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The Rich Get Rich and the Poor Get Poorer
Hunger and Homelessness in America
"There's nothing surer; the rich get rich and the poor get poorer," was a slogan of the roaring 20s. The famous phrase was adapted from "Ain't We Got Fun," a popular song recorded in 1921. So what's new in America in the first decade of the 2000s?
Nothing! America's top 72 wage earners averaged 84 million dollars each in income last year, according to Social Security Administration data. The richest 1 percent of us earned 24 % of the nation's total income, the highest since 1928, just before the Great Depression. On the other hand, 14.3 % were living in poverty in 2009, according to the U. S Census Bureau. 50 million people from 17.4 million families are so poor they couldn't buy sufficient food last year. About one million children from more than a third of these households missed meals regularly according to a recent study by the Department of Agriculture. At dinner, families gather to share together. But for the children, dinner time can be the cruelest part of the day. Almost 1 in 4 of them doesn't know when they will have their next meal.
Because there is a high turnover and many homeless people stay hidden, homeless and hunger counts are only estimates. The Department of Housing and Urban Development reported a count of 643,067 homeless persons nationwide on a single night in January 2008. 1.6 million used emergency shelters or transitional housing during 2007/2008, suggesting that 1 in every 50 persons in the US used the shelter system at some point. 170,000 families lived in homeless shelters. With home foreclosures at record highs and continuing unemployment, homelessness is increasing.
Republicans in the U.S. House have blocked a bill that would have extended jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed beyond the holiday season. About 2 million people will lose their benefits if they are not extended, according to the National Employment Law Project. The blocked benefits would save the jobless from hunger and homelessness during the most severe recession since the 1930s and boost spending in the economy that will generate more jobs. Long-term unemployed workers are likely to spend their benefits right away on rent, food and other necessities, and create jobs in our economy. The Congressional Budget office estimates the "multiplier" effect of spending $65 billion on unemployment insurance extensions will increase gross domestic product $104.7 billion which translates into 488,000 payroll jobs.
The plutocrats controlling our government with campaign contributions and slick lobbyists oppose extending benefits to unemployed people. They fight to keep their unjust tax cuts and sit on the billions in bailout cash they received that we were told would save the economy and create jobs for poor and unemployed people. U. S. companies reported after-tax profits of $1.22 trillion last quarter, the highest on record dating back to 1947, according to the Department of Commerce.
When will some of their government bailout welfare for the rich trickle down to poor and working people?
My wife, Judy and I are sponsors of an organization called Homeless Helping Homeless and volunteer at the local winter shelter. And, along with about 35 other people from diverse backgrounds, we have fed an average of 150 mostly homeless and hungry people every Sunday afternoon for the past 7 years at Finlay Park in downtown Columbia, South Carolina. . Each server brings a dish or two--turnip greens, mac and cheese, fresh fruit, banana pudding. Pastries are donated by local super markets. Our picnic provides a nutritious and tasty meal for the homeless and many of the servers. We are known as Food Not Bombs, a national organization that encourages feeding hungry people rather than supporting military madness.
Our a-frame sign, set up near the entrance to our picnic, has a famous quote from a speech by former General and President Dwight Eisenhower that describes the military industrial complex:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
The U.S. defense budget is $720 billion, which includes the Pentagon base budget, Department of Energy nuclear weapons activities and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We far outstrip the rest of the world in defense spending, surpassing the next closest country by more than eight times. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports that the U.S. military budget accounts for 43% of the world's total military spending.
If we heed the words of Eisenhower and stop the madness we call war, if we require the wealthiest to pay their fair share, then perhaps we can end hunger and homelessness in America. There will be food, not bombs, and we will no longer destroy the hopes of our children.
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64 Comments so far
Show Allin these end times of increasing world-wide operational scarcity caused by the 19th century malthusian/spencerian/ neo-darwinian competition model, the winners will consolidate and protect their winnings, while the losers are left to die.
nature is regenerative, and does not require human beings to prove their right to live...
Conservatism is the problem.
Conservative ideology spewed by think tanks, propagated by conservative media and implemented by purchased politicians has decimated the post WWII middle class, put millions into poverty and destitution.
The conservative revolution with promises of economic revival started in the 1980s has disastrously failed the majority of Americans. It's time Americans came to this realization and reject conservative policies.
"The conservative revolution with promises of economic revival started in the 1980s has disastrously failed the majority of Americans. "
Ahh, but for those who put it into play, it's worked EXACTLY as they wanted it to. Their very goal was to destroy everything that FDR had built. Limpballs has been very explicit about it. "FDR is dead. His policies live on, but we're in the process of doing something about that". How much clearer does it need to be? This was all done ON PURPOSE. Just because it was all a lie is beside the point.
First and foremost, conservatism is about transferring public funds to private hands. Secondly, the working class must be kept humiliated and without a choice. They must accept an unlivable minimum wage, by force if necessary.
Religion (capitalism's twin sister), homophobia and xenophobia (divide and conquer) are important elements of conservatism, all propagated by a controlled media.
Conservatism is a cancer that is destroying humanity.
You are correct sir.
lsaih 2:4! You don't hear many of the "Christian Right" quote this one.
Is that because it's Isaiah, not Isaih?
Salute to your good work, Tom, in helping feed the hungry whose numbers are rising ever higher as Wall Street corporate criminals and the war machine consume everything within their grasp--essentially the whole economic pie. The late, great Chalmers Johnson calculated the US military annual spending at over $1 TRILLION what with all the black budgets. Though there is a legal requirement to do so, the Pentagon/DOD has never submitted a detailed audit of its spending. Who and whose army will force them to do so? Certainly not the military lapdogs of the US Congress. The military and Wall Street have the country by the balls and they will do as they please, including ever greater repression and peonage/poverty. Welcome to the land of the free, 21st century edition.
America's top 72 wage earners will fight tooth and nail to stay there. This is going to be a blood bath.
"There will be food, not bombs, and we will no longer destroy the hopes of our children." -- Tom Turnipseed
I certainly appreciate the work you do -- and FOOD NOT BOMBS certainly says it all!
I would add -- if the wars would end, we would also NO LONGER destroy the hopes and lives of the children in other countries!
The children in the rest of the world deserve a decent and healthy life, equal to the children in the United States.
Each day, I wake up and wonder how many children died while I slept, from policies perpetrated upon them by sanctions and/or by armed military U.S. mercenaries and thugs, trained and put into practice by U.S. foreign policy. In what countries did they live? Were their parents murdered, too? I often wonder, too, if still living -- when they eat, if they eat, is the food contaminated with depleted uranium?
If the wars were brought to an end, and the MIC was dismantled, a war machine that must be the #1 polluter of the world environment -- along with the corporations protected by MIC, and pusher of fossil fuels -- could be reined in, and possibly, with a lot of work, some balance could be restored to, not only the United States, but to the world.
That said, I can't see any of this taking place anytime soon.
For anyone interested, on Friday, Amy Goodman broadcast an interview with the Chilean economist, Manfred Max-Neef. He talks about many of these same issues. The second part of the program is an interview with Derrick Jensen -- also worth the time.
www.democracynow.org
Kay...do you really believe that the US is responsible for all the wars, killings and thuggery in the world?
I can't really believe you think that.
I can tell you for sure that if we withdrew our troops tomorrow from everywhere and stopped spending a dime on the military that you would then perhaps notice the wars in which we are not involved...of which there are many. The killing and murder going on in so many countries where we are not involved. The real oppression in the world, the real lack of freedom, the bombs out there that are not ours and the militaries around the world engaged in using mercenaries and thugs, trained and put into practice by their foreign policy. The militaries that are occupying other countries and opressing their citizens.
You can't stop oppression in other nations by imposing the US military on them and Afghanistan and Iraq are the biggest proofs of that. A military can only be used to protect and defend. The responsibility of fighting for freedom and against oppression and violence rests on the citizens in each nation. The military cannot take over that responsibility. To do so only makes them part of the problem and not the solution. It's why our young troops are so often rendered clueless.
You're right, many wars would continue, and there would still be oppression. Burma would not suddenly transform into a paradise if the USA slashed its war budget.
On the other hand, the USA has long been involved in the destabilization of other nations, and the Cold War domino theory can't be used to explain all of it. The Cold War is over but the USA continues its destabilization efforts in Venezuela and Bolivia, two nations that provide no threat at all to the USA. Mossadegh in Iran, Lumumba in the Congo, Aristide in Haiti, Arbenz in Guatemala--the list could go on and on. Add to that the horror inflicted by the death squad leaders in Latin America trained by the USA at the School of the Americas.
Then throw in the actual wars and heavy-handed "diplomacy," like the foolish sanctions against Iraq which certainly did kill people, many children, and, as Denis Halliday pointed out, created a situation in which the people of Iraq were wholly reliant upon Sadam Hussien for food so they could not revolt the way people did in the Phillippines, for instance. All in all, those trillions upon trillions the US has spent throughout the years has bought a lot of death.
So no, cutting the war budget wouldn't stop all of the wars and oppression in the world. But it wouldn't hurt, either.
And cutting the US war budget and black ops would give all those people in other countries a fighting chance to achieve or recoup democracy and economic sustainability. They have their own complicated internal problems to solve, but we are never on the right side. We almost always support the worst, most corrupt, most brutal, most greedy elements when we intervene, those who will sell out their own people for bribes and protection. When we intervene, our corporate, military and secret forces overthrow democratic leaders and squash the achievements of popular and progressive movements. I cannot think of a single counter-example to my last statement.
Now our own country is falling prey to the same practices. We are nothing special to the corporate schemers.
Joe
"And cutting the US war budget and black ops would give all those people in other countries a fighting chance to achieve or recoup democracy and economic sustainability." -- jclientelle
Exactly! That was my point. I'm NOT naive enough to think that all wars would end. Who is? However, as another poster stated, "the U.S. has a finger in every pie."
Thanks, Joe! I've missed your comments.
"The Cold War is over but the USA continues its destabilization efforts in Venezuela and Bolivia, two nations that provide no threat at all to the USA. Mossadegh in Iran, Lumumba in the Congo, Aristide in Haiti, Arbenz in Guatemala--the list could go on and on. Add to that the horror inflicted by the death squad leaders in Latin America trained by the USA at the School of the Americas." -- vox
This is exactly what I meant. I just left mightymite a list of books -- in case he wants to do a little reading, and learning.
A less than mightyrant....even if true WE ARE LEADING THE KILLING BY FAR!!!!!1111....KAY IS THE GREATEST!
Yup. America seems quite obviously to have taken the crown as the #1 blockade to world progress since the events of 9-11, and probably before then.
Our example in the last decade has been the example of a tyrant, and much of the world has unfortunately followed suit. We had an historic opportunity to turn the world to a better outcome at that time, our our nation was blinded by greed and hubris. The US and the planet now will suffer for those decisions coming from the top minds right here in our Capitol.
"A less than mightyrant..." -- Simonsez
Thanks!
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the U.S. does indeed have a finger in every pie.
I used your words -- a finger in every pie -- in my reply to Joe.
Thanks, blessthebeasts!
Mightymite:
Read Naomi Klein's book -- The Shock Doctrine.
See the Patricio Guzman documentary -- The Battle of Chile.
See the documentary -- Our Brand Is Crisis, about the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia.
See Missing -- the Costa-Gavras film.
See Salvador -- the Oliver Stone film.
Read about the School of the Americas, located at Fort Benning, Georgia -- where the Latin American death squads were trained.
Find out who Diane Ortiz is.
Read about Guatemala and United Fruit in 1954.
Read about the coup in Iran in 1953 -- with the brutal Shah put in place as leader of Iran, by the U.S. Blowback in 1979 sent the Shah into exile.
Read the history of the Philippines.
Read Noam Chomsky, read Chalmers Johnson, etc.
I could go on and on, with examples about how to learn more about U.S. foreign policy, and how it affects the lives of people in countries around the world. U.S. foreign policy, with the support of MIC, is deadly to people around the world. And, with more than 735 military bases in 130 countries -- how can you possibly think that the lives of the citizens of the 130 countries are NOT effected by U.S. policies? It's not just the wars we need to bring to an end -- we need to dismantle MIC.
"See the Patricio Guzman documentary -- The Battle of Chile.
"See the documentary -- Our Brand Is Crisis, about the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia."
I seem to have somehow missed those films. I'll definiitely look for them. Another great one is "The Panama Deception," which I think can be viewed online, but on every site I found (quite a while ago) that had it the picture was distorted so I'd suggest the DVD.
Yes, The Panama Deception is an excellent documentary! A few years ago, IFC ran the film several times. I think you're right -- it's on one of the free documentary sites. Here's one link:
http://www.guba.com/watch/3000087090/Panama_Deception_1of3
Mightmite, If you don't subscribe, in your comments to Kay, to the view that the U.S. is responsible for all the wars, killings and thuggery in the world, you had best turn in your left-wing doofus card. All the left-wing doofuses who write on this website believe the U.S. is evil and grasping and the other nations (other than Israel) are pure and deserving. You risk losing your credentials as a left-wingnut if you don't buy the basic tenets of left-wingnutdom.
It is an unfair debating trick to misrepresent what others are saying, and then to attack your own misrepresentation.
Joe
KAY: Thank you for your post, and the deep caring and humanity it reflects. I spend a lot of time thinking of these children, too.
MIGHTY: Kay did not say the U.S. is responsible for ALL the wars, but take a look, pal. Which other country spends as much? Or did you miss the statistical part that reveals that Amerika spends more than the next 8 nations combined? Have you seen France or Germany lead any wars of aggression lately, even if they sent in a few uniformed numbers thanks to Bush's pressure, and/or that of the World Bank or Wall Street's big banker scum?
If your father always beat your sister up, would you defend him as rigorously? Would you want to throw a punch at anyone who questioned you when you'd say, "Gee, Dad, you're the best dad any guy could have!"
In other words, Mighty, your value judgments are always based on extremely selective information. You suit facts to your own pre-determined prejudices. Then you argue for conclusions that lack facts as well as a truly logical determination.
Of course, mightymite missed the rest of the point of my post -- which is to dismantle MIC, and the 735 U.S. military bases in 130 countries. In the meantime, I left him a reading list and a list of films to watch.
Thanks, Sioux Rose, for your response! Balance is the key, and this country is out of balance, and because we are so far out of balance, with death and destruction, the rest of the world, too, is out of balance. The U.S. is the biggest, baddest bully on the block and is so arrogant that our so-called leaders, with their Ivy League degrees, have lost touch with humanity. They believe their own hype. When David Halberstam wrote his book in the late 1960s, the title, The Best and the Brightest, was meant with irony, and even with a hint of sarcasm.
And, you know, like I know -- all the issues are connected: MIC and defense industries, M$M, Wall Street, the banksters and the finance industries; the collapse of our environment and agribusiness, public schools versus private schools, and the list goes on and on and on. It's like the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone, etc. Government, corporations and religion -- all wound up into one big lopsided ball of economic collapse.
As usual, Kay, your comments show both intellect and heart.
Joe
Not to mention a lack of judgment.
Thirty years of tax cuts for corporations and the most well to do in our country, deregulation, privatization, downsizing, globalization, outsourcing, self-regulating, getting government out of the business of business, trickle down and supply side economics, tax havens and break after break and war after war after war, less and less local control of taxes, fewer and fewer and fewer controlling more and more and more becoming greedier and greedier. $$$money$$$ equaling free speech and buying legislators and legislation, courts giving corporations and media the green light to lie and now to torture, take away our rights and purchase our democracy. Now look at the mess we‘re in and the politician’s answer?
Take the food out of the mouth of the needy, cut social security, medicate, pension, unemployment benefits and lower taxes again.
TYBALT: Well-said, and I think Martin Luther King would agree (if he were embodied) with your post, word for word!
VOX: Nicely argued post.
Remember that Tuesday is Soylent Green day!
And this only concerns wage earners. How about the true elite, those who do not earn income from something as mundane as a "job". These families have extraordinary amounts of money coming in - and the tax bite is a whole let less than the top marginal income tax rate. Income is one thing, total wealth is quite another. The chunk of financial wealth owned by the top 1% dwarfs their 24% piece of the earned income pie.
Very commendable Tom and Judy. Too bad your slogan: " FOOD NOT BOMBS " is not our governments goal, but of course that would pretty much eliminate the MIC and the 720 billion dollar Pentagon budget, but it is a nice thought, that if we bombed the world with that same budget with food,shelter and clothing....well like I said nice thought, that we could bomb the world to peace instead to pieces.
The US does not have a "Defense" budget. It is strictly a WAR budget. Atomic bombs, robots, mercenaries all speak to war making.
Kitty Lady: The U.S. does have a defense budget, but not for the defense of the American people. The U.S. does have a defense budget to defend their Empire of Industrial greed and selfishness around the world and for the war mongering profiteers, like the munitions, bomb and missle industry among many others. The defense department should be called the war department and I agree that it should be called the war budget for the protection of the corportocracy.
We even called it the War Department until the early thirties, if I recall correctly.
Guy in Coquille.
This nation, my nation, has become an international exporter of terrorism on a scale never before seen. We are the evil empire. God help us.
There is a point where I can wholly get on board with the criticism of this country's policies and actions. But this is a criticism of what we do, or have become, not what *we are*.
With statements like, "ever since the rogue state of the US was founded on genocide and slavery" you reveal that you don't see the bigger truth: more than simply genocide and slavery describe the character of the people of this nation.
Our history is rife with contradiction. From the beginning, forces of both 'good' and 'evil' have vied for control in the US. But if we're ever going to rally the forces needed to remove the bad who have taken the reigns of power, we must identify with those who oppose them, and more legitimately lay claim to the character of this nation. Your nihilism towards our entire country shows you not to hold the key to our deliverance.
What is good in this country should be praised, and nourished, or surely the good will perish all-together. Then, what point will there be for revolution?
What!??! Mentula secunda! How dare you suggest there is something worthy in the United States? Turn in your left-wingnut credentials! You have betrayed your brethren in the left-wing fringe? You won't be allowed in the day room any more? Your medication will have to be increased.
"Turn in your left-wingnut credentials! "
Sorry, they never issued me any. I was rejected early on.
By the way, are you getting me confused with the Metaluna Mutant? : )
If the MAJORITY of Americans truly cared for one another would we be having this conversation? Methinks that the evidence is all around us that we do not care for one another very much: environmental degradation of a once magnificent land, prison-industrial complex that disproportionately incarcerates people of color, an exploitive and perverse economic system where wealth is distributed to the top, no continual mass protest against abuse and endless wars, shall I go on? The point needs to be repeated that until Americans recognize that genocide and slavery go to the root of what makes an American we have no hope of radically transforming this society. As Che' pointed out the difference between a revolutionary and a thug is that a revolutionary educates and we must all be willing to be educated and to cleanse the collective unconscious of all the race crap it contains.
God forbid, must we again invoke the notion of...
no.
wait...
no.
no.
yes... (!)
.
.
.
LOVE?
Where the hell has it gone?
That's right, it has no place in a people's revolution (sorry I forgot).
Youth, wrote Guevara, “should learn to think and act as a mass.”
Those who “chose their own path” (as in growing long hair and listening to Yankee-Imperialist Rock & Roll) were denounced as worthless “lumpen” and “delinquents.” In his famous speech Che Guevara even vowed, “to make individualism disappear from Cuba! It is criminal to think of individuals!” he raved.
Oh well, I guess I can't get on board with Che. Don't grow my hair long anymore, but I will never just 'shut my mouth' and 'get in line', ever.
And I'm sure he'd love to see how commodified his image has become among 'the anti-idividualist left'.
Not able?
This is the fulcrum of your victory?
Lol.
How about the Declaration of Independence? Could you have done better? Oh, clearly.
I also like the 1st Amendment, and the majority of the US Constitution. I never thought it was perfect, but what on Earth has proven itself to be perfect?
I also could mention MILLIONS of good Americans who have lived, and fought for justice here. Many of them SUCCESSFULLY.
I don't even know why I respond to such ridiculous challenges.
And why is this? Perhaps it is because following Columbus the "beloved" founding fathers of the US and their Puritans IMPORTED terrorism to the shores of Turtle Island. Sure they did not have nuclear weapons and all the other military hardware at the time but smallpocks infected blankets and rifles nevertheless spread terror amongst the natives. What began in terror continues in terror the good people notwithstanding. Just read the stories of the massacre of the Tainos people which Columbus precipitated to be matched, for a few examples, by the massacres in North America of natives a few short years after the first "thanksgiving", the trail of tears of the Cherokee, Wounded knee, and the all too many terrorist acts across this land against the first people. Ward Churchill describes many of these crimes in A Little Matter of Genocide. Then there were the numerous torture devices used against black people they dragged across the Atlantic packed as sardines in slave ships and against their children--many of whom were born by the raping of black women by white overlords-- to keep them terrorized into slavery. This was followed by the KKK nightmare after the slaves' "liberation" which still persists today not to mention their psychical genocide by these white tortures. The US did not "become" an exporter of terrorism in a vacuum.
"The US did not "become" an exporter of terrorism in a vacuum." -- vaialdiavolo
I agree with your post!
How about unemployment benefits paid for by a tax on businesses? See how quickly they let go of that "uncertainty" and start hiring people!
The defense department could and must be drastically cut. I would move to budget the Pentagon down to a triangle. As Dennis Kucinich would say, "Strength through Peace."
In fact, the FUTA tax that funds unemployment benefits is paid by employers only; workers do not contribute to it.
So your idea was tried long ago and it doesn't work.