you must have a job in order to get food stamps. one of my house mates tried to get on food stamps (he was on them from seattle when he moved here). he was self

you must have a job in order to get food stamps. one of my house mates tried to get on food stamps (he was on them from seattle when he moved here). he was self employed: he made sweatshirts and sold them on etsy, as well as other odd-jobs assisting seamstresses. he couldn't prove he had a job or something, and so couldn't get food stamps. he had tons of debt, and in the end he took 3 shitty jobs (eg, calling people at night and asking survey questions) with very low pay, while maintaining his sweatshirt business. i have mixed feelings about all of this. on the one hand, it feels like bad planning to not accrue the skills for a good job. shame on his upbringing for not encouraging him to think about consequences and independence (yeah, down with the man is cool, but freedom is more nuanced than that. money plays a role, for one thing) on the other hand, he was basically operating his own small business, he sold local, cared about the environment and his craft. he was such a sweet hard working guy, an upstanding coop member, who just couldn't self promote or get together whatever that magic is--networking? self empowerment?--to make a stable business. most especially, he made a real product to sell, rather than hype, and it was a good product, self-expressive that made people feel special rather than malicious corporations that exploit people or the environment or consumers. part of me thinks it's messed up that our economics and culture supports enron and not someone like this guy. i hope he's teaching kids how to make their own clothes. he was against teaching because culturally that's giving up, not making it as a designer, but teaching kids how to constructively express themselves rather than pay whatever brand for dumb clothes---that's more valuable than the whole billion-dollar clothing industries and their malicious practices.