Munch, Munch

In terms of child poverty, the United States ranks 36th out of the 41 wealthiest nations. There are 2.5 million homeless children in the US, an all-time high. 65% of US children live in a home that receives aid from the federal government. 45% of US children belong to low income families. 45% of African-American children in the US live in “areas of concentrated poverty” (slums). The average American is 40% poorer today than before the recession, and 20% of US households will be able to eat Christmas dinner thanks to food stamps, about that many more courtesy of various food banks and charities. (source)

Happy holidays, y'all!

Quittin' Costs an Arm and a Leg

 Well, the war in Afghanistan has probably caused hundreds, if not thousands, of real arms and legs. It is a war that, like many of our wars lately, seems interminable. The president has set 2014 is a time when we're going to withdraw. Of course that doesn't mean that no Americans will be left there. What it means is it will have some sort of "caretaker" force in place for God knows how many more years. So the war is still to be costing the American taxpayers out into the foreseeable future. Just like the war in Korea, which ended in an armistice in 1953. We still have thousands of troops over there at the cost of again, God knows how much.

But that just brings me to the point: getting out of Afghanistan is going to cost the taxpayers of the United States $5 billion just to move the tons and tons of equipment and vehicles out of there. (Story here.) At least $5 billion. Could be more. And of course we are going to leave billions of dollars worth of gear and equipment for the Afghan army to use. It just boggles my mind: we don't seem to have any trouble finding money for this kind of stuff, a war that's gone on for 12 years and that's cost us literally trillions of dollars. But there are 50 million people in this country who are "food challenged." A polite way of saying they don't have enough to eat. I just saw film yesterday with this shocking statistic: during their lifetime, one out of every two children in the United States will be hungry.

Think about this. We're getting ready – you better believe it – to fight another war, or two. Out there on the horizon we have North Korea, Iran, and Syria. Do you really think we're not going to get involved in one or several of these places?

Related articles

• What a Third Korean War Would Look Like (commondreams.org)
• The US Fabricates Another War Scare (lewrockwell.com)

Who Would Have Thought . . .

The Face of Millions of Americans: Homeless & Hungry

. . . that the level of poverty in the U.S.A. would rival that of North Korea? My sister, the same one who sent the piece about education I talked about yesterday, sent this one a while back. For reasons that will become apparent below, you might want to check out the CNN source for the story. Both articles have all the grim facts, and they are grim indeed. I've saved it on my desktop and have been meaning to talk about it since.

I just haven't gotten around to reading it till now. One does not have to agree with the Biblical outrage in the piece, nor its pro-Israel bent* to be appalled by the facts here presented. In North Korea 5 million people face "food shortages." In this, the richest country that's ever been in history, the number of similarly situated people is 45 million. Why is no one, why isn't everyone just completely scandalized by this?

But no, we just go about our business, getting and spending. Out of sight is out of our mind. This goes for everything harmful, from pollution to the graft, lies, and corruption that grease the wheels of our "democratic" government at every level to the killing being done in our name in Afghanistan . . . and of course, the millions of poor people in their miserable tent cities all over the country.

*I have to observe that these sentiments are decidedly not those of my sister. As far as I know, and I know her pretty well, she doesn't embrace the virulently pro-Jewish partisanship of this website. 

Related articles

• US team in N. Korea over food shortages: Xinhua (alternet.org)

Ain't That America?

When John Mellencamp sings "Ain't that America," the song is decidedly tongue in cheek. Well, me too. Several exhibits explain why:

• Washington State, which is as broke as all the other states of the Union--a $2.3 billion deficit--is considering giving Microsoft Corp., which as we all know is a struggling, cash-strapped company, a $100 million annual tax break and amnesty for about $1 billion in past tax evasions. WTF?

•  The widow of the poor wretch who got killed when Andrew Joseph Stack III flew his private plane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas, is suing Stack's widow for, get this: not warning other people about how dangerous her husband was. Here's what needs to be done. This woman's lawyer, one Dan Ross, who said this is the best way to find out what assets, including insurance, would be available for compensation, well, this guy ought to be taken out to the public square, stripped to the waist, and flogged till he promises never again to practice law.

•  Who's really poor in America? A lot more people than you think. Some facts and figures from an article by a knowledgeable author:

==>>At least 50 million people are ill-fed -- up from 37 million just a year ago -- including 17 million children. 
==>>30% of the nation's 50 million homeowners own a home whose value is below its mortgage balance, and this number could rise to an almost unbelievable 50% by year-end 2011.   
==>>Even the nation's 130 million full-time workers have had an average economic loss of 15% just since December 2007 -- an average effective work week of 34 hours rather than 40 -- which means that the number of unemployed workers, measured economically, is actually as high as 50 million. 
==>>For every earned income level except the top 10%, average household income hasn't changed a bit for 10 years, . . . for the bottom 60% of wage earners it hasn't changed for more than 20 years . . . 90% of workers in America have been standing still earnings-wise.
 ==>>100 million people, fully one-third of the entire U.S. population, are at or below "200% of the federal poverty line of $21,834 for a family of four", which is a needs-measure made lame by the fact that no family of four can actually comfortably live on such a low annual income.*

• Finally, this from Gestapo America, which is always lurking just below the surface of anything happening in this country. In Germantown, Pennsylvania, a 13-year-old girl student was escorted from her classroom by two uniformed school cops for refusing to say the pledge of allegiance to the flag. Apparently her teacher absolutely freaked when she did not stand, yelled at her, and sent her to the office for her defiance. When it happened again the next day, the teacher called the cops. Don't you kind yourselves, brothers and sisters, this is what you can expect from our system in its current manifestation. You better be overtly patriotic (in the yahoo sense), or you're going to be branded an enemy of the country.**

Well, now . . . ain't that America?

 *"Without an immediate all-of-government commitment to creating upwards of 30 million new jobs (not the 9 million that the administration has identified)," the author concludes, "without stimulus efforts that specifically target the entire struggling middle class, and without very specific initiatives aimed at breaking the back of general wage stagnation, there is not even a medium-term prospect of anything approaching real full employment and healthy economic growth that benefits all Americans." Cheery, huh?

**For the record, I do not pledge allegiance to the flag, sing the national anthem, remove cap, put hand on heart, or perform any of  the other obeisances expected of people "who love their country and the flag." These rituals have become so distorted, misdirected, and contrived in this country, that those of us who love the America we're supposed to be are considered well nigh traitors. I often joke that I'll be among the first rounded up. It's not really a joke.

Munch, Munch, Munch

Here's some cheery news for all of you who expect to be around in 2050. The world is going to need 70 percent, that's 70 percent, more food than what's being produced right now. And the last time I checked, there are millions of people on the globe who are starving right now. The population of the globe in 2050 will be 9.1 billion people, up from its current 6.9 billion. But take heart, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization is "cautiously optimistic" that the world will be able to produce enough food to feed everybody by then. Some of the other projections are just downright terrifying: like 70 percent of the world's population in 2050, that's 40 years from now, will live in cities. Given some of the world's well-known hell holes--Lagos, Nigeria, below, anyone? Cairo? Mexico City?--today, can you imagine what kind of truly nightmarish cities will be around then?

I'm not going to get involved in any arm-wrestle about whether the globe will support that many people, resisting the impulse to differ strongly with those who don't see any virtue (indeed, see sin) in birth control. I merely indicate that most of the increase in population is going to be in sub-Saharan Africa . . . and you know how well we're doing taking care of their nutritional needs today. And then there's the additional land we're going to eat up so we can grow more crops. And how many habitats for the other species on the planet are we also going to eat up? I'm not sanguine humans are going to come out of this looking good.

The Hungry Shall Always Be with Us . . .

"Hunger and malnutrition are the underlying cause of more than half of all child deaths, killing nearly 6 million children each year."

—Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

. . . Which means we will always have somebody to help, somebody who is far worse off than we are. With the world headed down into what appears to be a great trough of recession--I really think the old word depression works better, but the language police have seemingly banished it from usage--there's going to be even more millions who go hungry. Here's a place you can go right now to learn about how you can help these people. In a couple of cases, it costs you nothing at all to provide some food for starving people. Some of the sites have a plethora of information about this issue also. While we're on the subject, "88 Ways to DO Something about Poverty" will also repay any time you spend there. You're bound to find one or two worthwhile, one or two you can do.

I raised three children. I cannot imagine the anguish of not having enough food to feed them, the pain of having them grow up malnourished. Next time you throw away food--check this site out for suggestions on ways not to waste food--think how many dads and mom deal with this anguish every day.