This is just pathetic. ABCNews has hit a new low. In a puff-piece about the new found wonders of dumpster diving for food titled "Freeganism: Dumpster Diving to Buck the Spending Trend ABCNews is risking the health of the public by pushing an absurd notion that eating food retrieved from a dumpster is a legitimate alternative for people living in America. Eating out of a dumpster is DANGEROUS.
But that doesn't stop ABCNews from offering dumpster diving for food, or "Freeganism", a term George Carlin would have torn to shreds, as a viable alternative to "spending".
Amid S&P downgrades and widespread panic about financial markets, an anti-consumerism movement quietly marches on: Freeganism.
Freeganism, which popped up in the early 90s, rejects the idea of overspending as a "national addiction," according to New York City freeganist, Madline Nelson. The movement goes beyond veganism's rejection of animal products and bucks consumerism for sustainability. It has spread worldwide, with Freeganist websites in French, Norwegian and Portuguese.Freeganists practice dumpster diving for food, composting and recycling. They also walk or bike instead of driving, "squat" in abandoned buildings, eat local and "work less," according to the freegan.info website.
This is absurd. Where writer Reshma Karpalani of ABCNews is trying to make it seem that eating out of a dumpster isn't that bad by pointing to ONE person, Madline Nelson of New York City, whose agenda conveniently dovetails with the beltway village idiocy of the idea that somehow "spending" is too blame for our woes, and anyone can fend for themselves without adding to the "spending", just look at Madline Nelson!
As millions and millions of Americans have been thrust out of the middle class and into poverty because the banks have shipped their jobs overseas and stolen their homes ABC News is trying to subtly make the case that you don't need a social safety net or food stamps or welfare, not when you can figure it out for yourself. Hell, lose your home? I'm sure ABC News will run a puff piece on the wonders of moving into a tent in Central Park as a way to avoid nasty "spending" on things like rent in this new, jobless plutonomy.
Seriously, do not listen to these irresponsible CLOWNS at ABC News. Even their own cited expert says that eating out of a dumpster is NOT safe. It saddens me that Americans are being reduced to this, this is not a reasonable alternative. Ending our insane wars so we can invest in America is a sane alternative. Taxing the rich and profitable corporations so we can keep Americans from having to face poverty is a sane alternative. Suggesting that people who are struggling might find help at the bottom of a dumpster is fucknuts insane. If you needed a better example of how out of touch our media is with reality, nothing says it better than suggesting in all seriousness that a real solution to poverty in America is having the children of the poor and struggling eating out of a dumpster.
But what if your country is slowly devolving into a third world hellhole for the forgotten and exploited working class with a very safe and super wealthy Oligarchy? Well, that is where intrepid reporters like the people at ABCNews have stepped in to fill your head with bullshit. Much as eating garbage is like an alternative to "spending", in the eyes of ABCNews eating shit is the new thinking.
More below the squiggly thing . . . .
ABCNews states that Freeganists test the temperature of any foods they find and discard certain foods during summer months if they are found below a certain temperature. As it's only source, ABCNews quotes Freeganist Madline Nelson, who admits "It took me two years of doing this before I considered myself sophisticated enough with it to discern which foods were cold enough or hot enough to take". This means that for two years this woman risked food poisoning or worse, and continues to do so. Does ABCNews point out the folly of this thinking? Yes they do, but in the weakest way possible.
But according to the New York State Health Department, these temperature-testing precautions are not enough."There are too many uncertainties involved about what the food in the dumpsters have been exposed to," said spokesman Peter Constantakes. "We have concerns about the practice mainly because anything that goes into trash has exposure to any sort of food pathogens, including rat droppings, pesticides, or household cleaners that can be a potential health risk."
abcnews.comBold text added by the diarist
Rat droppings. Seriously.
Does ABCNews bother to explain why people can't afford food? (Hint: a dying middle class, rampant poverty, which strangely coincides with record corporate profits and the largest gap in income inequality in the western world.) Does ABCNews explain why we need a strong safety net in America so we can prevent people from being left with no alternatives other than having to pick through trash? No. Instead dumpster diving for food is presented as a viable alternative to living in a country that gives a shit about anyone but the super rich. This is "Trickle Down" in all of it's horrifying reality, rich guys buy more food than they can eat, and you are welcome to fight the rest of the peasants off for whatever crumbs remain.
CEO salaries are still soaring while the average American earns less money in real wages than their parents did 30 years ago. Does that have anything to do with the reason that people can no longer afford to feed themselves and keep a home? Over the last decade the tax burden has been shifted onto the working class so that the rich can have their wars and tax breaks, corporations have shifted jobs overseas and the jobs we have left in America pay less than they did 2 years ago, but does ABCNews tell you that these things play some part in the America we live in, where people have to look to the trash can for aid? Does ABCNews report on the pile of cash corporations are hoarding? Does ABCNews report on the need to create jobs through spending on infrastructure in this country, so people can earn a living and a good wage instead of being reduced to looking for their next meal in someone else's garbage can so they can keep up in an America where food prices, health care prices and other costs keep going up as the average wage of the average American stays stagnant? No. ABCNews is simply saying "Let them eat trash".
Because gods forbid someone tells the peasants that if we taxed corporations and the rich we could ensure that every single American citizen will be fed out of something other than a dumpster.
This is your "Free Market" brain on drugs. Any questions?
Class War, it's what's for dinner.
The rich get richer and everyone else loses their jobs, their homes, their retirements, everything, but hey, at least food trickled down to us via the local dumpster.
Welcome to SomaliAmerica, brought to you by Goldman Sachs.
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