At 08:50 2004-01-23 -0600, Ardee-ann/fleamarket_Mama said ("Re: [LessIsMore] US politics: the two domestic views of America") {at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LessIsMore/message/13672 after signing-in}:
Dear Diane,

Kate O'Beirne of the National Review needs to get off her fanny...out of
her office and come face to face with the real world.  As a former human
services worker who spent more than twenty years in the trenches...I
have seen the "other America" face to face.  In fact I have BEEN and am
part of the other America.

At present I have a house to live in but in the summer of 1980 I was
pregnant, homeless, had a two year old child, had lost my job because of
severe problems with my pregnancy and became homeless because the father
of my child to whom I had been married refused to pay child support. He
was a doctor making over $100,000 a year. I was living in my car with my
son in triple digit temperatures. Marriage didn't keep my son and I out
of poverty. In fact, because I was supposed to be receiving child
support I didn't qualify for any services to keep us off the streets.  

I made sure my son ate...he was ok...I became malnourished and the baby
I was pregnant with died. I almost died too because my ex-husband didn't
pay for the insurance he was supposed to pay for and I was without
health coverage. It was living hell.

I will say that there are many families who live below the poverty line
who have cell phones but they have these in lieu of "land line" phones
because in this market (Little Rock, Arkansas) you can get a "Cricket"
for less than a land line.  Hey, it's cheaper and there is perceived
status with having a cell phone so why not get a "Cricket!"

I have spent too many years feeding homeless folks every weekend in a
local park...I have crawled under bridges and viaducts in bitter weather
to find people to give them food, blankets, clothes or a cup of coffee.
I know poverty and Kate O'Beirne doesn't know WTF she is talking about.

She needs to come one down to Arkansas we can show her the face of
poverty and it doesn't own a car, a house or any of the other
accoutrements of civilization that she is fantasizing about...it is
hungry children, scared parents, defeated veterans and folks whose
"shoestring" was stretched so thin that it broke. 

Kate O'Beirne isn't a true conservative...she is totally unaware of
reality and as a mental health professional I know a few diagnoses that
would probably fit her...not all of which are on Axis I.     

Well, of course I had an opinion on this!  

In Solidarity,

Ardee-ann