Sunday, October 14, 2007

Stop What You're Doing For The Least Among You And Spread Em' ! Posted by olvlzl.

Before Ronald Reagan came to power and began to destroy traditional American morals homelessness and hunger used to be considered a national shame. During the 80s he, other conservatives, their media, think tanks, university based flacks and other venues of propaganda began to turn the destitute into a nuisance, something to cleanse from wherever people were affluent enough to be able to enforce their exclusion.

After a quarter of a century of conservative dominance, it's not just the destitute who are forbidden, those who feed them are being arrested and put on trial.

The stake-out was almost comical in its absurdity: On April 4, 2007, undercover police counted how many times Eric Montanez, a 22-year-old volunteer with Food Not Bombs, dipped a serving ladle into a pot and handed stew to hungry people.

Once Montanez had dished up 30 bowls, the police moved in, collecting a vial of the stew for evidence as they arrested him for violating an Orlando, Fla., city ordinance: feeding a large group. Two days into his trial yesterday, Montanez was acquitted by a jury of the misdemeanor charge, but was cautioned to obey the law.

As activists celebrate the verdict, the Orlando Police Department has said it will continue to ordinance, making the fight for the free flow of food in the city far from over.

This is going way past what conservatives have dared to do by way of moral depravity. It turns the poor into vermin

“It’s essentially saying that homeless people are not worthy of attention or respect and they’re nothing more than pigeons who should be fed some place else so they’re not a bother to mainstream society,” says FNB Co-founder Keith McHenry.

McHenry says feeding the homeless is part of a larger social justice agenda.

“There’s a broader principle in America that we’re trying to address, and that is, food is a human right, not to be relegated to being a commodity,” McHenry says. “People who are hungry in this country deserve good, nutritious food without having to go through a lot of bureaucratic hurdles to get that food, and without having to be demeaned.”

You could well imagine that most of these laws are passed by conservatives who make a big deal out of their "christianity" at campaign time. As with their devotion to the flag and that to which it stands, their support of these laws have the ironic effect of, in reality, outlawing the practice of Christianity, Judaisim and Islam, not to mention Buddhism and any other religion or secular ethical system which not only permits feeding the destitute, it requires it. Just as their devotion to the flag is part of their ripping up the Bill of Rights their ethical practices rip up what is supposed to be the very basis of their pretended ethics.