Raise the Hammer

There is some truly disgusting poor bashing going on here. Poor people smoke, eat junk food and watch satellite TV, so they deserve it, right? They're lazy slackers who just want to mooch, so why not just let them rot?

There are many opportunities for individuals to climb out of poverty, but it's not just individuals we're dealing with, it's entire communities. When entire shifts or plants disappear (as well as entire classes being taken off the calendar at trade schools) the fact that a few individuals are able to recover by selling off all their assets (at low prices, of course), and are able to eventually recover does not change the overall situation.

Food basics (where I also shop) is a junk food warehouse, and symbolises many of the real dietary problems which afflict poor people. but there are also at least a dozen ethnic grocery stores, as well as the farmers market. several bakeries and more vegetable gardens than I've seen anywhere else in the city. And all of them are frequented mainly by low-income people. Like many area residents I usually buy my chips pop and other junk food there since their hours, prices and selection of those goods beats anywhere else in the area. I don't tend to buy my veggies or health food there because their selection of those goods is downright miserable. As for cigarettes, virtually everyone I know in the north end gets their smokes mainly from Six Nations, and some truly ingenious distribution networks for them have sprung up - but you wouldn't know that by wandering through the neighbourhood and gawking. Likewise, until I took a long North-End stroll with a hacker friend of mind, I had no idea how many of those connections were bootlegs

The kind of open prejudice against low-income people is a big part of the reason they seem so apolitical. Why would such people, after reading comments like those above, want anything to do with your politics?