Republicans refuse to address child hunger outside of telling
Americans to work longer hours for less pay and be happy they get paid
at all…
America is a wealthy, if not the wealthiest, nation
when compared to every other industrialized nation on the planet, but
the preponderance of wealth is held by the notorious one percent and the
military industrial complex. Still, with all the wealth available the
nation’s infrastructure ranks 25th in the world, tens-of-millions Americans live in extreme poverty, and only one nation on Earth has more children going to bed hungry every night of their lives than in the richest nation in the world.
It seems that a couple of times each year since Republicans destroyed the economy, another world agency condemns
America for human rights violations against its own people and yet
Republicans cannot or will not be bothered to reverse the trend of
creating an entire nation of peasants barely surviving. Instead of being
respected as one of the world’s leading humanitarian nations, the
United States has become the object of pity, scorn and even ridicule
among other industrialized nations for abusing its own citizens while
Republicans call their handiwork exceptional and pledge to bring more
shame to a once proud nation.
Since no amount of pleading from President Obama and
Democrats to help Americans by addressing hunger and income inequality
Republicans seem intent on increasing, a group of activists thinks they
can shame Republicans into changing their evil ways. It is admirable
that some private citizens have taken matters into their own hands to “shame”
Republicans into action. But they are not going to do anything
whatsoever to reverse the dire situation their trickle down austerity
has produced and put an end to hunger in America; the groups’ efforts
are futile and their mission is doomed.
One of the groups, Great Nations Eat, is a non-profit organization that started a “hard-hitting media campaign using an unusual and highly provocative ad campaign” to move Americans to force Republicans to act. Great Nations Eat and Share Our Strength hoped to “raise
awareness that every day in America, one-fifth of the population has no
idea where their or their family’s next meal might come from.” The founder and CEO of Share Our Strength, Billy Shore, stated the obvious: “That doesn’t happen in any other developed nation. It shouldn’t happen here.”
So, since Republicans willfully refuse to do anything whatsoever to
reduce hunger and poverty because they are busy increasing both, it is
left to altruists to engage in a monumental exercise in futility
producing documentaries about the plight of hungry Americans.
One of the filmmakers involved in making the documentary, “A Place At the Table,” Lori Silverbush, justified the groups’ efforts thus:
“In 1968, the CBS documentary ‘Hunger in
America’ transformed the national conversation about hunger, and we all
but eradicated it by the late 1970s. But we’ve moved backwards. Now, it
is our turn. Great nations are capable of great acts. We have millions
of dollars in donated media, now we need the powerful voices of
Americans crying out for change.”
The documentary is made up of citizens of other,
very poor countries, offering to help hungry Americans and wondering why
this happens in the richest nation on Earth.
Of course America has moved backwards. It
is exactly what Republicans have been screaming they and their hateful
supporters want for over six years; to “take their country back.”
Although they ramped up their efforts after Americans elected an
African American President, their evil crusade to create a nation in
poverty began when their man-turned-god and B-movie actor Ronald Reagan
was pretender.
According to the executive producer on the film, Tom Colicchio,
“If you look at the public health issues the
government has solved before like yellow fever and cholera…these are
issues that we thought were just crises of the poor, issues of the inner
city. As a great nation we resolved to end them, and we did.”
The silly ignorant altruist assumes that America is
still a great nation, and although that might have been true 40 years
ago, Republicans have worked
tirelessly to erase any greatness America once had. A nation of
racists, religious extremists, and warmongers is not great; just
exceptionally and structurally violent toward its own citizens. In fact,
this group’s belief that the only solution is shaming Republicans to
reduce hunger and care for America’s starving citizens is proof that
where greatness is concerned, America rivals Somalia and Yemen.
Since the end of June of last year, Great Nations Eat created a “media blitz across virtually every type of print, broadcast and digital platform”
that resulted in about one billion views over a six-month period. The
groups’ effort included enlisting “campaign partners” such as the
high-profile international advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty
and numerous film industry, creative and marketing partners. The
results of their efforts have not swayed Republicans who instead made
plans to eliminate what remains of America’s paltry anti-poverty
programs, have kept wages low and corporate profits raging, and refused
to consider making any increase in the minimum wage.
As the group notes, this gross income inequality and
hunger problem could be solved easily, but Republicans have zero
political will to even address the issue outside of telling Americans to
work longer hours for less pay and be happy they get paid at all. The
real goal of Great Nations Eat and Share Our Strength was, at the very least, to use a massive media campaign to raise awareness and send a wake-up call to the people to “humiliate and shame Republicans who have ignored the problem of hunger for too long.”
It is sad that these groups, although
well-intentioned, actually believe that Republicans can be humiliated
and shamed for ignoring the “problem of hunger” when the Republican cabal is
well aware that a third of the population is hungry and a quarter of
the nation’s children go to bed hungry and live in dire poverty; they
just do not care. More telling, actually, is that their base of support
does not care even though more often than not the base is suffering from
Republicans’ refusal to address hunger or poverty.
Republicans know tens-of-millions of Americans are hungry, just like they know the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission has condemned America
for criminalizing homelessness, withholding food and shelter from the
poor, and in many states making it a crime for private citizens to feed
the homeless; a move that is wildly popular among the base. It is true
that Republicans are “gutless puppets to the billionaire investor class and corporations,” but they would not be in power without ardent support from their hateful, compassionless base.
It is refreshing that private groups have spent a
fair amount of money to reach a billion human beings in hopes of shaming
Republicans into addressing hunger and poverty in America, but their
money would be better spent providing materials for food banks and
homeless shelters. Because no matter their good will and intent in
trying to humiliate Republicans for deliberately creating the conditions
that have sent so many Americans into poverty and hunger, all they
likely did was encourage Republicans to build on their trickle down
success and bring more “pity, scorn and even ridicule” on Americans who will never wise up and help themselves at the ballot box.
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