09/22/2013 archive

Anti-Capitalist Meetup: The Personal, the Political, and the Poverty of Children by Le Gauchiste

“Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders. Knows remembers believes a corridor in a big long garbled cold echoing building of dark red brick … where in random erratic surges, with sparrowlike childtrebling, orphans in identical and uniform blue denim in and out of remembering but in knowing constant as the bleak walls, the bleak windows where in rain soot from the yearly adjacenting chimneys streaked like black tears.”

–William Faulkner, 1932

“Infants process a great deal of information through mechanisms involving procedural memory and begin to assemble their repertoire of survival-based learning long before conscious memory is developed.”

— Robert Scaer, 2005

Child poverty is a form of child abuse perpetrated by society as a whole on its most vulnerable, helpless members, and its effects are permanent and devastating. After reviewing some newly released data on child poverty in America, this essay discusses some of the devastating impacts of child poverty on a personal level.

Even as mainstream economists tout macro-economic data showing the economy picking up steam, poverty in the U.S. remains stubbornly high, according to data released last week by the Census Bureau.

For the eleventh time in twelve years, poverty has worsened or gotten no better. The official poverty rate–which greatly understates actual poverty–remains at 15%, meaning that 46.5 million Americans are living on less than $18,300 for a family of three, including 21.8% of all children (16.1 million kids), 27.2% of African-Americans, 25.6% of Hispanics and more than 28% of people with disabilities.

That’s $6,000 a year per person, or $500 per month. Try living on that some time and then tell me, like that entitled billionaire boob Michael Bloomberg, that America’s poor aren’t really poor.

From 2000 to 2012, poverty increased overall by 3.7%, and by 5.6% among children, even as median income for non-elderly households fell from $64,843 to $57,353, a decline of $7,490, or 11.6%.

In 2012, more than one-third (34.6%) of all people living in poverty were children, including 37.9% of black children and 33.8% of Hispanic children. The poverty rate for families with children headed by single mothers was 40.9%, and of the 7.1 million families with children living in poverty, 4.1 million (57.7%) are headed by a single mother.

But nearly half of the poor-43.9% or 20.4 million Americans-live below one-half of the poverty line, or $9,150 for a family of three. Thus 6.6% of the total population lives in “deep poverty,” including 7.16 million children.

Also remaining stagnant last year at 106 million Americans was the number of those living in “near poverty,” below twice the poverty line-less than $36,600 for a family of three. This means that more than one in three Americans are either already poor or are living one catastrophe-a job loss or serious illness-away from poverty.

“Personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time. There is only collective action for a collective solution.”

Carol Hanisch, 1969

Rant of the Week: Stephen Colbert, The Word: The Guilted Age

The Word – The Guilted Age

As more Americans apply for food stamps and disability benefits, conservative pundits and independent crusaders believe it’s good to shame them.

On This Day In History September 22

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

September 22 is the 265th day of the year (266th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 100 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issues a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which sets a date for the freedom of more than 3 million black slaves in the United States and recasts the Civil War as a fight against slavery.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, shortly after Lincoln’s inauguration as America’s 16th president, he maintained that the war was about restoring the Union and not about slavery. He avoided issuing an anti-slavery proclamation immediately, despite the urgings of abolitionists and radical Republicans, as well as his personal belief that slavery was morally repugnant. Instead, Lincoln chose to move cautiously until he could gain wide support from the public for such a measure.

In July 1862, Lincoln informed his cabinet that he would issue an emancipation proclamation but that it would exempt the so-called border states, which had slaveholders but remained loyal to the Union. His cabinet persuaded him not to make the announcement until after a Union victory. Lincoln’s opportunity came following the Union win at the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. On September 22, the president announced that slaves in areas still in rebellion within 100 days would be free.

The Emancipation Proclamation consists of two executive orders issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. The first one, issued September 22, 1862, declared the freedom of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America  that did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863. The second order, issued January 1, 1863, named ten specific states where it would apply. Lincoln issued the Executive Order by his authority as “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy” under Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution.

The proclamation did not name the slave-holding border states of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, or Delaware, which had never declared a secession, and so it did not free any slaves there. The state of Tennessee had already mostly returned to Union control, so it also was not named and was exempted. Virginia was named, but exemptions were specified for the 48 counties that were in the process of forming West Virginia, as well as seven other named counties and two cities. Also specifically exempted were New Orleans and thirteen named parishes of Louisiana, all of which were also already mostly under Federal control at the time of the Proclamation.

The Emancipation Proclamation was criticized at the time for freeing only the slaves over which the Union had no power. Although most slaves were not freed immediately, the Proclamation did free thousands of slaves the day it went into effect in parts of nine of the ten states to which it applied (Texas being the exception). In every Confederate state (except Tennessee and Texas), the Proclamation went into immediate effect in Union-occupied areas and at least 20,000 slaves[2][3] were freed at once on January 1, 1863.

Additionally, the Proclamation provided the legal framework for the emancipation of nearly all four million slaves as the Union armies advanced, and committed the Union to ending slavery, which was a controversial decision even in the North. Hearing of the Proclamation, more slaves quickly escaped to Union lines as the Army units moved South. As the Union armies advanced through the Confederacy, thousands of slaves were freed each day until nearly all (approximately 4 million, according to the 1860 census) were freed by July 1865.

Near the end of the war, abolitionists were concerned that while the Proclamation had freed most slaves as a war measure, it had not made slavery illegal. Several former slave states had already passed legislation prohibiting slavery; however, in a few states, slavery continued to be legal, and to exist, until December 18, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was enacted.

Daziger Bridge

Transcript

Formula One 2013: Singapore

So Super Softs and Mediums.  1.5 Seconds between them.  Hardly anything else really matters.

BTW Massa has retired.  Raikkonen is in at the Scuderia.  Big News?  We’ll see next year if Alonso is as good (.5 seconds a lap) as I think he is because Raikkonen is no slouch.

I’d rather focus on how fucked up the TV coverage is (you know, because it screws up my sleep schedule and I get really cranky).  Qualifying at 1 am after a day of college throwball?  I’ve gone on strike for less.

I’m at 6es and 7s about how to handle the Winter Olympics.  There is no doubt that Russia is engaged in a progrom on LGBTs and I’m conflicted because it’s a big part of my blogging history and I really like curling.  Shuffle board on ice, what’s not to like?

But there is no denying that Putin is playing the Russian Orthodox Church on the social issues card and it’s killing people.  This is something our president deals away to prove how “liberal” he is and I feel bad about disagreeing with John Aravosis on this issue because I’m not gay, but I don’t think it’s a substitute for how he’s killing brown people in Yemen with drones or brown people in Detroit with SNAP cuts.

Oh, you just think he’ll stand fast.  I’ll believe it when I see it.  And I choose Detroit for irony.

So not back to Formula One.  In other races where billionaires spend billions Larry Ellison is but a single race away from losing the America’s Cup.

As Atrios frequently says, things are fucked up and shit.

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

Punting the Punditsis an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

The Sunday Talking Heads:

Up with Steve Kornacki: The guest list had not been posted at this time.

This Week with George Stephanopolis: Guests  on “This Weel” are Budget committee ranking member Rep. Chris Van Hollen )D-MD) and Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA), who’s leading the latest charge to defund Obamacare. Special guest is tennis great Billie Jean King reflecting  on the 40th anniversary of her historic victory in the “Battle of the Sexes” match with Bobby Riggs.

Joining the roundtable discussion are  CNN “Crossfire” co-host Newt Gingrich; former Clinton Labor secretary Robert Reich; PBS “NewsHour” co-anchor and managing editor Gwen Ifilll and ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guests are Sen. Joe Mandchin (D-WV); Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK); Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ); and former Secretary of State Henry Kissenger.

Joining him for a panel discussion are TIME‘s Nancy Gibbs and Bobby Ghosh; David Sanger of the New York Times; and CBS News Political Director John Dickerson

Meet the Press with David Gregory: On this week’s MTP the guests are NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre; and Sandy Phillips, mother of Aurora, CO shooting victim Jessica Ghawi,

The guests for a special roundtable on the current budget battle are Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT) and Congresswomen Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).

Joining in at the political roundtable are editor of the Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol; Wall Street Journal Columnist Kim Strassel; former White House Press Secretary, now MSNBC political contributor Robert Gibbs; and PBS’s Tavis Smiley.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests this Sunday are House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; and New York Magazine’s Joe Hagan on his interview with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Joining her on the panel are Joe Lockhart, former chief spokesman and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton; President of the American Conservative Union Al Cardenas; CNN Commentators Kevin Madden and Donna Brazile.

Saturday Night Movie