USA sponsors regime change again ??

Nearly 100 leading academics and foreign policy experts signed the letter last Friday, voicing their "deep concern" over the recent events in Bolivia that left dozens dead and cost millions of dollars in lost revenue to the developing nation.

The letter's signers, who represent dozens of top U.S. schools -- including New York University, the University of Maryland, and Johns Hopkins University -- as well as Latin America think tanks and journalists, said they were especially concerned about Washington's support for groups and individuals in Bolivia who are using violent means to oppose -- and potentially overthrow -- the popularly elected government of President Evo Morales.

Since the election of Morales in December 2005, the United States has sent millions of dollars in aid to departmental and municipal governments in Bolivia, but some agencies have failed to disclose who they provided money to, and for what purposes.USAID opened an "Office of Transition Initiatives" (OTI) in Bolivia in 2004, which provided some $11 million in funds to "build on its activities designed to enhance the capacity of departmental governments."In its 2006 report, the OTI said it sought to "[build] the capacity of prefect-led departmental governments to help them better respond to the constituencies they govern," and even brought departmental prefects to the United States to meet with state governors.

Some of the same departmental governments later launched organized campaigns to push for "autonomy" and to oppose through violent and undemocratic means the Morales government and its political platform.

The letter urged Washington to "cease any and all support -- financial or otherwise -- to any group or person in Bolivia and other Latin American countries that engages in violent, destructive, terrorist, or anti-democratic activities such as we have witnessed with great shock and sadness in the past weeks in Bolivia."

US oil corruption

Some US government employees have tried to hide their close association with the industry they were supposed to be regulating, the report says.

The investigation appears to have been prompted by an internal whistle-blower's report in 2006, and concerns activity from 2002 to 2006 by the department responsible for selling the oil and gas the government collects as rent from companies drilling on federal lands.

The report alleges inappropriate behavior by 19 members of the Royalty in Kind program -- about one-third of the department. Some have since left the department, making it unclear what kind of disciplinary action they could be subject to.

The Department of Justice declined to prosecute two former employees named in the report, the inspector general said, without saying why. Another pleaded guilty to a criminal charge.

The investigation turned up e-mails in which MMS employees "preparing to attend industry events used such language as 'this trip is to be kept quiet,' or were asked to RSVP 'in private' by their supervisor," the report says.

One of these employees when asked why they needed to avoid discussing their social activities with industry, he responded with a slight chuckle, 'They might have, you know, contacted the [inspector general],' the report says.

America the Poor

Early each morning these days, the manager of Mendota Food Center on Derrick Avenue in this small community west of Fresno, boxes his aging produce, which he would normally throw away, and leaves it at the back of his store.

Within an hour, the boxes are all gone.

"It shows there's hunger in Mendota, and people will take anything," said Mayor Robert Silva, who manages the grocery store. Some other grocery stores are doing likewise.

The economic downturn, state-enforced water rationing, poor rains, and unemployment have all come to a head here. Now, hunger is sweeping through the community. Town officials are bracing for longer lines at food distribution centers, starting next month, when Mendota's single largest employer, the 42-year-old Spreckles Sugar Company, is set to shut its door.

1st World Wealth , 3rd World Lifestyle

Here in Kerala , South India , i read in the Times
"Soaring food prices have led to a growing number of middle-class New Yorkers joining an unusual organisation that “dumpster dives” in rubbish bins for food.
The trash tours form part of a growing movement called “Freegans”, which is rapidly increasing in popularity as New Yorkers find it harder and harder to make ends meet.
Freegans – a name derived from the words “free” and “vegan” – sift through garbage cans and bin bags in the evenings looking to find edible food and discarded items such as shelving or kitchen appliances that can be reused. ..

..."Harvard University estimated last year that Middle America was suffering its worst financial hardship since the 1950s as families were forced to struggle with rising food and fuel costs, tightening credit conditions, sliding residential property prices and soaring healthcare premiums. "

War is Business

Found here

The USA - international treaties - we don't need to abide by them

The USA again ignores international treaties and international law

Mexico, which has no death penalty, sued the United States in the world court in 2003. Mexico and other opponents of capital punishment have sought to use the world court to fight for foreigners facing execution in the U.S. The international court ruled in 2004 that the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death row around the United States violated the 1963 Vienna Convention, which provides that people arrested abroad be given access to their home country's consular officials. The International Court of Justice, also known as the world court, said the Mexican prisoners should have new court hearings to determine whether the violation affected their cases. That treaty requires that foreign nationals arrested in a signatory country be allowed to meet with a consular official from their home country. It's a tool treasured by diplomats, American and otherwise, worldwide.There is no dispute that the Mexicans on Death Row were't notified of their treaty rights when arrested . The US has since withdrawn from the part of the Vienna Convention that gives the ICJ the final say if foreign citizens say they were illegally denied access to diplomatic representation when arrested abroad.

But the Supreme Court that Texas could ignore the international court's ruling in favor of granting new hearings. The Bush administration claimed a memo signed by Bush had the force of federal law on the state, ordering it to set aside Medellin's conviction. In the opinion released today, it's clear the majority of the court didn't buy that. Moreover, the court seems to suggest that the United States' international treaty obligations don't obligate the country to do very much.The six-justice majority held that the treaties involved were not "self-executing," meaning they required an act of Congress to implement its obligations and give them the force of federal law.

Mexico's foreign relations department said it presented an official letter to the State Department on Monday asking the U.S. to obey the world court's ruling.
"Mexican authorities lament that the Supreme Court's decision has had a negative effect on the cases of seven other Mexicans sentenced to death in Texas," the department said in a statement. "Mexico seeks to guarantee the rights of its citizens on death row ... with the goal of achieving the review and reconsideration of their sentences."

Despite plain language in the U.S. Constitution, which reads, "All Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby." The treaty, which had been signed by the president but not ratified by Congress, did not overrule state law . Chief Justice John Roberts, in telling the president he could not over-rule state courts and order that cases be revisited decided that international treaties are binding only if the treaty clearly says they are or if legislation is passed making them binding. Roberts echoed isolationist sentiments , saying the high court's decision "protects our judiciary from interference by foreign courts."

"Having given its word, the United States should keep its word," Donovan said the lawyer who argued the case on behalf of Medeillin .
Justices Breyer , Ginsberg , and Soutar agree. The court had misread the supremacy clause of the Constitution, which says properly ratified treaties "shall be the supreme law of the land" and that the treaties at issue did not need to be implemented by congressional legislation. "As a result, the nation may well break its word even though the president seeks to live up to that word and Congress has done nothing to suggest the contrary," Breyer wrote.

Just how would America react if the shoe was on the other foot ?

Poor America on Stamps

The number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s. The number of recipients, who must have near-poverty incomes to qualify for benefits averaging $100 a month per family member, has fluctuated over the years along with economic conditions, eligibility rules, enlistment drives and natural disasters but recent rises in many states appear to be resulting mainly from the economic slowdown, as well as inflation in prices of basic goods that leave more families feeling pinched , the NYT reports .

“People sign up for food stamps when they lose their jobs, or their wages go down because their hours are cut,” said director of food stamp policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who noted that 14 states saw their rolls reach record numbers by last December.

In Michigan, one in eight residents now receives food stamps. “Our caseload has more than doubled since 2000, and we’re at an all-time record level,” said spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Human Services.

From December 2006 to December 2007, more than 40 states saw recipient numbers rise, and in several — Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, North Dakota and Rhode Island — the one-year growth was 10 percent or more. In Rhode Island, the number of recipients climbed by 18 percent over the last two years, to more than 84,000 as of February, or about 8.4 percent of the population. New York - one in ten New Yorkers, 1.86 million, now receives food stamps.

The cost of feeding a family of four on a low-income budget has jumped nearly 6 percent since February 2007, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.
"We're just going to see the purchasing power for food stamps continuing to erode, and it doesn't do anything to get commodities up on the shelves in the food banks," said Ellen Vollinger of the Food Research and Action Center
"A lot of the staple items - bread, dairy products in particular - have had a sharp increase (in price)," said Dayna Ballantyne, the Johnson County Crisis Center food bank director. "Across the board, our clients are finding they just aren't able to purchase food like they used to."
The amount of food stamp benefits a family is allowed goes up each fall based on inflation. But that increase is based on an estimate of food costs the previous June, and since last June, food costs have risen 5.2 percent, according to USDA."For our clients that do receive food stamps, the amount of food stamps allocated per household hasn't gone up with the food costs. The food stamps they receive haven't gone as far as they used to," Ballantyne said.

Low-income Oklahomans are harmed more by the nation's declining dollar as food stamps are stretched to cover increasing food prices, the state Human Services Commission was told . "Low-income families paying $4 for a gallon of milk and $2 or $3 for a loaf of bread means those food stamp benefits aren't going as far," Hendrick said. More than one of every three Oklahoma kids received food stamps for at least one month last year. More than 417,600 Oklahomans received food stamps in February , up 21 percent compared with six years ago.

About one in every six West Virginians gets food stamps, the highest level of participation in at least 30 years. 274,487 state residents received food stamps. That's up from 246,890 just five years ago, according to here . But while the number of people on the program has jumped sharply, the federal government has raised the average per-person monthly benefits over that time by just $12 to $85.Meanwhile, the cost of food is expected to jump by up to 4 percent this year,Food costs have been increasing by at least 2.4 percent each year since 2004.Added to that budget strain are record gasoline prices.
Sarah Young, a policy specialist with the Department of Health and Human Resources, says the agency is seeing more of the state's working poor applying for food stamps in order to make ends meet."Even those eligible for lower amounts are coming back onto the program because they have less to spend on food," Young said. "These are historically higher rates. I think even nationwide, we're at our highest rates."
Increased demand on food pantries and soup kitchens seem to indicate that poor families are running out of resources to buy food earlier and earlier each month

New Jersey ranks as the nation's second wealthiest state, but 20 percent of its working families -- the equivalent of 750,000 men, women and children -- don't have enough income to support themselves, according to this report . The number of low-income families in the state has climbed to 200,000, up 16 percent since 2000 .
The report describes as "low income" a family of four that earned less than $39,942 in 2005 . The Economic Policy Institute has calculated the actual cost of living in New Jersey and concluded a family of four requires an income ranging from $49,572 to $57,144 to be self-sufficient
"One in five households may have a livelihood but it is not sufficient to give them a happy and healthy life," The Rev. Bruce Davidson, director of the Lutheran Office of Governmental Ministry said

In its 2007 Nashville Living Wage Estimate, Middle Tennessee Jobs with Justice found a family of two working adults and two children needs to earn a gross minimum of $43,076 to provide for its basic needs. That figure, which amounts to two adults earning about $10.35 an hour, isn't what at least 575,000 of the 1.6 million Tennesseans employed in 2007 were able to find.
As Marxists know "In a marketplace economy, the market sets wages…," said David Penn, director of Middle Tennessee State University's Center for Business and Economic Research.
"One of the most famous phrases in the movement is a job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it," said Melissa Snarr, co-author of the study and an assistant professor of ethics and society at Vanderbilt University's divinity school."Really, what we are talking about here is whether we want work to include justice … or for lots of people who work to have to get by with something like food stamps."
Naivity at its best , really . Wages are set to ENSURE you don't have enough so that you return each week to labour once more - the reason it is described as wage-SLAVERY .

Barack , Race and Class in America

For those of us following the American campaign to the White House and find most commentaries dull, repetitive sound-bites about the personal attributes of the various contenders , such as here ( the unoriginal expose that politicians lie and exaggerate ) , Marx and Coca Cola blog discusses Obama Barack contribution to the debate on class and race in America .

"As long as the working class anger is directed at other races, and not at the capitalist system "[In Barack's words ] a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many." will continue.... There seems to be a movement in thought towards a politics of class. Instead of looking at a world split up between races or genders or civilizations or whatever we need to look at a world divided between those who control the wealth and those that labor to create it. Only if we can unite for our economic interest can we have real change we can believe in."

Green card soldiers - citizens in death

A 100 foreign-born members of the U.S. military earned American citizenship by dying in Iraq. As the war continues, more and more immigrants are becoming citizens in death — and more and more families are grappling with deeply conflicting feelings about exactly what the honor means. (From this article )

Jose Gutierrez , a young ambitious immigrant from Guatemala who dreamed of becoming an architect. In death, the young Marine was showered with honors his family could only have dreamed of in life. His sister was flown in from Guatemala for his memorial service, where a Roman Catholic cardinal presided and top military officials saluted his flag-draped coffin. And yet, his foster mother agonized as she accompanied his body back for burial in Guatemala City: Why did Jose have to die for America in order to truly belong?

As Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who oversaw Gutierrez's service, put it .
"There is something terribly wrong with our immigration policies if it takes death on the battlefield in order to earn citizenship," Mahony wrote to President Bush in April 2003. He urged the president to grant immediate citizenship to all immigrants who sign up for military service in wartime."They should not have to wait until they are brought home in a casket,"

Cpl. Juan Alcantara, a native of the Dominican Republic, was killed Aug. 6, 2007. Buried by a cardinal and eulogized by a congressman .
"What use is a piece of paper?" cried Fredelinda Pena , his sister ."He can't take the oath from a coffin," she sobbed.

Smuggled across the Mexican border in his mother's arms when he was 2 months old, Jose Garibay was just 21 when he died in Nasiriyah. The Costa Mesa police department made him an honorary police officer, something he had hoped one day to become. America made him a citizen. His mother, Simona Garibay, couldn't conceal her bewilderment and pain. It seemed, she said in interviews after the funeral, that more value was being placed on her son's death than on his life.

"Immigrants are lured into service and then used as political pawns or cannon fodder," said Dan Kesselbrenner, executive director of the National Immigration Project, a program of the National Lawyers Guild. "It is sad thing to see people so desperate to get status in this country that they are prepared to die for it."

Nearly 37,000 soldiers have been naturalized. And 109 who lost their lives have been granted posthumous citizenship.The right to become an American is not automatic for those who die in combat. Families must formally apply for citizenship within two years of the soldier's death, and not all choose to do so.
"What good would it do?" Saveria Romeo says of her son, Army Staff Sgt. Vincenzo Romeo, who was born in Calabria, died in Iraq "It won't bring back my son."

Lance Cpl. Jesus Suarez Del Solar was 20 when he was killed by a bomb . His father has become an outspoken peace activist who travels the country organizing anti-war marches, giving speeches and working with counter-recruitment groups to dissuade young Latinos from joining the U.S. military.

The rich get wealthier and healthier

New government research has found “large and growing” disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades.

While life expectancy for the nation as a whole has increased, the researchers said, yet affluent people have experienced greater gains, and this, in turn, has caused a widening gap.

“the growing inequalities in life expectancy” mirrored trends in infant mortality and in death from heart disease and certain cancers.The gaps have been increasing despite efforts by the federal government to reduce them.

Dr. Singh , a demographer at the Dept. of Health and Human Services , said last week that federal officials had found “widening socioeconomic inequalities in life expectancy” at birth and at every age level.

In 1980-82 people in the most affluent group could expect to live 2.8 years longer than people in the most deprived group (75.8 versus 73 years). By 1998-2000, the difference in life expectancy had increased to 4.5 years (79.2 versus 74.7 years), and it continues to grow .

In 2000 men in the most deprived counties had 10 years’ shorter life expectancy than women in the most affluent counties (71.5 years versus 81.3 years). The difference between poor black men and affluent white women was more than 14 years (66.9 years vs. 81.1 years).

18000 Americans killed by insurance companies

The United States is the only major industrialised nation without universal health insurance writes Karen Davis, President of the Commonwealth Fund. The number of uninsured people has increased from 40 million in 2000 to nearly 47 million in 2005.

Gaps in coverage lead to inequalities in access to care, poor quality care, lost economic productivity, and avoidable deaths. The Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 lives are lost annually as a consequence of gaps in coverage.

The problem is getting worse, not diminishing, she warns. The fragmented, uncoordinated healthcare system is plagued by high administrative costs and missed opportunities to control chronic conditions and prevent life threatening conditions.

If the US hopes to achieve a high performance health system that is value for money, it will have to tackle the perplexing problems of access, quality, and cost, and overcome considerable political and economic obstacles, as well as institutional resistance to change, she concludes.

A country in prison

For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison . Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world. According to the report, the inmate population increased last year in 36 states and the federal prison system. The largest percentage increase — 12 percent — was in Kentucky.

The report said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or in the nation's overall population. Instead, it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tough sentencing measures, such as "three-strikes" laws, that result in longer prison stays.

The report said one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in 9 .

50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

"For all the money spent on corrections today, there hasn't been a clear and convincing return for public safety," said the Center on the State's Public Safety Performance Project director .

The United States is the world's incarceration leader, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. It said the U.S. also is the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000) and other former Soviet bloc nations which make up the rest of the Top 10.

"While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." Eugene Debs

Religion Rules - or does it ?

Nearly half of American adults leaving the faith tradition of their upbringing to either switch allegiances or abandon religious affiliation altogether, a new survey finds. More than one-quarter of American adults have left the faith of their childhood for another religion or no religion at all, the survey found. Factoring in moves from one stream or denomination of Protestantism to another, the number rises to 44 percent.

"The American religious economy is like a marketplace -- very dynamic, very competitive," said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum. "Everyone is losing, everyone is gaining. There are net winners and losers, but no one can stand still. Those groups that are losing significant numbers have to recoup them to stay vibrant."

The Roman Catholic Church has lost more members than any faith tradition because of affiliation swapping, the survey found. While nearly one in three Americans were raised Catholic, fewer than one in four say they're Catholic today. That means roughly 10 percent of all Americans are ex-Catholics.
On the Protestant side, changes in affiliation are swelling the ranks of nondenominational churches, while Baptist and Methodist traditions are showing net losses.
Many Americans have vague denominational ties at best. People who call themselves "just a Protestant," in fact, account for nearly 10 percent of all Protestants.Although evangelical churches strive to win new Christian believers from the "unchurched," the survey found most converts to evangelical churches were raised Protestant.
Hindus claimed the highest retention of childhood members, at 84 percent.
The group with the worst retention is one of the fastest growing -- Jehovah's Witnesses. Only 37 percent of those raised in the sect known for door-to-door proselytizing said they remain members.
Among other findings involving smaller religious groups, more than half of American Buddhists surveyed were white, and most Buddhists were converts. It's unclear whether people who called themselves Buddhists did so because they practice yoga or meditation, for instance, or claim affiliation with a Buddhist institution.
More people in the survey pool identified themselves as Buddhist than Muslim, although both populations were small -- less than 1 percent of the total population.
By contrast, Jews accounted for 1.7 percent of the overall population.
The majority of the unaffiliated -- 12 percent of the overall population -- describe their religion as "nothing in particular," and about half of those say faith is at least somewhat important to them.

Atheists or agnostics account for 4 percent of the total population.

Doom and Gloom

"What We’re In For: Projected Economic Impacts of the Next Recession," by John Schmitt and Dean Baker paints a grim economic picture in the event that the United States falls into a recession this year. The report projects the likely effects of a recession in 2008 based on the experience of the last three recessions --the severe recession of the early 1980s, and the mild-to-moderate recessions of the early 1990s and the early 2000s.

Even a mild recession in 2008 would add 3.2 million workers to national unemployment by 2010, according to a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. A severe recession, the group estimates, could make 5.8 million more workers unemployed by 2011. Along with a sharp rise in unemployment, a recession in 2008 would eventually result in 4.7 to 10.4 million more men, women, and children living in poverty, at least 4.2 million people losing health-insurance coverage, and a drop in the inflation-adjusted median family income of between $2,000 and $3,700 per year. The estimated effects would extend as far as 2010 or 2011, depending on the severity of the downturn.

“For financial markets and employers recessions are fairly short-term events,” noted Schmitt. “For labor markets and workers, though, recessions have historically been long and painful.”

Even once financial markets begin to recover, workers will suffer the ill effects of a recession for at least the next 3 to 4 years.

Bush - no cash for kids health

"What a sad day that the president would say that rather than insuring millions of children, 'I don't want to raise the cigarette tax,' " said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

President Bush vetoed an expansion of the federally funded, state-run health insurance program for poor children for a second time Wednesday, telling Congress the bill "moves our country's health care system in the wrong direction."

The bill would have expanded the State Children's Health Insurance Program by adding another 4 million children whose families still can't afford private insurance to the 6 million already covered by the program whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medicaid .

The reform would have been financed by a 61 cents increase in the federal tax on a pack of cigarettes.

Give thanks - for what ??

Some food bank outlets said they would not be able to distribute turkey rations for Thanksgiving on Thursday, because their federal supplies of food had been cut by as much as three-quarters.

Stories of Amrerica's failure to provide adequate amount of food for its citizens have now reached the main media , although you heard it here first .

But just to go over old ground once more the BBC reports Over 1.3 million people, one in six New Yorkers, cannot afford enough food , that the number of people who use food pantries and soup kitchens in the city increased by 20% in 2007 .

The annual survey of food pantries and soup kitchens shows that more working families, children, and seniors are being forced to seek emergency food . 59% of New York's food programmes, up from 48% last year, said they did not have enough resources to meet demand.

The US Department of Agriculture says 12.6 million households nationwide, or more than 30 million people - 10% of the population - did not have enough food at some point in 2006.

According to the Independent Those earning $1million, $10million, $100million have more than doubled over the past decade and the wealthy of America are wealthier than most countries, with the top one per cent controlling $17 TRILLION.

But none of this wealth seems to have trickled down to the poor despite the promises from supply-side economists that it would.

Instead of charity - End poverty

Happy Thanksgiving

Banking on Food Hand-outs

"I'm pretty good at making things stretch as far as I can, but food is so high now and I have to have gas in my car to do my job," said Diana Blasingame, who earns $9 an hour as a home health aide. "I work full time, but I don't have health insurance and sometimes there just isn't enough to pay bills and buy food."

Operators of free food banks say they are seeing more working people needing assistance. The increased demand is outstripping supplies and forcing many food banks to cut portions. Demand is being driven up by rising costs of food, housing, utilities, health care and gasoline, while food manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers are finding they have less surplus food to donate and government help has decreased, according of Second Harvest Foodbanks.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's annual hunger survey released showed that more than 35.5 million people in the United States were hungry in 2006. While that number was about the same as the previous year, heads of food banks say many more people are seeking their assistance.

1,700 local Catholic Charities agencies and institutions served nearly 8 million people in 2006, including 4.1 million living below the poverty line. Catholic Charities agencies are serving a rising percentage of people who live below the federal poverty line, which in 2006 was $20,000 for a family of four. The report found that 52 percent of Catholic Charities clients in 2006 were from below the federal poverty line—up from 43 percent in 2002.
Local Catholic Charities agencies saw a 12 percent increase in the need for food service programs in 2006. Between 2002 and 2006, the number of clients receiving food services—such as soup kitchens, food banks and food pantries, home delivered meals and congregate dining—increased by 2.7 million, or nearly 60 percent.

Almost 1.3 million New Yorkers visited food pantries, soup kitchens and similar programs in 2007, up 24 percent from 2004, according to a report prepared the Food Bank for New York City. New York's food banks have seen federal food aid drop by almost half from 2004 level.

Ross Fraser, a spokesman for America's Second Harvest — The Nation's Food Bank Network, the nation's largest hunger relief group, said Friday. ""We have food banks in virtually every city in the country, and what we are hearing is that they are all facing severe shortages with demand so high...One of our food banks in Florida said demand is up 35 percent over this time last year."

Tony Hall, vice president of the Food Bank of Southwest Georgia, estimates a 10 percent to 20 percent increase in demand for food in the 20-county area the organization serves. "...Each year the demand gets bigger and bigger."

" We've lost factory jobs and many service jobs don't pay a livable wage," said Dick Stevens, director the food and nutrition division of Hocking-Athens-Perry Community Action, in southeast Ohio. "We see a lot of desperation in families who are trying to figure out how to pay higher fuel and utility costs and still put food on the table."

Liz Carter, executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul food pantry in Cincinnati , said "... it's so difficult when you see the desperation and have to tell them you just don't have enough to give them what they need."

"We're bracing ourselves for a very tough winter, especially with home heating fuel prices at record highs in the Northeast," Quandt said, of the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York , "People living in poverty or near poverty just can't sustain those types of increases."

Nor is it only a food shortage crisis . It is homelessness .


Shelters are already reporting more need among households.

One shelter in Minneapolis served as many people by the end of September as in all of last year. For the first time in 10 years, a homeless shelter in Joliet, Ill., is full, said Lorri Nagle, director of development at the Catholic Charities USA agency . Requests for temporary shelters increased 24 percent over the past five years. In 2006, Catholic Charities managed more than 176 temporary shelters (nearly 7,800 beds). Yet they were unable to serve more than 31,000 people because all available beds were full.




And we are told capitalism is the system that works and satisfies needs !!

American Nightmares

Touched on the American Dream and the lack of thereof for many of the black population but of course the real American nightmare is not simply restricted to race .

Michigan, by some calculations, has lost 400,000 jobs in the past seven years. That's in a state whose population is only 10 million. Detroit is seeing unemployment running at nearly 8%, twice the national average. The number of homes in the city "foreclosed" - or repossessed by mortgage lenders - is among the highest in the country. An economic storm is hitting this state - falling property prices, a credit crunch, a shrinking tax base and rising oil prices.

"This is ground zero when it comes to poverty..." an organiser at Gleaners Community Food Bank, a charity which provides food to needy people, reported .

A marked increase in the number of professional workers who are seeking food assistance.

Daniel Wolfe worked in civil engineering for 22 years. He lost his job eight months ago. Daniel had been earning $90,000 a year . Daniel and Cynthia thought of themselves as middle class. He was laid off when the state government cut back on contracts to private companies. His unemployment benefits expired. Much of that money had been spent on trying keep up the family health insurance. And his savings disappeared . In the course of eight months, Daniel and his family have gone from prosperity to poverty. Daniel and his wife Cynthia collect free groceries from a charity food bank .

"To find myself in a position where I couldn't afford a gallon of milk, I couldn't afford a loaf of bread - it was very humbling," he says. "For want of a better term it made me feel like a loser...I think we're on the poverty line right now..."

So will Michigan's pain spread to the rest of the country?

"Keep an eye on Michigan . I believe what's happening here could happen to the rest of America ..." - Augie Fernandez at Gleaners food bank

Hat-tip to PB at World Socialist Movement Forum for link

Sick and Forgotten

Previously posted was how the US treats its loyal ex-servants in the military at Homes Fit For Heroes .

But it doesn't stop at lack of homes . 1.8 million veterans or 12.7 percent of non-elderly veterans had no health insurance in 2004, up 290,000 since 2000, a study found.

Of the 1.768 million uninsured, 645,628 were Vietnam-era veterans while 1,105,891 were veterans who served during other eras including the Iraq and Gulf Wars. Of the medical uninsured veterans, 56.5 percent were older than 44.

More than 26 percent of uninsured veterans reported that they had failed to get needed care due to costs; 31.2 percent had delayed care due to costs; 49 percent had not seen a doctor within the past year; and two-thirds failed to receive preventive care.

Nearly two-thirds of uninsured veterans were employed. The report states that many uninsured veterans are barred from VA care because of a 2003 Bush Administration order that halted enrollment of most middle income veterans.

“Since President Bush took office the number of uninsured vets has skyrocketed, and he’s cut eligibility, barring hundreds of thousands of veterans from care,” said Dr. David Himmelstein, co-author of the study and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. “This administration has put troops in harm’s way overseas and abandoned them and their families once they got home.”

Is it no wonder then that the US military is experiencing a "suicide epidemic" with veterans killing themselves at the rate of 120 a week, according to an investigation .

At least 6256 US veterans committed suicide in 2005 - an average of 17 a day , with veterans overall more than twice as likely to take their own lives as the rest of the general population.

While the suicide rate among the general population was 8.9 per 100,000, the level among veterans was between 18.7 and 20.8 per 100,000. That figure rose to 22.9 to 31.9 suicides per 100,000 among veterans aged 20 to 24 - almost four times the non-veteran average for the age group.

"Those numbers clearly show an epidemic of mental health problems,'' veterans' rights advocate Paul Sullivan said .

There are 25 million veterans in the United States, 1.6 million of whom served in Afghanistan and Iraq . Having served the interests of US capital they are discarded .

The American Dream - Whites Only

Black Americans are failing to climb the social ladder, while a worrying number born into the middle classes are now actually poorer than their parents, according to a study .

The report found blacks were missing out on a cherished American dream that their children will be economically better off.

"Children from middle- and upper middle-class black families experience a generational drop in income that is in sharp contrast to the traditional American expectation that each generation will do better than the one that came before it,"

Two out of three Americans who were children in 1968 grow up to have higher income than their parentsbut less than a third of black children born in the middle classes do better financially than their parents.
Being born into a financially secure home is no guarantee of dying in one, with blacks enjoying significantly less economic protection than white peers .

"A startling 45 percent of black children whose parents were solidly middle income end up falling to the bottom income quintile, while only 16 percent of white children born to parents in the middle make this descent,"

Median black family incomes in 2004 were $35,000, compared with $60,000 for whites of similar age, and almost one-quarter of blacks live below federally defined poverty lines, three times more than whites. There has been the decline in the relative economic well-being of black men , which got worse between 1974 and 2004. In fact, black men now in their 30s earn roughly 12 percent less than their fathers' generation.

"In terms of absolute, relative and integrated mobility measures, white children have substantially more upward mobility than black children of comparable incomes,"