greed bothers me terribly

the only way i can feel guilt free is to take myself completely as possible out of the equation.  if europe is taking food out of the mouths of the world’s poorest- you can bet we are too.  it disgusts and revolts me.

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blog action day 2008

blog action day is october 15 this year and the theme is poverty- sign up over at the blog

A chicken in every worthy pot…

Let’s jump right on in, shall we?

A year ago most folks would have thought that the outcome of the presidential election was going to hinge on the war and that economic concerns would be left to state and local campaigns…but a lot can change in a very short time. Now that everyone and their dawg is waking up to the economic trauma that has been in the works for years (wince), campaigns are scrambling to develop messaging around the economy that they won’t turn into policies they’ll have to eat should they get elected.

This bitch is always concerned about the economy. I don’t know a lot of folks with a safety net and months of savings…my circle is made up of working, hard working Americans (wink). When prices go up and income remains flat we all feel that shit and struggle to adjust. The same is true of the organizations that I volunteer with - money gets tight and folks are no longer able to make donations.

A recent news report on the increased use of gleaning by food pantries got a bitch thinking about those people who are feeling the squeeze for the first time. Many people now face hunger who never thought they’d be in that situation. The number of Americans receiving food stamps is at a record high as folks struggle to pay for housing, utilities and fuel only to find themselves unable to put a meal on the table. I would hope that this new economic reality would at least help bridge the gap of understanding that exists between the haves and have nots, but too often news reports center on the notion that hunger isn’t supposed to happen to “these people.”

You know who I’m talking about…educated, working, clean, articulate, solid people aren’t supposed to be on food stamps. Right? Those working, hard working Americans have kept their side of the bargain and they deserve better…they’ve earned a full stomach and a roof over their head…misery is the wages of sloth!

And who is hunger for…who deserves poverty? Oh yeah, those other people…those lazy people…those willfully ignorant people who aren’t happy unless they are asking for a hand out or getting a free ride.

Right?

Wrong.

Most of us could be at risk in a matter of weeks if not days. A job gets cut…a child gets sick…a car breaks down…a bill comes due…and suddenly you’re short the money for groceries with no available credit and no one to turn to. With so many of us are living paycheck to paycheck, slight shifts can have a huge impact on our lives and our ability to survive without some manner of assistance.

Yet even now…even with more Americans applying for food stamps or visiting food banks they use to donate to, losing their homes or having to adjust where they live to fit their new economic reality and cutting back on everything but the basics…even now the idea persists that hunger is what you get when you don’t do the right things and that poverty happens to those lazy people who deserve it.

Sigh.

I used to think that the trick to spinning economic policy was to make the masses believe in the possibility of there being a chicken in every pot.

But mayhap the actual trick is to make them believe that those with empty pots don’t deserve chicken…

Crossposted from The Angry Black Bitch.

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childhood poverty

making good mondays- carol gee- has a post up on childhood poverty. i find it interesting- but not surprising- that the south dominates the childhood poverty rates. it is appalling to me with my tax rate that new york is also in that category.

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Revolutionary Consciousness

We like to demonize revolutionary consciousness as some sort of Marxist nation building concept. The idea of conscious choice to revolution, framed by communist concepts, must be bad, since everybody learned at the knee that commies were unsavory.

Of course, the epitome of revolutionary consciousness was Jesus Christ. Now, there’s a guy who stirred a nation (actually nation after nation) to action. He woke up minds, got people asking questions, shook up the status quo. He did this not by force, but by personality. Very, very scary concept to those who despise inspection and crave hierarchy.

Probably why there was such a concerted effort to build a religious hierarchal structure of biblical proportions. These damned revolutionaries, messing up a good thing.

Same wool, different eyes.

This country is coming up on something huge, and I don’t think we’re talking about it in any meaningful fashion. I’m talking about food, being hungry, and desperation. We’re far enough removed from the Great Depression that we can somehow romanticize men leaving families they can’t support to ride on trains and watch their dignity roll away from them like so much track. There is some level of lewd satisfaction in women trading sex for food, for other women to be held up as worthy for feeding hobo’s from their farm kitchens. We create pictures to sum up an era we didn’t experience.

We have no personal benchmark for the pinch of an underfed belly.

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the power of- one

[youtube]f9trcgiULW4[/youtube]

one.org

another reason to think before you buy

“June is the wet season in Ghana, but here in Accra, the capital, the morning rain has ceased. As the sun heats the humid air, pillars of black smoke begin to rise above the vast Agbogbloshie Market. I follow one plume toward its source, past lettuce and plantain vendors, past stalls of used tires, and through a clanging scrap market where hunched men bash on old alternators and engine blocks. Soon the muddy track is flanked by piles of old TVs, gutted computer cases, and smashed monitors heaped ten feet (three meters) high. Beyond lies a field of fine ash speckled with glints of amber and green-the sharp broken bits of circuit boards. I can see now that the smoke issues not from one fire, but from many small blazes. Dozens of indistinct figures move among the acrid haze, some stirring flames with sticks, others carrying armfuls of brightly colored computer wire. Most are children.
Choking, I pull my shirt over my nose and approach a boy of about 15, his thin frame wreathed in smoke. Karim says he has been tending such fires for two years. He pokes at one meditatively, and then his top half disappears as he bends into the billowing soot. He hoists a tangle of copper wire off the old tire he’s using for fuel and douses the hissing mass in a puddle. With the flame retardant insulation burned away-a process that has released a bouquet of carcinogens and other toxics-the wire may fetch a dollar from a scrap-metal buyer.
Another day in the market, on a similar ash heap above an inlet that flushes to the Atlantic after a downpour, …”

read rest here

cross posted at life’s journey

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Rep. Julia Carson..

Rep. Julia Carson has died at the age of 69.

Rep. Carson was the first woman and the first black person to represent Indianapolis inCongress.

She championed children’s rights, women’s rights…was an advocate for the homeless and worked for peace rather than war.

As Senator Bayh (D-Indiana) said…“She was elected to important public offices, but never forgot who she was, where she came from or who she was there to serve.”

May we all be inspired to do the same…

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Pander first…govern never…

The Angry Black Bitch rips Governor Matt Blunt a new one, and Buddha knows this fuckwit deserves it! Please visit Shark Fu at her blog here-Dusty

Missouri’s nightmare, Governor Matt Blunt, has shown his natural ass…again.

Baby Blunt formed a…well, he’s calling it a task force on the impact of abortion on women.

My people call it bullshit.

The so-called task force is stacked with anti-choice activists. Basically, this anti-abortion gathering is setting out to prove themselves right…and, if Baby Blunt had a fucking clue, he’d know that nothing shat out from this beyond partisan gathering of agreeables is going to be taken seriously.

Cough.

A bitch can’t help but think that mayhap Mr. Blunt Trauma isn’t certain what to do with his time or perhaps he doesn’t realize that there is plenty of other shit he really might want to look into.

Like the shit that has resulted from his inability to govern the state.

Blink.

How about I offer up some suggestions?

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Introducing This Election’s Swing Vote

This post is reprinted with permission from MovementVisionLab.org. It’s a vitally important topic for the coming election year. You can watch the Heartland Presidential Forum in it’s entirety here. They also have portions of this forum on their YouTube channel here. The Forum was held in Iowa on December 1st and five of the Democratic candidates(Edwards, Obama, Kucinich, Dodd,Clinton) attended. -Dusty

This past weekend more than 3,600 people braved an ice storm to attend the Heartland Presidential Forum at the HyVee Hall in Des Moines, Iowa. The event, launched by the national Campaign for Community Values, hosted five Democratic presidential candidates’ and featured an unprecedented format that gave everyday people the opportunity to speak directly to the candidates about issues that matter to all Americans.-Martin Matishak

Introducing This Election’s Swing Vote
Posted by: Sally Kohn , December 05, 2007

Real people and real issues will be front and center at the next presidential election.

It’s rare that everyday Americans take center stage in the presidential election. News pundits and political consultants are more concerned with the sex lives of the candidates than the real stories and real issues of voters. But this election, everything will change. Real people and real issues will be front and center. And if the candidates listen closely, they’ll hear a new story of hope and possibility for the future of America.

The American people are tired of the politics of division and isolation. For too many years, politicians on both sides of the aisle have told us we’re on our own, that we have to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, that it’s an us-against-them world and selfishness and greed are our best defense. But the politics of isolation have only led to a broken economy and a broken social safety net, division between nations and division between communities. We, the people, have had enough. It’s time for a new politics in America.

This past Saturday December 1, in Des Moines, Iowa, more than 3,600 people packed a crowded hall in Des Moines, Iowa, to hear everyday Americans tell their stories to five of the top presidential candidates. At the Heartland Presidential Forum, Senators John Edwards, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd and Hillary Clinton and Representative Dennis Kucinich did more listening than talking as real people finally took center stage in this election.

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green job corps

“Green-Collar Jobs Campaign
The “green wave” is coming. A new, multi-billion dollar economic sector is emerging, bringing new opportunities in green construction, clean technology, urban agriculture and energy.

Our goal: ensure that this green economy is strong enough to lift people out of poverty.

Green-Collar Jobs Campaign creates opportunities in the green economy for poor people and people of color through policy advocacy, public outreach, and an employment pipeline - the Green Jobs Corps.”

i thought that this idea is fantastic! what if each community started working on a branch? it may not save the world instantly, but each step we take now invests in future generations. we can’t rely on the government- the corporations don’t care about saving our posterity. this is cutting edge and we should promote programs like this as an alternative to the status quo that isn’t working in the 21st century.

tags: environmental programs, fighting poverty, self sufficiency, employment opportunities disadvantaged youth

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people who think

there are many things that puzzle me but one that has continuously perplexed me is the complexities of the american ghetto. i still wonder how one of the richest countries on the planet can have such places- and how we can continue to live happily and wilfully ignorant that there are indeed folks in this country who are desperately poor and starving. yes, we do have a homeless problem. rather than get into that can of worms in this post, i want to highlight someone who i think should get a nobel prize or something- because he has a really, really good idea. how good an idea? a reallllllly good one. i doubt like hell it will catch on- but it is still something worth promoting and jumping on the bandwagon about. here it is- i won’t even paraphrase:

“Mr. Jones, who heads the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, which helps kids avoid jail and secure jobs, has an idea how to change that — a “green-collar” jobs program that focuses on underprivileged youth. I would not underestimate him. Mr. Jones, age 39, and a Yale Law School grad, exudes enough energy to light a few buildings on his own.”

read the article here at alternet

tags:environment, innovative thinkers, progressive movements, ella baker center for human rights, human rights

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more good news

anonymous donor gives $100 million to community
“Erie was once a bustling iron and steel town, and later also made machinery, plastics, paper and furniture. But many factories eventually closed or moved overseas. The paper mill, which employed more than 2,000 people in the 1950s, shut down in 2002 after more than 100 years in business.

The city has a growing service industry and has tried to remake itself as a tourist destination with a new slots casino. But its poverty rate is about 19 percent, or twice the national average, median household income is $31,196, versus $48,451 nationally, and as of 2006, it had an estimated 400 homeless people.”

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audacity

Audacity. This is one word that can be used when describing the basic mold of the United States of America. It means the quality or state of being audacious and having intrepid boldness. Someone who exhibits audacity is said to have a bold or arrogant disregard of normal restraints . This definition, according to Merriam-Webster.

 

I think it was audacious to come to this land in 1620 and look around and decide that it was okay to just start living here. I know the Native indigenous people welcomed the pilgrims on the Mayflower, but they overstayed their welcome and were audacious. They boldly and arrogantly tried to tell the original inhabitants of what we now call the United States that the way they were living was wrong and that they would help them become ‘civilized’. The pilgrims brought their organized religion right along with syphilis and other diseases. The civilization they saw as lacking in the Indian community was there, but not to the acceptance of the pilgrims. They sought to change it. They assessed that surely a race of people could not be happy living like they were.

 

This theme has been hammered out by many countries in the world, but not knowing or having studied the entire history of the world, I can’t tell you who did what and where. There was the Inquisition-Catholics killing anyone that did not accept their faith. There were the Crusades- another attempt at making pagans toe the line in matters of religion, economics and lifestyle. But no one seems to have been more audacious than the USA, and the attitude follows through to everyday Americans in everyday situations throughout this country. It is spread throughout the world by Americans. It is spread throughout a community. It is spread in individual homes. This bold arrogant way of telling people how they must live. Forcing down their throats what we think best for them.

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Going to hell in a handbasket–Musharraf style

The newest country to impose martial law is Pakistan. Following a fine tradition started eons ago, General Perez Musharraf has used the time-honored excuse that the citizens of Pakistan need protecting from themselves. I think the timing is suspect, based on the fact that this week the Supreme Court of Pakistan was going to hand down a decision that would basically make General Musharraf an illegal president in that country. So far as I have been able to determine, we have handed roughly $10 Billion taxpayer bucks to Musharraf over the recent past. I thought I would check out how many dictators the U.S. has propped up over the years..and let me tell you..it’s a lot my dear reader.

As I googled my way around the internets, looking for a comprehensive list of heathen, murdering dictators who were or are beholden to the U.S. or our Corporatocracy for giving them millions if not billions of American tax dollars..I was amazed and impressed at the length and breadth of the list. Now, bear in mind that the US, or our Corporatocracy for that matter, have not supported ALL dictatorships, thank Buddha for that! But still, what I could find was at least 42 non-democratically elected dictators that loved the democracy known as the United States of America for various reasons. I will now actually list those guys and their country of origin for you:

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