LETTER from CHARLIE PIERCE

When Did People Stop

Caring For Each Other

To the Editor:

Yesterday I had a conversation with a lady I’ll call Ginny. Her three grocery carts were stacked high on top and in the bottoms. Asked about “stocking up so much,” Ginny replied, “I do this once a year for our food bank.”

My mother, who worked three jobs seven days a week with two hernias to meet the basic needs of the seven of us had been ordered by our doctor not to work. She also walked 5.5 miles a day to work and back to save having to pay a taxi.

At that point in time, our government bought good foods then poisoned them or dumped them into oceans to keep farm prices higher. Back then, 85 percent of registered voters were farmers and Republicans. Democrats pleaded for those foods to be given to the poor, and to schools for lunch programs. Decades later Democrats succeeded.

Many Republicans make fun of the recipients by calling them all kinds of names instead of paying them a living wage with benefits. It’s the new form of slavery.

One quits or dies and another is hired.

It was found that grocery stores were best equipped to handle foods, especially perishables, so Food Stamps came into being. Because of name-calling in grocery-store lines, the method was changed to SNAP, using plastic “credit cards.” Note: SNAP is a “farm program,” not a program to help the poor.

A 36-percent excise tax on USA dairy products recently put many New York State farmers out of business. Canada now buys its dairy products elsewhere, even though the tax has been lifted. Guess that makes America great!

I worked on farms until age 19. It is hard work and in my opinion farmers should be well respected, not destroyed.

Cows must be milked two or three times a day. Milk is perishable. To give some help to Upstate farmers, Governor Cuomo set up a program to buy the milk and give it away at places like schools.

Cars were lined up from the Gilbertsville-Mount Upton School all the way back to Gilbertsville Village … the result of making America great.

My dictionary has nine definitions of great … but none seem to apply.

Big grain farmers had the same experience but were given $12 billion then $16 BILLION. The tax was dropped and the grains were sold to China, meaning farmers who donate heavily to your President got paid twice. He doles out our tax dollars as if they were his.

I like Ginny’s thinking better. To me people are much more important than greedy enrichment of and by the wealthy. Let’s show the world how good America is and that people, not money, are more important. If you have never been poor and hungry you won’t understand this as much. If you say you are a Christian, perhaps you can wonder what would Jesus say and do. Ginny gets it.

CHARLIE PIERCE
Otego