英语阅读：On “pork barrel politics”
This week we saw President Obama sign off on the $787 billion stimulus planwith many critics fearing the money would go to “pork barrel projects”.
So what do they mean – does Obama like bacon and sausages? Well, possibly –
we are not sure but we do understand some folks weren’t happy by his spending
plan.
To understand the meaning of this phrase we must step back and imagine what
life was like before electricity and refrigerators.
In such times meat was often salted or smoked so it could be preserved then
stored in a wooden barrel. Another method was to store it in fat or oil, also in
a large container or barrel. Both are examples of real pork barrels. As for the
latter just think of that Chinese dish called “yang zasui” and you’ll have an
idea of the old pork barrel style of keeping meat.
Now when this phrase started being associated to other things, according to
answers.com it can be dated to 1863 and a story, "The Children of the Public,"
by Edward Everett Hale where it was used as a “homely metaphor for any form of
public spending to the citizenry”.
Just think of the very nature of pork, it’s a luxurious meat, pink, fatty,
salty, tasty – it has connotations that are positive. A pork barrel is a desired
thing particularly in those days when life was tough and meat was a luxury.
The phrase has also been traced to “a pre-Civil War practice of giving
slaves a barrel of salt pork as a reward and requiring them to compete among
themselves to get their share of the handout.” The idea here is of some
controlling figure handing out supplies to a group of those in need and then
they fight over it.
By the 1870s references to "pork" were also being heard in Congress. In
this context to refer to spending that was intended to benefit constituents of a
politician in return for their support. These days this is the meaning it
carries.
So let’s bring it back to the present and simplify matters by saying that
today to speak of “pork” or “pork barrels” or “pork barreling”, in politics is
to refer to the action by a politician to reward certain parts of the community
by handing out funds for certain projects which may or may not be necessary.
Essentially the term is negative and brings up images of waste.
E.g. you could say, “Well they helped him get elected so now he’s going to
put $10 billion into community projects that help unemployed people. Ten billion
bucks of pork! What a joke!”
In the 1990’s Japan was famous for “pork barrel” projects which were often
related to construction of new roads, tunnels and bridges.
Critics say that it is a waste of money though others argue that it is
creating jobs, investing in infrastructure and creating long term wealth in the
community.
Depending on what you read and who you speak to they will they one party or
leader or nation is more prone to pork barrel projects than others.
In some ways it reminds me of when I was a child and my father would tell
me to do the gardening so he could watch the football on TV. At the end I would
get 20 cents and could then go buy an ice-cream and he could get some peace.
Perhaps though in the world of big business, politics and increasing
transparency, (thanks to the internet and citizen journalism) – finding peace
for politicians is getting increasingly harder to buy.
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