Feeding America: The Class War Comes Home

“The” Economy is recovering….they tell us.

But our economy is not.

While the Fat Cats and Banksters and Vampire Squids are back to harvesting huge salaries and bonuses for producing absolutely nothing and acting as a parasite on our nation and the world….ordinary Americans are starving.

Not just “poor” Americans, or Lower Class Americans, or Ghetto Americans, but a shocking number of regular, formerly Middle Class, Americans have been added to those who have always had to wonder where their next meal is going to come from.

We have, over the years, grown callous to the needs of the poor. They have always been excused away by the American Calvinist ethic that God made them poor and so poor they shall stay. Foundations and Institutes study them, spend money studying them, but the problem never seems to go away. It never seems to go away because in the American system of Capitalism, it is accepted that there will be a Lower Class…and even a class below the Lower Class. They are considered the “collateral damage” of Capitalism. For there to be “haves” there have to be “have nots.” And as soon as belts get tightened, it is the have nots that get thrown under the “collateral damage” bus with nary a thought.

But that is ok, the poor are used to being hungry, and we are used to the poor being hungry, no big deal, nothing to get too upset about, this is the way it has always been. The $200 of Food Stamps or so the poor get to feed themselves for a month is plenty right? Even though the Banksters easily spend that on a lunch meeting. we are  used to a certain percentage of Americans being poor and hungry. But when the hunger spreads outward and upward, it is time to get alarmed.

Now hunger has come to Middle America as well. In order for the parasitic paper pushers of the Ruling Class to prosper, someone has to suffer. For them to have more and more, more and more people have to have less and less. No longer content to have the suffering be confined to the Lower Classes and the poor, Wall St and their Corporate Masters have turned their sites on the Middle class. First by destroying the greatest force known for establishing a Middle Class ever created, the Unions.

It seems hard to believe these days, but at one point in America one Union member alone could support his family, (and yes it was ‘his’ back in those days) own a car and a home….and afford health care. And save (remember ‘saving?’) for retirement.

Then the Golden Age of American Corporatism began. In order to harvest even more obscene profits from the field of American labor, first Unions were destroyed, then jobs were outsourced, and then the coup de gras, Wall St wiped out nearly everyone 401k’s and and retirement funds.

Now it takes two parents working long hours just to make ends meet, and more and more often, those ends just cannot be made to meet, no matter how hard a family works. Health Care is a myth, retirement a dream.

Now even finding enough food to feed our families is a monumental task, we count ourselves lucky…or should…to have a job. Since we have to be grateful for jobs we are willing to work longer hours, to do the work that two people used to do, to work longer hours for less money.

All while the Ruling Class enjoys the largest income and wealth disparity in modern history.

The system that was designed to fail the Lower Class and the poor has now failed the Middle Class. And now growing numbers of the Middle Class are in line for food along with the Lower class and the poor….IF they can find a line. If they can find good people willing to help.

Good people like the ones at Feeding America. And now it is time for YOU to help THEM help the hungry. Because there but for the Gods of Union Busting, Outsourcing and Financial Manipulation, “they” could be you and your family. If you don;t help them, who is to say that someone will be there to help you, if you happen to be the next unlucky victim of the “recovery” of our economy.

So please….help.

Please donate through this link and your contribution will be matched!

Please watch for the upcoming diaries on Daily Kos in this great series, organized by rb137, and go rec the diaries already up!

Saturday, Nov 21 (all times EST):

11:00a — blue jersey mom

2:00p — Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse

5:00p — buhdydharma

8:00p — JayinPortland

11:00p — rb137

Sunday, Nov 22 (all times EST):

11:00a — noweasels

 2:00p — TheFatLadySings

 5:00p — Timroff

 8:00p — teacherken

11:00p — boatsie