Foster children in Michigan would use their state-funded clothing allowance only in thrift stores under a plan suggested by State Senator Bruce Caswell.
Caswell says he wants to make sure that state money set aside to buy clothes for foster children and kids of the working poor is actually used for that purpose.
He says they should get "gift cards" to be used only at Salvation Army, Goodwill or other thrift stores.
As Caswell himself puts it:
To this Gilda Jacobs; CEO of the Michigan League for Human Services, had this to say:
First of all, let's talk about what this is NOT about. This is not about me having any problem with second hand clothing. I buy second hand & I never throw cloths away. There is a Goodwill not far from where I live and I ALWAYS take them there.
This is about singling out an already disenfranchised group of CHILDREN for deferential treatment & robbing them of ALL choice in the process. Little choices mean a lot to someone with very little. It's those little things that make a person feel empowered in some way. Besides, people should have the option to NOT buy certain things second hand like underwear and shoes.
Also; as someone who thinks we should pass things like our clothes on, this just serves to stigmatize the buying of second hand clothes even more. Taking all other choices away from orphans turns the buying of second hand clothes INTO a punishment because it's something they HAVE TO do "unlike kids with parents," they will tell themselves.
Lastly, I have a serious problem with the idea of orphans being limited to buying clothes from the Salvation Army. Why? The Salvation Army is notoriously anti-gay. Because of people who run that organization, gay people and same-sex adoption are much less further along in this country then they should be. I wonder how many of those kids would have safe, loving, same-sex parents if organizations like the Salvation Army would welcome themselves into the 21st century.
Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power. ~Benito Mussolini
On March 16, 2011, Governor Rick Snyder and the Republican dominated House and Senate of Michigan passed a law. This law stated that if Gov. Snyder declared a financial emergency in any given Michigan city at any given time, he then had the authority to appoint an Emergency Financial Managers (EFM) to take over the town. This EFM has the authority to
He basically now has the authority to declare FINANCIAL MARSHAL LAW! And if you think this is one mans insanity, one mans desperate bid for total power think again. As I write this good ol' Scott Walker is trying to seize this power for himself as well. One of Wisconsin's largest law firms; Foley & Lardner, is in the process of drawing up the language now.
So what is this NOT about? As Rachel says "this is not about the budget" as Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio exposes in this video:
Walker claimed before his push to bust the unions that he was doing it for the sake of the budget but SURPRISE! That was bullshit.
So what is this about...really? Well, I know many are going to call me a conspiracy theorist for this but, I think this is a plan that has long been in the works. To understand this we must go back to the Reagan era. Reaganomics/Trickle-down economics is based on a theory that if markets are completely deregulated and the wealthiest untaxed they will reinvest their riches in our country creating jobs. In other words, trust the richest among us to be infinitely generous and ethical. To that all I can say is
SARCASM WARNING: Yea, and the BP oil spill is TOTALLY cleaned up & all those who helped do it have full coverage for all the health problems that resulted from the work. Just ask the P2S workers that are now dying with no help in sight.
Now lets look at the facts. According to Willamette Week's 9 Things The Rich Don't Want You To Know About Taxes, Reaganomics has not only failed but it has almost completely brought economic growth for the middle, working and poverty class of this country to a halt.
"Since 1980, when Reagan won the presidency promising prosperity through tax cuts, the average income of the vast majority—the bottom 90 percent of Americans—has increased a meager $303, or 1 percent. Put another way, for each dollar people in the vast majority made in 1980, in 2008 their income was up to $1.01.
Those at the top did better. The top 1 percent’s average income more than doubled to $1.1 million, according to an analysis of tax data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. The really rich, the top one-tenth of 1 percent, each enjoyed almost $4 in 2008 for each dollar in 1980."
Does anybody else feel like they've been scammed?
Is this all a ploy to ruin our economy so corporate puppets like Snyder & Walker have a reason to declare Financial Marshal Law in their states and appoint ANYONE; even those affiliated with major corporation creating a major conflict of interest, dictator of the town? And is it only Republicans? Anyone else notice that President Obama has been oddly quiet about this assault of our Democracy? Is this simply a case of "good cop, bad cop?" I don't know but I do know this; many of those Wallstreet fools that drove our economy into the ground and got bailouts were major contributors to the Obama presidential campaign.
I voted for President Obama. I may do so again even though I live in Texas and a Democratic Presidential vote in this state is worth about as much as an ice maker is to an Eskimo...but I may not. I just know he'd better start showing where his loyalties lie and quick! The Justice Department should be all over this EFM business by now.
