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Picked this up trawling Boing Boing -- four Congresspeople (3 D, 1 R) who have pledged to try to spend a week living on what the average food stamp recipient in America gets: $21 a week; breaking down to $3 a day or $1 a meal.
My cynical side says "big deal, a week" and arches a cool eyebrow. It's easy to "live poor" for a week and curry favour with the plebs. Harder to, well, do something about it.
But my positive side notes that this is getting a fair bit of press coverage; m-a-a-aaaybe, at the very least, this will get people talking about how hard it is to get a leg up when proper nutrition is entirely out of the question.
I always have a hard time with these things; separating legitimate attempts to attract attention to a real problem from a press-friendly stunt that causes no lasting inconvenience to the participants.
I do, however, like what Lisa McGovern had to say on the McGovern blog:
For those who say this is a publicity stunt -- it is, at least from my perspective. We're in the information age and their are a million things to think about, worry about, learn about, focus on....their is a lot of competition for our attention. As we all know, some people -- far, far too many people -- are already painfully aware too of the reality of hunger and living on $3 a day. But for others, an article or a challenge like this might help direct attention to this problem and create the understanding and will -- both at the grassroots level and in Congress -- to make better policy. Any little bit that can raise awareness or provoke thought and conversation is good in my book.
On the plus side, they seem to be doing this "for real," and not undershopping to emphasize the problem.
So good for them. Even if on some level this is a publicity thing, at least it's drawing the public eye to something worth thinking about and working on. |
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