Sunday, August 22, 2010


Smell Bad? Off To Camp With You


I wonder how this story will play with the New World Order conspiracy crowd.

Basing his ideas on the Civilian Conservation Corps program of the Great Depression, politician Carl Paladino wants to transform under-used New York State prisons into special dorms (or camps) for people on welfare. Such a center would train welfare recipients to acquire new skills. Also -- according to gubernatorial candidate Paladino -- the campers would be given lessons in "personal hygiene."

Of course this program would be voluntary. (Did you know filing an income tax form annually is also "voluntary?") Out-of-work prison guards would become counselors for such a dorm set-up. After years of walking the cell blocks with billy clubs, I wonder how many guards would have an affinity to "counsel" someone.

As Paladino explained in an Associated Press article: ""Instead of handing out the welfare checks, we'll teach people how to earn their check. We'll teach them personal hygiene ... the personal things they don't get when they come from dysfunctional homes."

Is Paladino out of touch with reality? Well, he is a wealthy real estate developer of the Republican stripe. Quick, Carl, what does a quart of milk and a loaf of bread cost? What's the minimum wage in New York State? Hey, don't turn to your aide for the answers.

Now the NWO alarmists might say this is the first step. Round up the smelly people first. Next will be the ones who don't smell but still need a job. Then the ones who don't get behind the program, those disloyal to American principles.

Paladino says his special camps would train welfare recipients to become state employees, working at state parks or in public service or even in "military service." Gee, does that last one include brown shirt uniforms?

For some reason Paladino is a favorite of the Tea Party. I thought the Tea Baggers opposed socialism and the government control that presumably goes with it. Maybe they're also NWO dupes.


Source: "NY candidate: Prison dorms for welfare recipients" By Bethy Fouhy (AP)


5 comments:

Marvin said...

Do you mean, "New World Order"? Just checking. ;-) New Word Order sounds nice, but it's really just proper grammar and syntax we're talking about, not a whole new set of life skills.

I'm glad someone's discussing the need to teach the chronically-unemployed some life skills, though. At some point, it can be counterproductive to punish them for not having a job, so perhaps educating them INTO a job would be better. If they regard such education as punishment, that's unfortunate. Perhaps they'd rather be parted out into the organ banks. ;-)

Ray Palm (Ray X) said...

Marvin:

ThanX for spotting that dumb typo. I've fixed it. Another example of how spellchecker doesn't catch everything.

I wonder what Carl Paladino thinks about a soylent green program.

Ray

X. Dell said...

The chronically unemployed need opportunity before life skills training. It's part of the myopia of capitalism that can't see that poverty has to subsidize wealth. It's rather elitist and wrongheaded to assume that people aren't employed because they don't have skills, gumption, whatever. Many of those impoverished worked their way into it (many of them quite hard, thank you). Utilizing the same job skills/life skills such a program would teach won't address the issue of fair pay, no chance for advancement, etc.

Solyent Green, indeed.

Ray Palm (Ray X) said...

X. Dell:

Putting my humor aside for a moment, I agree with you. What I hate about what Paladino proposes is that it doesn't create real jobs, only temporary state ones.

During the Reagan recession I was stuck on workfare and the city had me doing its dirty work for a minimum wage. The Dept. of Public works had cut its staff in half from fifty to twenty-five full time workers. Workfare made up the difference. Such programs are a great way to get cheap help, thus keeping taxes low for the wealthy elitists.

Doug said...

First they came for the stinky and I said nothing...