Kelley wrote:
>i can't stand the idea that Shrub wants to appoint a Secretary of
>Faith-Based Programs in order to dole out monies for 'charity' work.
>and yet, i see no reason why the left ought not use this against the
>kind of nonsense pumped out by compassionate conservativism.
>
>take the money and run with it and --voila!--with the right
>progressive religious organizations you have a space where you can
>bring people together on a regular basis, a place where people can
>be educated as to the conditions of the world around them, a place
>where they can build community with others and marshal the
>organizational resources that can be used to advance still other
>causes.
Also remember that religious liberals & leftists denounced workfare
as slavery, and for their courage, they became attacked by religious
conservatives like below:
*****
The New York Times
July 27, 1997, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section 4; Page 15; Column 1; Editorial Desk
HEADLINE: Work Is Moral And So Is Workfare
BYLINE: By Robert A. Sirico; Robert A. Sirico, a Roman Catholic
priest, is president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion
and Liberty.
DATELINE: GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.
Once again, welfare reform and passionate moral claims have
intersected. This time the issue is workfare.
New York City requires 38,000 people who receive welfare to work for
their benefits, and the city expects to expand the program to 100,000
people in the next few years. But 68 liberal churches, synagogues
and nonprofit groups have declared that they will not hire any of
these workfare recipients. They claim that the city's program is
tantamount to slavery because participants are not paid in wages or
salaries.
"We don't want to say five years from now, here was an evil system
that grew up around us and we didn't resist it," said the Rev. Peter
Laarman of the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village.
The slavery analogy is wrong. In fact, those who accept workfare
assignments are receiving payment -- in the form of welfare benefits.
They are paid by public authorities rather than private employers,
but they are paid.
Aside from their benefit checks, workfare participants gain something
else. They learn skills and the sense of responsibility necessary
for moving from welfare to work permanently. For people on welfare,
who have a hard time getting their feet in an employer's door,
workfare at least gives them a fighting chance to compete later on.
The clergy members and leaders of nonprofit groups who insist that
they would be "slave drivers" if they employ people on workfare
obscure the fact that recipients are not actually forced to take the
jobs the city assigns them. They have another option: They can stop
receiving public assistance and instead enter the labor force on
their own.
Workfare is not a ball and chain. It is an opportunity for the poor
to enter the labor market, an opportunity they might not otherwise
have. Once workfare participants have the skills and desire to seek
regular employment, they need only do a simple calculation: Is my
welfare check worth more or less than the wages I would be making in
a real job?... *****
>i dream, i know. and i'm well aware of how such alliances can and
>have backfired. and yet, what else do we have, really?
With whom do we make an alliance? Not with Robert A. Sirico but with
Peter Laarman.
Yoshie
