Thursday July 9, 2009, 8:04 pm
From Breadline USA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger and How to Fix It © 2009 by Sasha Abramsky. Reprinted with permission from PoliPointPress, LLC, Sausalito, CA.

When the Month is Longer Than the Money

Billy MacPherson believed that for many of her friends and pantry clientele “the months are longer than the money.” What little income they brought in each month— from work, from Social Security or disability checks, in food stamps or welfare payments— was never quite enough to last a full four-plus weeks. And so they faced an unpalatable choice: try to stretch the family budget to cover the whole month, which involved scrimping on food and missing meals throughout the entire period, or eat semi-decently for the first two or three weeks of the month and pray that something, somehow, would come about to tide them through the lean times at the end.

Once gas prices started going up, food prices also headed north— at least in part because so much corn and arable land was diverted into biofuel production in response to the energy crunch; in part, too, because oil-based fertilizers soared in price and inflation took root throughout the broader economy. In the last years of George W. Bush’s presidency, that lean period at the end of each month began to grow. Instead of a few days, it became a week; then it became ten days, even two weeks. For low-income Americans, wages and government checks lagged far behind inflation, leaving them little choice but to watch as month after month their never particularly munificent purchasing power collapsed...

Why should you care at all, life is sweet on the far side of the moon!...

Friday July 10, 2009, 7:59 am
This is a warning that U.S.A administration should read the history of the Afghanistan or to ask the British to learn theme that was difficult for england to wen over the poor Afghani people. England was defeated by the Afghani people. Mr, president Obama better to you not follow your promise.Because you and your allies will be Defeated in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama you have to read the history, and you have to learn of it .

Friday July 10, 2009, 8:13 am
Continues to my comment 7:59 am
War in Afghanistan it mens America will spend more money and more poverty in U.S.A. those who believe that they will finish this war whit short time they Ar wrong.

Friday July 10, 2009, 12:39 pm
Unfortunately David (b) the war is here and now...Has been for eons...The wars in Afghanistan/Iraq are only sidelines to the real war...The war against poverty is in your/my own backyard...

Maybe if all who come here and read this story (visit site) will take a check on their priviledged lives and decide that a dollar given to the guy sleeping on a sidewalk near you is a dollar well spent? (But for the grace of God go you)

Don't just step over the guy and pretend hre does not exist, he does...Give him a dollar and give him the courtesy of not walking over his memories, walk around him.

Friday July 10, 2009, 1:35 pm
Too much already?...Try this one for size...

As you brush off a child who begs to wash your car windows as you wait for a red light, or a kid asks to take your shopping trolley, don’t just imagine it being your own child, but see the scientist, the musician, the economist, the community leader, the teacher, whose potential dies in your looking the other way……

The choice is yours… and yours…and yours….
And mine!

We can make poverty history if we want it to be!...Let's do it!

Friday July 10, 2009, 6:09 pm
Great article. Thanks David.

Saturday July 11, 2009, 10:56 am
Great article. I should point out that you cant support yourself as an individual if you make $10.00 an hour you are scraping to get by, cant afford health insurance, and cannot save for retirement. I believe that it is the community's responsibility to HELP individuals with the recources to make a better life for themselves, not rely on the goverment to make up for the difference with programs that are not contigent on useing those resources to put themselves on a path to more secure future. The goverment is not helping these people right now, the money is not getting to the community's that need it even though we have a stimulas plan. We need to stop relying on a bunch of liers and crooks that make up our goverment and as a community care for those around us and help them. By they way, I find it ironic that a counrty with such a high rate of obesity has a hunger problem dont you?

Saturday July 11, 2009, 1:03 pm
Save the corn for food.

USE Hemp,
it groes 15 feet tall and it can be used instead of OIL/gas,
and it could clothe the word, and make bricks/morter for houses,
and can be used to make auto's stronger and lighter than steel.
The Powers that be are treating us like tent stakes,
and they are not finished with us. That's why you probably have a head ache.

They have a plan for us - and we already have one foot over the cliff.

Saturday July 11, 2009, 1:37 pm
There are over 3 million kids going hungry in the US. Our soldiers come home from war and find they are homeless and those are growing in huge unforgivable numbers. It is like the Egyptians killing off the slaves.
I go downtown LA and see all the tents, cardboard boxes and sleeping bags lined up row after row after store closing hours and they are everywhere. The Salvation Army is full to the brim. We do not take care of our own. Many lost there homes because of sickness and the IRS.
There has been talk about the US becoming a 3rd world country. I beg to differ, whenever you have kids hungry and sick or people on the streets you are a 3rd world country!

Saturday July 11, 2009, 1:41 pm
The Cri$tiani$t$ in Wa$hington, DC teach that it's more important to inister to the up and up rather than the down and out ...

Ensign's "C Street House" Owned By Group Touting Plans For Christian World
Control. "The Family" is Associated with Christian fundamentalists who believe that they can achieve world domination by taking over key sectors of society such as business, government, media, and education. Alarmed yet? 7/12

Saturday July 11, 2009, 2:55 pm
Great article. Thank you deraest David!:)

Saturday July 11, 2009, 4:40 pm
When I hear the expression, "We Are Fighting Over There So We Don't Have to Fight Here" I find there is no understanding of what is happening here. They do not have to come here, they are killing and maiming our young people there and bankrupting us while doing it and depriving our poorest population from proper nutrition, education and health care.

Saturday July 11, 2009, 4:50 pm
Shannon, your comment on obesity is not always a valid one and not accurate either. Many times those who eat the most food, amount and calorie wise are the skinniest people out there, and they do the least amount of physical activity or work. Obesity, especially for women in more cases that was once acknowledged by medical personal, comes from quite the opposite. Those who eat less, drastically less that 1000 calories a day, put their bodies into what is referred to as a starvation mode( something we can thank our ancestors for when things were really lean in the past) and their metabolism shuts down to practically nothing. Therefore when they do eat anything, their body stores it as fa,t as the body still thinks food is scarce and therefore it conserves energy, (which is what fat really is anyway-stored up energy) otherwise called calories. I have done this for 47 years, doctors still think that cutting back and doing more is the answer. It is not. Also if a person does not get the recommended amount of proper foods, like fruit and veggies, meat etc, this can also increase the chances of obesity. Food is not cheap in America. I have heard many foreign visitors comment on how expensive food is in America, I will take their word for that as I have not traveled outside this country to compare prices. My doctors recommend 1800-2000 calories a day, yes I am and have always been overweight, and most days I reach less than 500 calories a day. Yet they say cut back-I ask where and tell them I refuse to stop using non-dairy creamer in my coffee in the morning and most the day, as coffee is usually the only thing I have for what most people would call breakfast and lunch. Otherwise it is tea and that has NO calories. No cutting back there not is there doc?Cutting back calories does not stop all obesity, it actually encourages it, ask any nutritionist. Doctors, who do not take nutritional training as part of their education, actually know little or nothing of how this plays out in the human diet. If they have done their homework and actually studied how the human body works should know this and not rely on those who still follow the stereotypes of obesity and have mostly judged their prejudicial views on heresy and not facts. Yes some overweight people actually overeat, but I have worked in the medical profession since 1966 and seem the opposite is most often the case. So next time you see an overweight person, do not be so quick to judge them as over eaters. They may actually be starving calorie and nutritionally.

Blue Bunting: Have seen and heard a lot about this C Street and the Christian Mafia as they call themselves. What a bunch of self-righteous arrogant lowlifes they are and all politicians who are members of this hidden/secretive unethical group should be exposed and not be the ones to dictate laws in this country. They are an example of everything that should be denounced as unethical. I plan of getting a copy of the book "The Family" since it is now out in paperback by Jeff Sharlet. Thanks to Rachael Maddow and Keith Olbermann and MSNBC for the heads up to this groups unethical ways. It just creeps me out that in this day and age groups like that feel they are above the poor and that the way Christianity has been doing things the last 2000 years is wrong and that they are right and that only certain men should have all the money and power and if they feel charitable, which this type of person never does, they can help feed the poor, whom they have taken all the jobs and money from in the first place. WWJD?

Thank goodness I practice the Native American way of spiritual beliefs, share and share alike and that people are all my relations.

Saturday July 11, 2009, 5:01 pm
the illumination foundation reports that in orange county, california, a person would have to work 141 hours a week at the minimum wage to afford a one bedroom apartment. o.c. also has the second highest population per capita of homeless in the u.s., the highest population per capita of millionaires, and a lower than average donation rate to non-profits. i'm so proud.

Saturday July 11, 2009, 5:14 pm
Deborah just because I made a comment about obesity does not mean that I was judging obese people, I was wondering about the statistics. DOnt be so defensive-The major cause of obesity is diet and excersise. There may be some who are obese because of medical problems, not alot of $ to eat,but statisticly that just cant be the biggest reason for obesity. I am overweight and dont have alot of money to eat right but I dont blame my weight on that, I blame it on the fact that it is a combination of NO excersise and the bad diet.

Saturday July 11, 2009, 6:23 pm
Fat people do not come into the homeless discussion ENOUGH! Health authorities begone...

Saturday July 11, 2009, 6:26 pm
accept gentically altered foods on a mass scale and it will dramatically reduce food prices world wide..they can use less water,nutrients and are resistant to a host of diseases and bugs..every country has homeless and hungry people from australia to america and everywhere in between..its a world problem not just americas

Saturday July 11, 2009, 10:14 pm
Do you work for Monsanto Joe?...GM food is still an unknown quantity...And as I see it of no benefit to anyone other than Monsanto? Forget the lies and the rubbish the seed is not replantable...If you consider this to be fair, God help you...

Saturday July 11, 2009, 10:43 pm
Wow, from GM food to obesity all in one discussion. Way to go Blue Bunting, I was wondering how this was going to make it to Care2. Brava!!
David, let's just leave Joe out of the right side, He knows not of what he speaks, unless (wink, wink) he's a Monsanto boy!
Deborah, this just FYI, you seem to like msnbc, did u happen to see the bit about the guys in his 50s on a strict diet for only 8 yrs. now. OK? Today, physically he lost down to 135 lbs. from like 170 (?) and has the stamina, and body muscle etc. of a 20 year old. Great article, see if u can ck. it out if u want.

Saturday July 11, 2009, 11:43 pm
Okay, let's let Joe eat all the FrankenFood.
None for me, thanks.
There's a trend starting on the west coast
of the U.S., spreading elsewhere, though not
fast enough: the "living wage". I'm a native
Southern Californian, I know Orange County
quite well, and I'm shocked to read that a
person would need to work 141 hours a week
at minimum wage to afford an apartment. This
is disgusting!
The other day, I heard a lead-in to a CNN story,
regarding Obama at the G8:
"Today at the meeting of the G8, the world's
eight richest nations,....."
I thought, wait a minute! The United States is
NOT a rich nation! This country is TRILLIONS of
dollars in debt, and if people would shut up about
pop culture, Michael Jackson, Brangelina, etc.,
they'd hear the ice cracking under our feet!
Wake the f*ck up, people, and realise the mess
we're in!!
Thanks, David.
noted.

Sunday July 12, 2009, 11:36 am
By they way, I find it ironic that a counrty with such a high rate of obesity has a hunger problem dont you?

One of the reasons for the high obesity rates in the poor is that the cheepest foods to purchase and fill in the hunger pangs are the processed and high carb foods. When you only have a couple of bucks to feed a family of four, a box of mac and cheese often has to do the trick. Very little nutritional value, but many carbs and calories. good healthy food such as fresh fruits and vegetables as well as meat cost way more than a pack of noodles or a loaf of white bread.

Sunday July 12, 2009, 12:48 pm
Forgive my naievity but why on earth can we not live a reasonably innocent sort of life without having to work our butts off just to put a roof over our haeds and feed ourselves?...Something is very wrong when we can afford to run wars but not feed, educate, provide healthcare for all or house ourselves...Why do we elect a government to strip us of our humanity and feed the crumbs that are left to their corporate buddies?

Simplistically me. D.

Sunday July 12, 2009, 2:36 pm
HR - 2749

Not what the American people ordered - HR 2749, martial law and the enslavement of their farmers
By The Writers' Collective Source: Food Freedom
HR 2749 is a strange bill in many ways. While the other "food safety" bills have been around since winter, allowing for much public discussion on the internet, HR 2749 has only suddenly appeared. It is a mutant conglomeration of the worst of the other bills, with the addition of one very original part - martial law.
When it was a draft, it was Waxman's bill. But once given a number, it became Dingel's who already had a "food safety" bill, HR 759. So Waxman got none and Dingel got two. (Was this because Waxman, being Jewish, was a hideous choice to introduce a bill with Codex in it - designed by the Nazi pharmaceutical companies that funded Hitler, provided the gas for the gas chambers, experimented on prisoners with vaccines - and is expected to kill millions?)
* HR 2749 would give FDA the power to order a quarantine of a geographic area, including "prohibiting or restricting the movement of food or of any vehicle being used or that has been used to transport or hold such food within the geographic area."
[This - "that has been used to transport or hold such food" - would mean all cars that have ever brought groceries home or any pickup someone has eaten take-out in, so this means ALL TRANSPORTATION can be shut down under this. This is using food as a cover for martial law.]
Under this provision, farmers markets and local food sources could be shut down, even if they are not the source of the contamination. The agency can halt all movement of all food in a geographic area.
[This is also a means of total control over the population under the cover of food, and at any time.] See this DailyKos entry.
The bill is unusual, too, because slow as it was to appear. The little bugger of bill has made up for it since. It got a number on June 10, went to committee on June 17, passed instantly, and is headed for a vote on the floor of the House.
The first Patriot Act was passed using fear of terrorism. This Patriot Act is more coy, hiding under a cloak of "food safety" and but also using fear - fear of food contamination. Evidently, Americans are supposed to be so frightened by the slightest possibility of a terrorist or of E-coli, they would trade away all their precious, hard fought freedoms for the promise of safety. Or at least, that is what the trade-off has become. "Terrorism" and "contamination" are great bugaboos used to open doors to an end to the US Constitution. That is exactly what we are left with after those who wrote HR 2749 are done.
Who did write these bills? It seems Monsanto had not only a hand, but a "defining" influence. http://farmwars.info/?p=594
This redefining of reality is what seems to be underlying all the loss of freedom. Normal and free are disappearing into the maw of corporate definitions of reality. See this Yup Farming piece.
So, we begin with contaminated food from filthy corporate processors and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). And what do we end up with after that reality is ground up by corporate legal hands? Changes in the definition of risk so that natural things are treated as dangerous and toxic things are untouched, such that:
Healthy, normal farms are taken over by government as though they were run by criminals and contaminated corporate slaughterhouses are untouched;
The necessary freedom of individuals to live and grow food and be left alone are somehow suddenly destroyed, though they were never the source of any food contamination issue; and such that
The profit and control and power of corporations which were absolutely the source of the increasingly terrible food, is somehow suddenly vastly increased.
Thanks to corporate control over reality, our wanting to clean up corporate processors and feedlots and CAFOS and end up with farmers' markets and local farms and organic food has become the industrialization and potential destruction of every healthy part of the food system and the triumph of the most contaminated and toxic part. And in the non-bargain, we lost all freedoms and they took all control. And "all" is not a hyperbole here, for one need only look at another provision of HR 2749 to feel how insane, how distant from all we ever wanted.
* HR 2749 would empower FDA to regulate how crops are raised and harvested. It puts the federal government right on the farm, dictating to our farmers.
[What is missing in pointing out this astounding control, is that it opens the door to CODEX and WTO "good farming practices" will include the elimination of organic farming by eliminating manure, mandating GMO animal feed, imposing animal drugs, and ordering applications of petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers, thus, will be locked not only into the industrialization of once normal and organic farms but into the forced purchase of industry's products. They will be slaves on the land, doing the work they are ordered to do - against their own best wisdom - and paying out to industry against their will. There will be no way to be frugal, to grow one's own grain to feed the animals, to raise healthy animals without GMO grains or drugs, to work with nature at all. Grassfed cattle and poultry and hogs will be finished. So, it needs to be made clear where control will take us. And weren't these the "rumors on the internet" that were dismissed but are clearly the case?] See this DailyKos entry.
When we wanted not to get E-coli in processed meat, did we intend to put our farmers into corporate servitude? Did we plan to have our own lives straight-jacketed by a million new controls over our own gardens, our own desire to grow food, our own plans to start small businesses, our own dreams to have a small piece of land and farm ourselves? Who has the audacity to take our needs and grotesquely bastardize them in these ways, while giving the destruction and totalitarian control the sham name of "food safety"?
We wanted good food. We never wanted to trap our farmers into an industrial prison on their own land, afraid moment to moment of not fulfilling some monstrous set of instructions that never end - rules the farmers loathe, rules that have not only nothing to do with real farming but which are antithetical to it. Why have we ended up with HR 2749, an intense corporate nightmare around the most central and necessary aspects of a free country and of free human beings - farming and food?
American farming needs to be relieved of the burdens it has been under, not finished off by its corporate competition. It needs freedom to flourish again. Obviously - and Congress people who would think to vote for such absurdities, take note - the imposition of surveillance, monitoring, warrantless entry, taking of all records, licensing, fees, Codex and NAIS, in addition to massive penalties and prison terms (all without judicial review over even appropriateness and validity), are not how one thanks American farmers for holding together the only working part of our food system. See Literal Enslavement by Linn Cohen-Cole.
HR 2749 is the most vicious and insane bill one could imagine. Who treats our farmers in this way? Who believes that such police measures can provide for the rebirth of farming and the return of healthy food? Who wrote this bill that trashes the freedom of all our lives? HR 2749 was not what we ordered and it should be sent back the bowels of hell it came from.

HR 2749 is both insane and cruel. And the deceptiveness of hiding a Patriot Act in it and the brutal rush to slip it through Congress are ANTI-democratic.

Go here to tell Congress, "No."

www.ftcldf.org/petitions/pnum993.php

Sunday July 12, 2009, 4:51 pm
unknown quality food is better than no food ya think'....if you were starvin id like to see just how fast you would eat genetically altered food without a thought...but then again maybe you were never starvin'

Sunday July 12, 2009, 5:49 pm
Thanks David!

Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction because when one does not have enough food in one's belly one is unlikely to be rational about that, or anything else.

Many of the above comments are relevent, however having a legal minimum wage which is lower than the one needed to get by,($6/$10) and inappropriate social security for those who cannot work must surely be top priorities in solving the problem.

Sunday July 12, 2009, 7:24 pm
Poverty is self-imposed and one's own responsibility to overcome. Make yourself valuable, market yourself and work hard and you won't have to worry about poverty. Nobody owes you a living.

Sunday July 12, 2009, 8:03 pm
How utterly idiotic can one be Jeffrey?...I who have nothing adore you...But are you really stupid enough to believe that hard soul marketing is good enough to solve the problem...Some people have no qualifications as such...Not their fault but the fault of a faulty school system...

But then their are none so blind as those who cannot see...And that is YOU my friend! Have a nice day in all your ignorance!

Sunday July 12, 2009, 9:53 pm
Jeffrey's comment is simplistic
nd idealistic.
Joe Jones's comment is just plain
idiotic.
How much is Monsanto paying you, Joe?
Or is it Cargill?
Yeah, I HAVE been "starvin". There have
been times in my life when I did not know
where my next meal was coming from. But,
hunger does not cause a person to lose the
power of rational thought. Even in those times
when I was hungry I would NOT have eaten any
GMO food. And, just for your info, Joe, last
year at a bout this time, for spiritual reasons,
I went on a 12 day fast. Could YOU do that, Skippy?
Lemme know if ya could, and then we'll talk.

Monday July 13, 2009, 7:04 am
I have to disagree David, many people have wonderfull educational opportunities and are living a life of poverty, and on the flip side there are people like myself who have lived on my own and worked full time since I was 15 who are not living in poverty. I worked very hard to make myself a valuable member of society despite my background, and there are many people like myself. There comes a point in time when a person has to take a personal responsibility for a part of their destiny and quit blaming outside influences. Yes, hunger is a problem, yes we need to help, that we can all agree, however blaming one problem completly on a outside influence is not helping the problem. I feel like I can speak to this from a place of truth because of my personal experiences. Poverty may not be the choice of a child, however one of the great things about this country is that one can choose to make a better life as they mature. If a better life is not one in which a person chooses to work for, then yes it is self imposed.

Monday July 13, 2009, 7:42 am
You are one of the lucky ones Shannon...Does that give you the right to look down on those who are not so lucky?...Or indeed please do consider that a free education for all is not freely available to all in your Godamned country?...Some are lucky, some can afford it, some can not!

Monday July 13, 2009, 7:54 am
I am sorry that you felt that my comment came from a place in which you believe that I am looking down on someone, that was not the intent. Because I was one of the lucky ones that means I do not have a truth in my heart about the subject matter? And by the way, who does not have access to education in my country? We can talk about the quality and probably agree that the quality is inconsistant, but who does not have access? Do you have the same experience? You seem like a very well spoken person, did you learn that in school, or did you come from a place in which you had to work hard to make yourself a better life? Please give credit to people who have had the same life experiences of the people that you write such heartfelt things about.

Monday July 13, 2009, 7:51 pm
im glad alot of you think you can decide who eats what...if genetically altered foods could possibly save lives you would withhold it from starving people because you are not sure of its safety even though it could possibly save millions of lives..real smart ideology there..so what you are saying is that you would rather have people starve??

Tuesday July 14, 2009, 6:20 am
Wow. Joe, Jeffrey, and Shannon really now how to keep things..."interesting."

Joe, I'd resort to hunting and fishing (I'm a vegan) before I'd eat the poisonous crap our plutocracy is trying to push off on us.

They WANT us weak and stupid! Wake the "F" up, people!

Wednesday July 15, 2009, 7:53 am
Well, I am not a fan of GM foods but I can tell you that after the 3rd day of nothing to eat I would have eaten almost anything. I too would hunt or fish for food. Well I already do.

Shannon you are so right.