The shame and pride of joining food stamp nation

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/27/joining_the_food_stamp_nation/

Public assistance has always carried the puritanical stink of stigma and guilt. As Francis Fox Piven and Richard Cloward explained in their classic book ”Regulating the Poor,” guilt and shame have long been intentional features of public aid — along with various forms of coerced labor and invasive monitoring — dating back to England’s poor laws of the 16th century, through to today’s much demonized welfare capitalism in America, where Republicans goad and bait our nation’s first black chief executive as “the food stamp president.”