Does the term "a welfare state" really sound better to Americans than the term "a socialist state"? The idea of a welfare state gives them -- both on the left and right -- a depressing image of a client-case worker relationship in which the client feels tyrannized and the case worker feels overworked: e.g.,
<blockquote>WELFARE QUEAN by Wanda Coleman
red-faced you follow the loony white line to the blue door where the 7 a.m. wait runs fifty deep
you in your unwashed crown your snaggled teeth your aircraft-carrier hips you're snotting all over America this bad gin morning fizzle you've just run out of tissues so you use the flap of your grimy muumuu worn fax paper thin the truth you've tried to peddle did not feed or free you but has trapped yon in the dungeon of working ass poor doings
you fill out white forms in blue ink twixt curses and prayers, check the red boxes
the helpers you consult are underpaid automatons who smell of bureaucratic bugkill yet sniff down their noses at you maurauder your larcenous fingers filching their taxes you tinsel thugsta robbing them of phone time with sweethearts you pernicious promiscuous sloven spreading VD, AIDS and black males
of course you're allergic to work, would rather
sleep till noon watch the soaps the blabfests the shitcoms (low self steam) stand on street corners swiggin' grape or sippin' coonshine loudtalkin' gamblin' prostitutin'
blue brained under the white sheets, gasping to the throb warning code red
a cliché with a skin condition as
seen by those spaced-out heads/those probing amber eyes narrowed to amused slits denying your claim on the dream o purple mountains of prose charting your failures as you nut up under the thunder of blows your majesty that kinkknot on your psyche of course you're guilty of breaking illusion and taking up too much sun of course you're guilty of looting the nation's coffers of course you're lucky
to have survived past thirty five-you
bloodwart on the schnoz of Christ</blockquote> -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>