OTOH I read Cloward & Piven back in the day and totally mistrust the bourgeois state when it comes to acting in the interests of the poor. I agree with Danielle's larger point that food stamps usually are insufficient to purchase healthy foods. Overall, I think this legislation is a smokescreen that avoids the real issue of the matter, the insufficiency of food stamp allowances to purchase healthy foods. Reactionaries love to deceive people into thinking that poverty is the fault of the poor rather than of the system.

Agree with you, Gramsci Guy. I'm sorry if I've come off as somehow trusting the bourgeois state - I certainly don't trust it. My point was indeed a narrow one. The food-stamp regulation might not do favors only to the recipients, though; it might also do favors to the working poor by lessening their tax burden.

The thing with Cloward & Piven, of course, is that it would be the same bourgeois state enacting a national guaranteed-income policy. But on the other hand, that would do quite a favor to the working and non-working poor alike, especially if the guaranteed income was at the level of the estimated living wage. Finally, it could help transform the bourgeois state into a DotP, if the working class is inclined to go that route.