It is a bit more narrow than one I have used and more aptly describes the case when politicians use policy as weapons against their opponents and is quite appropriate.
I often use a different metaphor to describe the gamesmanship of the sport they call politics, a game wherein the people whom the policy is supposed to be all about are merely the balls on the playing field and which hold no importance to the players and the fans other than as the objects to be tossed about to win the game that profits only the players leaving the people in the mud after the game is over.
As to the poor - they seem completely oblivious to them and convince themselves that welfare reform didn't harm anybody, it did and does to this day I assure you, it was not a pragmatic solution to a "welfare queen" problem handled well because a Democrat helped to all but destroy it. It will not be a brave pragmatic solution to "earned benefit queens" as they collude yet again with republicans to begin to shred these last vestiges of the new deal and great society.
They cause the poor to become poorer still while applauding the politicians responsible. Their applause and support are what make them just as responsible as their political idols.
They think this is a game, or a sport with my team and their team, not realizing or caring that the ball that is tossed around in this sport is a child that only gets to eat at school and will soon lose that food, or the ball is an elderly widow or widower that can only afford to take their medicine every other day or maybe will freeze to death in a small flat during a winter they could not pay their gas bill (this happens ALREADY).
There are many other balls tossed around for their sport and amusement, too many to list them all here, some are dead or dying, some are living under a tarp in a vacant lot hoping the cops don't roust them or the suburban teanagers don't decide to slum it and amuse themselves by assaulting them while laughing and taunting the "bum" for cell phone footage. Some of these comfortable people give advice to "the poor that in fact do ok". One of them suggested dumpster diving as a viable and reasonable option.
Too many of them applaud policies and politicians that make all these problems worse, they need to get it through their heads, many are dying and more will die of poverty, this is no game and the poor aren't doing ok, they are doing worse all the time with less help available all the time.
It is not serious, pragmatic, or brave to cause more people to suffer and die in poverty because it is referred to flippantly as "eating peas" or "being adult". It is not pragmatic even when the ones shipping away the jobs or destroying welfare "feel your pain". It never was bravery, but cowardice. It is not balanced when an increasing number of people fall into poverty and die while others become wealthier at an exponential rate.
The punditry, politicians, and comfortable may think it is a fun sport full of serious brave adults that make hard decisions.
Cowards all really, making easy decisions, easy because their decisions don't harm them, but rather the poor they barely acknowledge exist for the profit of the wealthy.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022668527
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