Reply #56: Why should "the poor" not have control over what they eat?

[bread_and_roses]

We, too, ate surplus. And I remember the Steel Strike too. The cheese was good; in fact, most of the food was good. And my mother could make good meals from it. However, my mother was at home until her youngest went to school. Meals from commodities take a lot of time to prepare. The working people on Food Stamps don't have time for that sort of preparation. And the very poor, who are not working, sometimes do not have the equipment, storage, and supplemental ingredients required to make good meals from basic food items.

But that is not the point. The point is that just because someone is poor it does not follow that s/he should have his/her food choices dictated. Such a position can only follow from the premise that poverty is always an individual failing, and as such deserves the punishment of limited rights. In reality, most poverty is structural and built into our system - that's why we have artificially low government poverty thresholds and why we never talk about Capitalism's need for a disposable labor force, or our need as a society for low-skill jobs.

We don't have to have the kind of poverty that requires government distribution of food. We choose to have that kind of poverty. And most of the problems of "the poor" would be remedied by some more money.

We are rich. We just choose Corporate welfare and bombers over basic needs for our citizens. There is no reason at all we can't have a guaranteed national income that would eliminate the need for Food Stamps altogether.