"Really poor children, in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works so they have no habit of showing up on Monday...Now, obviously, it's Newt's style to provoke people like Capehart, and, indeed, Capehart's denouncement of Newt in the pages of WaPo leverages Newt's message for him. Capehart lambastes Gingrich for his wealth and for his disrespect toward "the overwhelming majority of those children and their families who live their lives with far more integrity and far less cash than Gingrich ever will." Capehart is doing what he is hired to do, and he gets some cash for that.
"They have no habit of staying all day, they have no habit of I do this and you give me cash unless it is illegal"....
Both Gingrich and Capehart probably care to some extent about poor children. It's impossible to say how much. There's nothing about Capehart's liberal orientation that guarantees that he's more caring, though it's liberal style to pose as if you are. It's conservative style to offer love in "tough love" form, and that's what we get from Gingrich.
Liberal style, Capehart stirs up emotion: What a bad, greedy man Gingrich is! He condemns and disrespects children! Conservative style, Gingrich risks that we'll think he's mean as he invites us to think beyond those initial reflexive emotions.
Capehart declines the invitation.
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Excellent! Dead on, especially this: Both Gingrich and Capehart probably care to some extent about poor children. It's impossible to say how much. There's nothing about Capehart's liberal orientation that guarantees that he's more caring, though it's liberal style to pose as if you are. It's conservative style to offer love in "tough love" form, and that's what we get from Gingrich.
Politics is mostly about style, not substance, and nowhere is this more apparent than when the topic is economic in nature.
Conservative style, Gingrich stirs up memories of Reagan-era power and amoral affluence. Newt's like the Uber-Elf of the GOP--a white-trash Nietzsche-lite for the 'Merican heartland.
"the overwhelming majority of those children and their families who live their lives with far more integrity and far less cash than Gingrich ever will," says Capehart.
Living your life with less money than poor people is supposed to be a good thing? WTF?
"You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch
You really are a heel
You're as cuddly as a cactus
And as charming as an eel, Mr. Gri-inch...
You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel."
And during the holiday season to boot.
"Liberal style..."
Or lack of.
Capeheart wrote a typical liberal college essay, as if another were needed.
Lefties hate bourgeois values, howevermuch they are needed for success in life.
Their only defense is to attack its proponents as racist/classist/blah blah blah. They believe the values themselves are the cause for all of life's miseries, and shedding them is the path to nirvana.
But it leads instead to really poor children, in really poor neighborhoods.
We all say we want bold leadership.
But we don't.
Gingrich had no reason to include illegality in these comments. Doing so weakens what he's saying. The fact that there's a lack of a taught work ethic in poor committees, be they inner city or urban poor, is true. What's not true is that everyone living in those committees breaks the law.
Our society in general is suffering from a lack of taught work ethic.
Some of my coworkers told me the lack of good work habits was a huge problem in implementing welfare to work. One of the most basic things that will help you keep your job is to show up on time! Kids need to learn those skills somewhere, and if their family doesn't work for a living then they very well may not.
Of course, Gingrich's style is to provoke and some people are so easily provoked they can jump past a valid point.
I don't suppose it matters that Gingrich is a self-made man from humble origins. He graduated from a public high school in Georgia; he didn't have the advantage of private schools in exotic venues like our current POTUS.
E.M. Davis,
We all say we want bold leadership.
But we don't.
Nope. We obviously want no leadership,...
Living in a urban setting we have a higher unemployment rates for young adults. There are only so many social programs to keep young adults busy and out of trouble. The Boys Club and YMCA are great at 10 years of age, but at 14 teens want to work not just play ball. Naturally motivated to work, teens find employment by illegal means. In the suburbs I guess, parents just taxi them around to different fun and safe activities to keep them out of trouble and send them off to college for a few more years.
Child (teen) labor laws really are too strict, teens have plenty of time for other activities other then academics. A job might actually encourage them to stay in school and obtain more skill.
Not everyone is great at a sport or have superior talented. I worked at a pharmacy chain the last two years of high school as a cashier, sure it was extra money, but it also I proved I can show up to work consistently and I was reliable.
Anything to encourage employers to hire teens as part-time employees would be great. A local supermarket chain even has a special employment program for teens in foster care, in which they get specialized training to retain long-term employment.
Their only defense is to attack its proponents as racist/classist/blah blah blah. They believe the values themselves are the cause for all of life's miseries, and shedding them is the path to nirvana.
Another wingnut assuming all democrats are marxist--you really are an idiot, Pogoberg. But in cyberland, you got the right to be a stooge, comrade
Newt was right to say by illegal means, what do you think gangs actually do?
They don't dance, like in West Side Story. They deal in drugs and human trafficking.
Kids need to learn those skills somewhere, and if their family doesn't work for a living then they very well may not.
It's more than that, though. If you have full-time working mom and dad, there's still a house that needs attending to. Regardless of how spent you are at the end of the day, you still have to cook, clean dishes, make sure the house is orderly, get the laundry done, and maintain a structure the children can rely on, ie, bedtimes etc.
You can show your kids that you work hard by going to work every day and bringing home the beacon, but all they'll know is that you're gone from x to y. If you don't keep an orderly house, you'll raise disorderly people regardless of how much money you make in the process.
At some point on the income scale, of course you can hire cleaning services, but without steady drumbeating on your kids about their work ethic re chores, you'll end up with the same problems.
It really is pretty simple. It just takes a lot of will and self-discipline on the part of the parents.
Amazing Cracki again assumes the GOP is really his friend since it's like...macho-er, and the demos are pussies since they want to save health care, entitlements, etc.
You really don't understand this game, ese. Politics is not about helping the plutocracy.
Gingrich spoke the truth. That liberals don't like hearing it doesn't make it any less true. The kids are behaving in accordance to the example set by the parents. It's a self perpetuating cycle sustained by welfare.
Welfare is the floor. The kids know this and they assume if the cannot earn substantially more than what welfare provides why work (officially)? It is not an irrational position from their perspective. That is the unintended and perverse incentive of welfare.
A number of people on public assistance do work of the books so it isn't as if they are all lazy and stupid.
If you figure in a major metropolitan area the combined value of public relief is about $40,000 (food stamps, WIC, housing, medicaid and other subsidies) and you do not have the skill set to earn at least 30% more than that morality aside why work?
Liberals are the protectors of the downtrodden from greedy, evil Republicans. Isn't that what OWS is all about? Like this Jon Stewart clip, west enders and east enders, ghettoes vs upper crust..
It really is pretty simple. It just takes a lot of will and self-discipline on the part of the parents.
And this happens every day in every urban part of this country.
But it doesn't happen enough.
I don't read it as a blanket statement at all. It's more of a wake up call.
I'm not even a Gingrich fan, but we really need to shake up a society that allows this to happen under the guise of feel-good government.
The social problems that can be solved with direct action have been solved long ago.
The remaining problems are ones that respond to direct action with perverse consequences.
Which is why Gingrich is right and the left, believing in direct action above all, is wrong.
It's also why the left base is young.
And this happens every day in every urban part of this country.
Got evidence? No. Just another brainfart from the Gumphouse, where phreeedom reigns.
When the Soviet Union collapsed US companies tried to start businesses in Russia. They found a couple generations of people w/ no work ethic. The Ukraine somehow maintained a work ethic but most of Russia was a wasteland of lazy, drunken people.
It just seems too easy to blame welfare, you can't take away welfare unless you have a plan to replace it with something else. And that's the problem with Republicans, they don't have a solution, and they become a party of 'no'.
There should be a step-by-step plan for these urban areas without simply bulldozing communities. It might start not with getting rid of welfare, but starting with teens and young adults to make sure they have employment themselves, and rather then fleeing after college but to maintain residence within that neighborhood/community to support it.
The Ukraine somehow maintained a work ethic but most of Russia was a wasteland of lazy, drunken people.
And hot red-headed spies, apparently.
It's conservative style to offer love in "tough love" form, and that's what we get from Gingrich.
So, providing kids with a good example of how to make some sucess of your life is now 'tough love'. Interesting. That used to be we called it 'parenting'.
Newt said what today is an 'unspeakable' truth.
I especially like the way liberals buy their sense of moral superiority with other people's money.
Scott, well said. But poor kids do not have two parents. That is why they are poor. Growing up in a single parent home is the best statistical predictor of poverty, teen pregnancy, and incarcertaion for the kids.
Stop subsidizing single parent homes and the problem will solve itself.
Trey
Got evidence? No. Just another brainfart from the Gumphouse, where phreeedom reigns.
Hey fucktard, I was writing about responsible parents working hard and bringing up responsible kids.
Do you even read before you post? Is there some kind of autotune for blog comments?
BTW, Phreedom is what allows you to display your complete and utter ignorance on a daily basis here.
And who can forget Gingrich's role in Enron and the de-reg policies of Clinton era. Newt's the guy who helped create the mortgage crisis (along with Gramm....and Billy Bob Clinton). Yeah elect him.
J wrote: "Just another brainfart"
I appreciate that you are gaining some insight into yourself. Keep at it.
Trey
Scott, well said. But poor kids do not have two parents. That is why they are poor. Growing up in a single parent home is the best statistical predictor of poverty, teen pregnancy, and incarcertaion for the kids.
If you're a single parent, it's even more exhausting, but no less important.
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