Exponentially Rising Hunger in America

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

How is it possible that anyone could go hungry in the world's richest country?

The scourge of neoliberal indifference toward public welfare caused the disturbing reality.

It's the American way, supported by both right wings of the one-party state — Dems as dismissive toward what just societies cherish as Republicans.

The nation's resources increasingly go for global militarism, endless wars on humanity, enforcing homeland police state harshness, and open-checkbook handouts to corporate America.

Ordinary people have no say over how they're governed, no way to secure "the General 

Welfare (and) Blessings of Liberty" as the Constitution mandates.

Nor can they "petition the Government for a redress of grievances" so fundamental rights guaranteed by the nation's founding document are enforced.

The nation's ruling class ignores them, serving themselves and other privilege interests at their expense.

That's what "America the beautiful is all about" — enforced by police state harshness "from sea to shining sea."

The American dream is a mirage — an insult to the hungry, food insecure, homeless, and impoverished. 

Only asleep can ordinary people believe it, as the late George Carlin explained.

Operating nationwide, Feeding America (FA) "is the nation's largest domestic hunger-relief organization."

It expressed shock "that anyone in America" goes hungry." Yet it's a national epidemic at all times — today at an unprecedented level because of economic collapse, the nation's ruling class making an untenable situation worse by indifference toward vital public needs.

In a late May report, FA analyzed hunger and food insecurity "for the overall population and children by state, county and congressional district."

At a time when America's billionaires never had things better, FA estimates that about 54 million people in the world's richest country (1 in 6), including 18 million children (1 in 4) face the specter of hunger.

FA CEO Claire Babineaux-Fontenot said the following:

Economic collapse in the US triggered by COVID-19 "continues to impact the lives and livelihoods of our neighbors nationwide, putting millions of additional people at risk of hunger while continuing to hurt people already familiar with hardship," adding:  

"The long-term effects of COVID-19 may be substantial, but the Feeding America network of 200 food banks and over 60,000 partner food pantries and meal programs has a footprint in every community to help serve our neighbors during this time." 

"(F)ood banks are facing a 'perfect storm' of surges in demand, declining food donations, fewer volunteers and disruptions to our operating procedures."

It's an untenable situation made worse by no help from Washington to address the most basic of public needs.

Hunger and food insecurity are highest in inner-city America, communities ravaged by unemployment, underemployment, and deep-seated poverty in more normal times — conditions far worse today because of economic collapse.

America's least advantaged communities have endured over a decade of main street Depression conditions — festering today at an unprecedented level in the United States of I Don't Care.

They're exacerbated by neoliberal harshness when greatly enhanced social justice programs are needed, along with federal jobs creation initiatives.

What's vital at a time of great public duress is ignored by the nation's ruling class, things likely to worsen ahead, not improve, the nation's most disadvantaged hardest hit with no relief coming.

Will it take a national convulsion, far exceeding what's now going on nationwide, to change things?

Self-liberated from slavery, noted abolitionist, statesman, and social activist Frederick Douglas explained the following:

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will."

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress…Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."

"The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions…have been born of earnest struggle."

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle." 

Nothing in America will change without sustained mass activism in the streets nationwide for equity and social justice denied the vast majority Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow Americans by the nation's ruling class.

A nonviolent/ordinary people-led social revolution for transformational change is needed.

It won't come any other way — from the grassroots bottom up, never top down in the US or anywhere else.

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

"How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War"

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

"Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity"

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/