Reply #17: Welfare "reform" was enacted with the sure knowledge it would kill, [View All]

whether relatively quickly, as by immediate homelessness and starvation, or more slowly (as by eventual homelessness, starvation and chronic illness due to denial of health care). By any definition, this is genocide: "the deliberate and systematic extermination of a racial, political or cultural group" (Webster's Collegiate #10). By official definition, the poor (regardless of race) are a "cultural group" -- e.g., "the culture of poverty" etc.

The ethos of welfare "reform" is an expression of the basic ethos of capitalism itself: that the only intrinsic value of an individual is the individual's potential for generating profit.

As to the infinite (and definitively white-American) bigotry underlying welfare "reform" -- a bigotry that appears diminished from the Jim Crow era only because its hatefulness has been carefully closeted -- here by Paul Krugman is what is perhaps the most important essay in U.S. history:

http://www.pkarchive.org/

(Click on "Columns," scroll down to "Tragedy in Black and White.")


Edit: clarification of instructions following link.