Poverty

Republicans And Food Stamps: “Red” States Are The Major Beneficiaries, And Their Supporters Seem Unaware What Republicans Are Doing To Them!

Ronald 12 Comments

The Republicans have declared war on “Food Stamps”, and have called Barack Obama the “Food Stamp” President!

While promoting all kinds of support for the corporate world, Republicans are out to promote massive cuts to people who are expected to feed themselves in a way no civilized person in America would want to be faced with! To hell with a balanced diet and nutrition, and therefore the promotion of bad health habits, which lead to medical problems, for which many will not have health coverage if one leaves it up to the Republicans and conservatives!

So people should starve, because they are “bad” people for being poor, and their children should do without adequate nutrition, which is impossible on the present Food Stamp benefit, before any further cuts!

But this is all veiled by the belief of conservatives that MOST of the recipients of food stamps are African American, Hispanic and Native American, and are located in “Blue” Democratic states in the major urban areas of the nation.

The facts are otherwise, as the vast majority of people on Food Stamps are white, are single females and their minor children, and live in Republican “Red” states in the South, Great Plains and Rocky Mountain areas of the nation!

So it is the “Red” states that are the real “welfare” states on Food Stamps and other benefits for the poor, and it is in these states that ignorant, uneducated, and clueless people vote Republican, without awareness of what the GOP is trying to do—make the lives of poor women and children, as well as elderly and disabled, heavily white populations ever more difficult!

This is all mind boggling, and one wonders when these poor whites will get the message as to what the party they vote for is doing to them and their children’s future!

The Ultimate Price For Being Poor: Exposure To Dangerous Chemicals And Other Life Threatening Industrial Pollution

Ronald 4 Comments

Only if someone has struggled in life can one fully realize what it means to be poor, but once a person is fortunate enough to escape poverty, often they do not wish to remind themselves of the tough times.

But there are nearly 50 million people–men women, children, the elderly–who live in poverty, and besides lack of adequate housing, medical care, food supply, and lack of hope—also end up living in dangerous areas near chemical and other industrial plants, spewing forth poison in the air, soil and water supply, even with so called regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency, which faces constant attacks by Republicans and conservatives, who do not care about the life threatening effects of such industrial pollution on the poor who live nearby!

The story of the explosion at West, Texas is a good example of this, with a Governor, Rick Perry, who is against federal regulation and controls, and has advocated secession, showing no concern about the need for greater regulation and greater oversight, as Texas is a prime example of a state which every day shows its contempt for its poor, including refusing to expand Medicaid!

It is unconscionable for a state and a Governor to take such an immoral stand, and yet constantly invoke Jesus Christ in their utterances!

This is the ultimate indignity for the poor, to hear the pontificating of the politicians about Jesus Christ, and yet recognize they do not care one whit about the lives of 50 million people in any way, including the reality and the dangers of industrial pollution!

Consumer Confidence At Highest Since 2008: Economic Boom Is On!

Ronald 21 Comments

The stock market is really booming as the author writes, and new surveys demonstrate that we are in the midst of an economic revival, the greatest in the past five years!

Housing prices have risen dramatically after a long decline, rising 10.2 percent in the first quarter of 2013, and the highest since 2007!

Consumer confidence in the future, an important psychological barrier, also reached a five year high, with growing confidence about an improved job market, something that has taken a long time, just as it did in the Great Depression of the 1930s!

Consumer spending is more than 10 percent above 2009, and unemployment compensation claims are down, other good signs of a rapidly improving economy!

All this is happening, despite Republican attempts to stall a recovery, in order to wage war on President Obama, as they have demonstrated no concern about the average middle class or poor American, and continue their image of being out there for the elite two percent and the corporations!

Republicans Are Declaring War On Students: Doubling Of Student Loan Interest A Month Away!

Ronald 14 Comments

The Republican House of Representatives has voted to allow a doubling of student loan rates on July 1, and unless they change their tune, that is what will happen, as action needs to be taken to prevent an automatic increase!

This is a new declaration of war, adding to that on women, immigrants, racial minorities, labor, senior citizens, the poor, the middle class, and the environment!

Bob Dole and other sane Republicans of the past generation KNOW that the GOP is on a maniacal path, which leads to long term doom for the party of Lincoln, TR, Ike, and Reagan! The GOP is committing suicide, but meanwhile, is making victims of vast numbers of the American people!

States Refusing To Expand Medicaid Are Victimizing The Poorest, Saying Their Lives Do Not Matter, Only That They Are Born!

Ronald Leave a comment

It is amazing how states that are anti abortion are also, in many cases, very willing to victimize the poor, once they are born, by refusal to expand Medicaid for the most needy!

So the idea seems to be to make sure everyone is born, and then you are on your own, as far as health care, if you are unfortunate enough to be the poorest in our society in those states, all of which are “red” or Republican states!

Among the states that will punish people who are poor, include:

Texas
Florida
Georgia
Alabama
Louisiana
Mississippi
Kansas

Altogether, about half the states will resist Medicaid expansion, and therefore determine that the lives of the poor who have no medical coverage do not matter!

And IF these people go to emergency rooms, they will get minimal care, and it will cost more than covering them under Medicaid!

So people who believe in the “right to life” are willing to see lives shortened, as long as they are born! After that, you are on your own, including children and the elderly!

What hypocrisy on the part of these state governors and legislatures, and the Republican Party, and yet the people in those states vote Republican out of ignorance and promotion of racism and nativism!

Absolutely unbelievable! Is this the kind of country we want to live in and promote for the future? The concept is maddening!

The Heritage Foundation, Jason Richwine, And Racist Report On Hispanics And Latinos!

Ronald 4 Comments

Jason Richwine wrote a doctoral dissertation at Harvard University, accepted despite its racist, bigoted assertions about Hispanics and Latinos, and somehow, received a Ph. D. from the number one university in the nation!

Harvard should be ashamed of itself, for granting the doctorate for such a piece of garbage, and the professors on that committee have lost all credibility, no matter what else they are known for and have published, and this coming from an individual, myself, who had to please a distinguished committee of three professors, before gaining the honored degree 38 years ago, and then, publishing a revised edition with Johns Hopkins University Press six years later!

The Heritage Foundation is a despicable right wing organization, and just looking at who its leader is, former Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, already is telling, as he is one of the absolute worst Senators in the history of that legislative body, and is the heir, in many ways, to John C. Calhoun and Strom Thurmond!

So now it is Hispanics and Latinos who are “inferior” and have “low IQs”, instead of past groups said to be so, including Native Americans, African Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Polish Americans, Jewish Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans and every other group one can imagine!

The fact that it is poverty and deprivation and discrimination, that make it difficult to succeed in the short run are now being used to make broad judgments on an ethnic group, ironically the fastest growing group in American society!

Jason Richwine is a disgrace, and should have his doctoral degree revoked, and it is good to see that he resigned from the Heritage Foundation, but he will probably go to some other right wing organization, or end up on talk radio, and be defended by the likes of Michelle Malkin, a Japanese American, who became originally noticed for her defense of the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II!

The right wing knows no limits, and no insult is enough, beginning with our first African American President, and fighting against the tide of the American future, by attacking Hispanics and Latinos, who are smart enough to realize that the conservative movement and the Republican “Neanderthals” have no concern about their status and future!

So let the right wing continue to advocate its poison, and the response of Hispanics and Latinos will be overwhelmingly what it was in 2012, 70 percent and more for the Democrats and the progressive future, which wishes to advance the “American Dream”, rather than deny it to new generations by racist hatred!

Republican National Committee Report: “Too Old, Too White, Too Insular”, But Is Change Of Tone Enough?

Ronald 86 Comments

The Republican National Committee has come up with a 100 page report, making clear that the party is in deep trouble because it is seen by the general population as “too old, too white, too insular”, and that a change of “tone” is needed!

Actually, the report does not go far enough, as the party is also seen as a party that is against women, against Hispanics and Latinos, against African Americans, against Asian Americans, against the younger generation, against gays and lesbians, against the poor, against the working class, against the middle class, against the environment, against labor unions, against science, against the environment—while being pro the top two percent, pro corporation, pro foreign policy interventions overseas, pro extreme right wing evangelical Christianity, pro gun rights, and condemning of the news media, the universities, and the entertainment industry!

The GOP has a need to change a great deal, but based on the Conservative Political Action Conference display of its motivations and statements, and the embarrassment of many of the speakers, including Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann among many others, their road back to majority status is a very long one, and possibly will never occur!

The Most Victimized Group In American Society: Single Mothers

Ronald 7 Comments

When one looks at American society today, it is clear that it is single mothers who are the most victimized group in America.

Single mothers exist in such large numbers because the concept of being married before having children has long been played down as an ethical and moral standard.

Conservatives, Republicans and highly devout Christians and Jews also preach that every time a fetus is conceived, the mother should carry through to term, which often leads to poverty and deprivation for the child and the mother.

Of course, also there are women who are abandoned by their boyfriends or their husbands, or are divorced or widowed, leaving them with the total task of bringing up their children.

And statistics show the following realities:

Single mothers have triple the poverty rate of the rest of the population.

One fourth of all mothers are single women at one time or another.

Half of all children will spend some time in a single mother household.

Single mothers have the highest rate of low wage employment.

Single mothers have the highest wage gap.

Single mothers have the lowest net worth and the highest chance for bankruptcy.

Half of all households since the year 2000 are led by a single mother.as the breadwinner.

All this is reality as conservatives and Republicans look to do the following:

Slash welfare programs; cut enforcement of child support; limit child tax credits; work against protection of women from sexual and emotional abuse; and overall, blame single mothers for all the wrongs of society!

So, in other words, make sure you have all pregnancies go to term, but do not expect government to assist in making life easier for single mothers, god forbid! And do not promote birth control, as that is against the natural order of things, interfering with God’s Plan!

Expect single mothers to pay child care costs, clothing costs for work, transportation costs to get to and from work, and blame them when their children may turn out to have lack of supervision, which may lead to membership in gangs and other socially unacceptable activities, which may lead to crime!

And of course, single mothers are often subject to violence and abuse themselves, as there is no sense of honor or respect for the amazing job that 99 percent of these single women of any race accomplish, despite an anti women attitude by so many politicians and conservative ideologists!

Until this major social ill is confronted and dealt with through compassion and reaching out, the plight of single mothers and their children will continue to be a serious crisis in America’s future!

The Right Wing Attack On Everything Imaginable!

Ronald 20 Comments

The Right Wing media propaganda machine has become “expert” at attacking everything imaginable that they consider to be “liberal”, “progressive”, “socialist”, “communist”, or any other left wing ideology they can dream up, and managing to put all of these widely differing philosophies together as stereotypes.

So in no special order, the following have come under attack in a vicious manner over time:

Welfare recipients
Food Stamp recipients
Uninsured people
The Homeless
The Poor
The Unemployed
Foreclosed Homeowners
The Working Poor
The Working Class
The Middle Class
Social Security
Medicare
Medicaid
Teachers
College Professors
Liberal Intellectuals
Liberal News Media
Hollywood
Firefighters
Police Officers
Public Service Workers
Labor Unions
Voting Rights
Women’s Rights
Undocumented Immigrants
Gays and Lesbians
Muslims
Environmentalists
Civil Rights Groups
Civil Liberties Groups
Planned Parenthood
Federal Government Agencies
National Public Radio
Public Broadcasting System
ObamaCare
Science
Hillary Clinton
Michelle Obama
Joe Biden
Barack Obama

Probably some have been left out, but this is a list which demonstrates the total negativity of the right wing, and why America is rejecting them in their voting behavior!

Total Poverty, Deprivation, Lack Of Safety Net For Substantial Numbers Of Americans The Reality: The “American Dream” Denied!

Ronald 12 Comments

Despite the denial and lack of concern of many conservatives and Republicans about the tremendous maldistribution of wealth which has developed in the thirty two years since Ronald Reagan came to the Presidency, new statistics indicate just how desperate many Americans are, and how that desperation is particularly obvious in the South and in the Southwest parts of the United States.

Nearly half of US households, containing about 132 million Americans are in a dire situation, where they do not have any emergency funds for as little as three months, if a natural disaster, medical emergency or sudden unemployment occurred.

Think of the mental anguish these people go through if any of the above emergencies suddenly arise, with a feeling of no hope, and the possibility of homelessness, total destruction of personal credit, and the likelihood of becoming sick from stress itself!

Thirty percent of Americans do not have a savings account, and eight percent do not have any bank account at all.

In ten states, the poverty and hopelessness of a substantial part of the population is most evident, including in order:

Nevada
Georgia
Mississippi
Florida
Arkansas
North Carolina
Tennessee
New Mexico
Arizona
Louisiana

Notice also that only three states of these ten listed are “Blue” or Democratic (Nevada, Florida, New Mexico), while the other seven are “Red” or Republican.

With so many people in these states and others having little or no health insurance coverage, and low wage jobs predominating, and high credit card debt levels, one wonders how these unfortunate citizens cope with waking up daily, with such gloom and doom on the horizon! The “American Dream” is being denied!