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Charles Pierce over at Esquire believes that he detects the faint din of right-wing doggy whistles:
Josh Marshall goes deep into the hole and makes great backhand stab from a piece in Tiger Beat On The Potomac. It seems that the GOP monkeyhouse that makes up half of our national legislature has decided that it's not even going to try and hide it any more.
And in a surprising twist, the bill language specifies that only rural areas are to benefit in the future from funding requested by the administration this year to continue a modest summer demonstration program to help children from low-income households - both urban and rural - during those months when school meals are not available. Since 2010, the program has operated from an initial appropriation of $85 million, and the goal has been to test alternative approaches to distribute aid when schools are not in session. The White House asked for an additional $30 million to continue the effort, but the House bill provides $27 million for what's described as an entirely new pilot program focused on rural areas only. Democrats were surprised to see urban children were excluded. And the GOP had some trouble explaining the history itself. But a spokeswoman confirmed that the intent of the bill is a pilot project in "rural areas" only.
(And before anyone starts howling, this isn't in any way "surprising" to me, either, and any Democrat who honestly is surprised by this development really needs to get out more.)
"Rural areas only" is a phrase that you do not need the Enigma machine to decode. So, your meth-cooking cousin in the Ozarks gets her kid a free lunch, but an honors student in west Philadelphia is out of luck. Is it even necessary to point out at this point how much I despair of the rebranding?http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/house-gop-agriculture-budget-052114
Dog whistle The Gadfly's leathery old ass. That dear readers is a behemoth cargo ship sized, mega air-horn.
The Gadfly is pretty certain that the Republicans who crafted this dehumanizing bill know quite well that 80% of the nation's populace lives in or near urban areas. And of the country's minority population, the percentage of them living in urban areas is also significantly higher - with nearly half of the nation's most populous cities now having minorities outnumbering whites. And vice versa - it stands to reason that of the 20% of Americans who are classified as rural inhabitants, a clear majority of them are non-minority - the conservatives are very cognizant of those basic facts - no doubt about it.
Now - before The Gadfly gets in to the meat of his tirade here, let us establish one crystal clear notion - The Gadfly is not outraged that poor families in rural areas are getting additional taxpayer funding to help their kids stave off starvation during the non-school year months. Not at all.
The Gadfly is adamant, and always has been, in stating that not one single child in the wealthiest nation on the entire fucking planet should have to go to bed hungry night after night - and the fact that there are 16.5 million (22% of the child population) children in this country classified as living in poverty (with hunger being a defining characteristic) is a national shame which the leaders (regardless of politics) of our "exceptional" country should be downright fucking ashamed of. A UNICEF study released in 2013 examined child poverty rates in 35 of the world's most modernized countries. America landed in 34th place on that study behind countries like Latvia, Slovakia and Hungary (pun intended). Can anyone in their right mind explain to The Gadfly what it is about that fact that makes America so goddamn exceptional?
Now - having laid the ground work for what has really gotten The Gadfly to grinding his teeth and clenching his fists, let us now discuss this insidious bill and how the Republicans are of the belief that kids in rural America are more deserving of extraneous nutritional assistance than kids in urban areas -- shall we?
The Gadfly would like to see the formula that the GOP used to arrive at the conclusion that a rural child's quality of life is much more worthy of investing in than an urban child's quality of life. The Gadfly would like to see the scientific data which shows that a dirt poor rural white kid is likelier to aspire to greatness and become a productive member of society than an an urban hispanic or black kid is, and which therefore justifies more government assistance being showered on the poor white kid. Waiting . . . . . . . . .
Time's up sports fans.
A study by the Carsey Institute a few years ago found that "although the number of low-income children is higher in urban America, as a share of the population, their rate of low income is similar in both rural areas and central cities." Translation: poor white kids in rural areas share a single, unifying commonality with poor minority kids in inner cities -- they're both living in life affecting poverty and they're both suffering from the soul crushing affliction of hunger.
So - The Gadfly will ask the GOP conservative pieces of squalid monkey shit who crafted this bill one more time -- where do you fucking monsters get off in arbitrarily deciding that the poor kids in your rural districts are more deserving of extra nutritional assistance than the poor children in urban areas?
The Gadfly knows that they cannot answer that question -- not truthfully anyways -- for it would simply validate that which The Gadfly and many others already know about who these modern-day conservatives are and which Americans they truly give a shit about. And it really does go right to the heart of why The Gadfly is of the unwavering view that this disease of modern day conservatism truly needs to be destroyed and relegated back to the dank, musty, bacteria-infested fever swamp of hate-filled tribalism that it was puked forth from once and for all.
The Gadfly is wholly convinced that the eternal marginalization of these awful human beings and their lifeless, malevolent movement is the first step towards the salvation of this country's soul and it's future.
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
― Hรฉlder Cรขmara, Dom Helder Camara: Essential Writings
----TFG
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