FROM: THE WELFARE WARRIORS

NOTE TO READER: I am against the GOP's move to push marriage on welfare mothers as a means to lift them

out of poverty. First, each woman knows best whether she should be married to someone or not.  Second, many

woman leave a marriage because of domestic violence or abuse. Welfare is the only way a  woman can live

independantly of an abusive partner.  Otherwise, she is economically dependant on her abuser.  But Pat Gowens

here has sketched a much more insidious scenario.    ---- Becky Johnson

Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2002 1:48 AM

Subject: faith-based divide and conquer strategy

        Here at the Welfare Warriors we've been warning everyone that the Bush
               marriage and faith-based initiatives are not what they seem, but rather ways to get yet
               one more group of potential allies to sell out,  and join in, the war on the poor. A recent
               Black Commentator Commentary 1 article added some clarification and expansion that we
               hadn't even realized:

                   ("In January, faith-based bribery legislation will re-emerge with a vengeance
               in both houses of Congress. It is by far the most ambitious plan ever devised to
                   destroy the Black political consensus. As we wrote last week in "Trent Lott
               Furor Threatens Faith-based Bribery Scheme":

                        Politically connected churches are to be awarded federal
                        contracts to perform social services, setting in motion a
                        permanent patronage system tied to the party that made the
                        payments possible - the GOP. Ministerial allegiances would be
                        expected to change, overnight, splintering the Black voting bloc."
http://www.blackcommentator.com/21_commentary_1.html )

                       In Wisconsin, funded by the right-wing Milwaukee Bradley foundation, welfare
               deform experimented on privatizing public benefits adminstration by providing
               multi-million dollar welfare contracts to both private corporations (Maximus and
               Goodwill) as well as "non-profits" (YWCA, UMOS, OIC and many more) who
               quickly created "for-profit" branches to accomodate the millions in profits.  The
               Bradley Plan combined  greed and prejudice to perfection, increasing African
               American infant mortality in Milwaukee by 37% each year since the deform began.
               (Welfare corporations specialize in illegal denials, terminations, and sanctions against a
               powerless population of mostly single moms and children,  as well as racial profiling in
               denial of time extensions, job opportunities and imposition of sanctions.) At the same
               time this plan successfully silenced most non-profits who may have previously alligned
               with the disenfranchised,  since the non profits  now received some type of government
               funds.
                       Then the Bradley Plan required the corporate welfare agencies to advertise their
               nay-saying welfare "jobs programs" in local media--African American, Latino, and
               "alternative" white media.  As a result the small community publications joined the
               corporate media in their silence about this brutal attack on poor families and they began
               to regularly publish republicrat welfare propaganda. No longer could the activist
               mamas or any other activist groups receive coverage in these presses.  The staff on one
               community paper recently debated printing an announcement of the Welfare Warriors
               Summer Fair  for fear the state would pull the plug on their lucrative ads!
                       After wiping out non-profit and non-corporate media allies, the Bush plan now
               aims to persuade the churches to sell out as well, leaving the poor very much alone and
               in danger. Your article clarifies the divide-and -conquer  strategy inherent in this
               faith-based plan, a strategy used successfully worldwide by wealthy euro-olonizers.
               Thank you for your analsis.  Now how do we expose and stop it?

               Pat Gowens, Editor, Mother Warriors Voice, 2711 W. Michigan, Milwaukee, WI
               53208; 414-342-6662; www.execpc.com/~wmvoice