Category Archives: Homelessness

The Real Hunger Games.

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What’s your definition of a third world country?

When I was a child (far too long ago) third world countries were defined as those that didn’t produce enough food for their own citizens. I remember photographs of these faraway places…photos of people with blank stares and bellies bloated by starvation. If I failed to clean my plate, I was reminded that children in China were starving. (I never quite understood how my cleaning a plate helped the Chinese, but I felt sorry for them anyway.)

Today, many of those going hungry are right here…in the United States!

According to the directors of a new film, A Place at the Table, 50 million (1 in 6) Americans, including 17 million children, don’t have reliable sources of food. 1 in 2 American children will need food assistance in their lifetimes.

These aren’t the lazy layabouts who suck off the government teat that Teapublicans want you to think they are. More than 80 percent are from working families. The parents simply don’t earn enough to pay for rent, for clothes, for day care, for school books, for transportation and for food.

How is this possible in America?

It’s made possible by politicians who continue to cut taxes for the wealthy and powerful; by corporations that pay millions to CEOs and poverty level wages to workers; by politicians who refuse to raise the minimum wage even though it has lagged far behind inflation; by politicians who believe in corporate welfare but not human welfare; by politicians who want to balance the budget by cutting food stamps and access to medical care rather than our bloated defense budget.

We can change this.

We can donate to food shelves. We can volunteer to help those in need. We can support government programs to help raise families out of poverty. We can make certain that anyone who is willing to work can afford a roof over their heads and food on the table. We can demand that our politicians prioritize people over corporations. We can demand that they put people above partisanship; children above debt reduction.

We can end hunger in America. 

When Did It Become Patriotic To Avoid Paying Income Taxes?

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Mitt Romney has been smart and very lucky.  The son of a famous father, he has used his privileged childhood and education to make millions – often by bankrupting companies and offshoring American jobs.  To make himself even wealthier, he also offshored his money in Switzerland, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg.

That allowed Romney to pay income taxes at a rate of less than 15 percent in 2010. Now insiders from Bain Capital claim that Romney didn’t pay any income taxes at all for at least 10 years before that!

No wonder he doesn’t want to release those tax forms.

But Teapublicans don’t see anything wrong with such behavior.  Many even claim that it’s patriotic to avoid paying taxes.  Seriously?  That’s your definition of patriotism?

You can ignore the sacrifice of soldiers who have served 5, 6 or more tours of duty in a war zone?  You can ignore those who take less than they deserve to serve soldiers in Veteran’s hospitals?  You can diminish those who work long hours for little money to teach children?  You can ignore those who risk their lives to save others as first responders?

None of that is patriotic according to Romney’s supporters.

According to them, true patriotism is squeezing every possible dime from your tax form.  It’s cutting food stamps for the poor.  It’s turning your back on homeless veterans and homeless children.  It’s allowing thousands to die each year for lack of access to healthcare so you can buy another vacation home or a bigger yacht.

If this is the Republican definition of American patriotism, it’s time for the party to crawl into the deepest recesses of history.

Teapublican Lie #21.

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“Teapublicans are pro-life.”

I guess it depends on whose life we’re talking about.

Yes, Teapublicans do protect the unborn by fighting all abortion, even if carrying the child to full-term endangers the health of the woman. But, after the child is born, as far as they’re concerned, it’s on its own. For example, Teapublicans have opposed or cut funding for stem cell research that could save lives, even if the stem cells are taken from umbilical cords after the birth of a child.

Teapublicans have opposed or cut funding for so-called “Welfare Moms” that would help to feed and house children. They have opposed funding for SCHIP, the federal program that provides healthcare to children of those living below the poverty line. They’ve opposed the extension of unemployment benefits forcing many families into homelessness. They’ve opposed programs such as Early Childhood Family Education. They’ve opposed sex education, which might result in fewer unwanted pregnancies and abortions. Indeed, they’ve opposed education in general, as evidenced by their draconian cuts to the funding of public education in virtually every “Red” state.

What Teapublicans do favor is easy access to guns which result in the homicides of more than 12,000 Americans annually. They also seem to favor war, such as the “blood for oil” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which have killed tens of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan children, not to mention more than 4,600 US troops.

So even though Democrats favor a woman’s right to choose when it comes to her own body, tell me. Which is the true pro-life party?

World’s Greatest Nation? Really?

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Although many Americans are fond of calling the US the greatest nation on Earth, that hasn’t been true for many years. Certainly we have the world’s most powerful military, but that’s no criteria for greatness. Neither is the fact that we are still the world’s richest nation, despite the downgrade in our credit rating by Standard & Poors.

But greatest?

Does a great nation tolerate an ever-widening gap between billionaires and the working poor? Does a great nation leave tens of millions of its citizens without access to health care? Does a great nation allow millions of its children to be homeless? Does a great nation allow its education system to become third-rate? Does a great nation allow its infrastructure to decay and collapse merely to give another tax cut to large corporations and the wealthy?

Does a great nation use its financial and military power to prop up brutal dictatorships around the world? Does a great nation bankrupt the small farmers of neighboring countries by subsidizing corporate farms then demonize those farmers when they cross the border looking for jobs? Does a great nation demean those who labor to build things with their hands, to put out fires, or to teach its youth? Does a great nation begrudge a comfortable retirement to its elderly? Does a great nation allow large corporations and the wealthy to elect its politicians?

How can a nation be called great when it rewards greed and corruption? When its judicial system rules that corporations have rights superior to those of its citizens? When its financial institutions are allowed to grow so large they are immune to failure from their own mistakes? When its corporate lawyers are tasked with seeking out financial and legal loopholes that allow their clients to game the system? When its politicians are more concerned with scoring political points than the welfare of its voters? When its citizens are more interested in the antics of its celebrities than those of its government? When it allows its previous leader to run up a huge debt, and then blames the leader who inherited it?

We didn’t need Standard & Poors to tell us that our nation is on the verge of bankruptcy. When it comes to fairness, ideas and ethics, the US has been on the verge of bankruptcy for many years.

What will be the Boomers’ legacy?

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The generation that began with so much promise – helping to improve civil rights, volunteering for the Peace Corps, and forcing an end to the Vietnam war – is now at a crossroads.  As we reach retirement age, the Baby Boomer generation has to consider what our legacy will be.  Will we be remembered for the aforementioned accomplishments?  Or will we be remembered for unparalleled greed, selfishness and hate?

The answer depends on what we do next.

You see, I believe that Boomers have enjoyed advantages few other generations have.  Unlike our parents, Boomers have enjoyed relative peace and prosperity.  Most of our parents worked hard and scrimped to send us to college in record numbers.  Many of our parents passed along modest estates.  And, unlike our parents, we didn’t face great economic hardships until late in our careers when our retirement funds should have been nearly complete.

Our generation has enjoyed rising salaries, inexpensive food, and inexpensive energy.  Our taxes have been lower than previous generations, so we have had the opportunity to keep more of our earnings.  We have had more machines to help with our labor.  We have had more leisure time.  We have traveled more.  And we have had more options for entertainment.

The real question is, what have we accomplished as a result of all these advantages?

We have consumed a disproportionate amount of the world’s resources.  We have polluted the planet, resulting in dramatic climate change.  We have failed to address poverty and hunger in our own country, let alone around the world.  And though we contributed to the end of the Vietnam War and the Cold War, we have opened new battlefronts in the Middle East to protect our oil interests.

So now what?  As we reach retirement, will we display the greed and contempt for the poor as the Tea Party has done?  Or will we devote at least some of our retirement to charity?  Will we help end poverty in the U.S. and the world?  Will we make health care affordable for all – not just the wealthy and the connected?  Will we find ways to curb pollution?  Will we force our corporations to pay their fair share of taxes and create jobs in our own country?  Will we finally level the playing field for minorities and women?  Will we find ways to end homelessness in our own nation – find shelter for the approximately 2 million homeless children?  Will we contribute to the rebuilding of our crumbling infrastructure built at such sacrifice by our parents and grandparents?  And will we properly fund education, so our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will have many of the same advantages we enjoyed?

Our generation has the education, knowledge, experience and resources to accomplish great things and to achieve a legacy comparable to “The Greatest Generation.”

But, although I’m hopeful about our generation’s legacy.  I’m not optimistic.

Homeless in the good ol’ USA.

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A couple of weeks ago, CBS’ 60 Minutes ran an incredibly touching segment on homeless families.  Scott Pelley assembled a diverse group of homeless children and asked them a series of questions about their circumstances.  They responded by talking about going to bed hungry, the effects of homelessness and hunger on their studies, the shame of feeling different than “normal” kids and their sense of guilt from feeling as though they are a hardship on their parents.

The impact of the segment was both heart-wrenching and utterly maddening.  Despite our current economic problems, we are the richest nation on Earth.  Yet we not only seem to accept the reality that a large segment of our population is struggling to get through each day without proper food, health care or a home.  Some of our right-wing politicians and media pundits even seem determined to blame them for their problems.

They’ve blamed homebuyers for being tricked into unaffordable home loans.  They’ve tried to block unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed.  They have called the unemployed lazy.  And they’re trying to repeal (or at least de-fund) the health care bill that will make affordable health care accessible to all Americans.

If these politicians can watch a few of the 16 million impoverished children in America talk about their struggles and still continue to attack programs that could make the lives of these kids better, it’s time for these politicians to go.

Yesterday couldn’t be soon enough.

The no-it-all party.

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As Republicans continue to attack President Obama over the lousy economy they, themselves, created, it becomes painfully obvious that they have no compassion, no ideas, no shame and no clue.  They keep serving up the same failed theories and rhetoric that got us into this mess. 

In their minds, the economy would recover if only the Democrats would provide more tax cuts for the wealthy.  At the same time, Republicans are attempting to stonewall any attempts at regulating Wall Street or reforming the runaway health insurance industry.  In their view, the “free” market and deregulation are cure-alls for anything that ails our economy.

But before anyone wants to sign onto their Reagan-inspired trickle-down economic theories, let’s look at what this kind of thinking has brought us over the last 30 years of Republican leadership:

1 – More than 14 million Americans are currently unemployed, and Federal Reserve Chairmen Ben Bernanke blames the continuing high level of unemployment on the too-big-to-fail banks for failing to make loans to small businesses, the engine that drives our economy. 

2 – 49 million Americans, including 17 million children, currently lack adequate, consistent access to food. 

3 – The VA estimates that 131,000 veterans are homeless on any given night and 18 veterans commit suicide every single day. 

4 – Nearly 47 million Americans lack health insurance.  Of those, nearly 45,000, including 2,266 veterans, die each year for lack of access to health care. 

5 – In what used to be a sight seen only in third world nations, thousands of American citizens have stood in line for free health care because they lack insurance.  More than 8,000 stood in line to receive health care in Los Angeles alone.  Many were turned away.  1,000 recently stood in line for free health care in New Orleans and there are similar free clinics scheduled in Little Rock, Kansas City and other U.S. cities.

These are not the kind of problems that will be solved by more tax cuts for the wealthy or further deregulation of our greedy, ship-the-jobs-off-shore industries.  They require substantial commitments of tax dollars, along with fresh ideas and political will, neither of which are currently available from the Republican Party.