Eat It

According to the Washington Post:

On Friday, as the Agriculture Committee was drafting budget-cutting legislation that could knock 295,000 people off food stamps, the Agriculture Department released findings that 529,000 more Americans went hungry last year than in 2003.

And what does this fine media outlet call that?

"Unfortunate political timing for House Republicans."

Seems more like the act of cowards and scoundrels to me. That's the problem we're facing these days: a government run by insane bloodthirsty narcissists, and a media that thinks making people hungry counts as no more than "unfortunate political timing." We are well past any branch of government having - or showing - any modicum of shame, but isn't this a bit over the top?

One might think, if one were American, that the government should work to mitigate - or prevent - hunger and starvation in, you know, America. But apparently that's old news. In the new neocommie political order, hunger is not an issue. If you can't kill enough people to eat, you starve. If you don't work three jobs, you can't feed your family. It's simple mathematics.

Unless you're a draft-dodger or an outright deserter; even better if you never worked a day in your life. Then you're a hero and free to take the proceeds of other's labour. This is not just pie-in-the-sky utopian talk. It's being implemented by your government today in order to transform our world into that Star Trek episode where the cloud people party all day while the grunts work the mines (oh, don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about).

Take a look at the deal your Labor Department cut with Wal Mart. Even without the over mind control of an otherwise-occupied Karl Rove, the department reached a wonderful settlement with the evil chain all by itself. Who needs Labor Department lawyers, after all, when Wal Mart lawyers are willing to do all the work in writing the agreement? Sure, give them 15 days notice before you do an inspection. That will let them clean everything up and have it neat - until you leave. Just because underage kids are working too many hours and operating heavy machinery and chainsaws - what's the big deal?

After all, if a kid has to work that hard, it means they need the money, which means they're not part of the blessed minority of wealthy kids. So let them haul the wood. And if they're part of the poor but religiously stupid rightists that make up the favoured 'social conservative bloc,' it's even better. See, when they mangle themselves and dir in occupational accidents, they go right to heaven. It's win-win!

The Labor Department's inspector general strongly criticized department officials yesterday for "serious breakdowns" in procedures involving an agreement promising Wal-Mart Stores 15 days' notice before labor investigators would inspect its stores for child labor violations.

The report by the inspector general faulted department officials for making "significant concessions" to Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, without obtaining anything in return. The report also criticized department officials for letting Wal-Mart lawyers write substantial parts of the settlement and for leaving the department's own legal division out of the settlement process.

The report said that in granting Wal-Mart the 15-day notice, the Wage and Hour Division violated its own handbook. It added that agreeing to let Wal-Mart jointly develop news releases about the settlement with the department violated Labor Department policies.

If not for the damned Inspector General, this would never have come to light anyway. Just because Wal Mart got to write the announcement, and no other business got the zero-penalty approach like Wal Mart, that only means that Wal Mart has gone to the approved church and ponied up the right political donations.

So all you freeloading poor kids out there: stop trying to imitate your betters by studying and eating and doing other luxury activities like not chopping your hands off with a chainsaw. You're putting on airs and we don't like it.

Keep your place and try not to get your blood all over the merchandise.