yet they are all in the top 2% of the wealthiest humans on the planet

We should be ashamed of ourselves as a nation. Yet we have Republicans and Talking Inflated heads screaming how we need to get rid of SOCIAL PROGRAMS and food stamps.


Are we really a nation of Sadists?

You get the government you vote for. This is the result. I'd love to pity them, but they're in a free country and they can make the changes necessary by voting for the party whose platform is more in line with them. But there are too many blacks in that one so they stick with the White Supremacists party *even if it starves their children.

This is a problem of the one percent in both parties.

Our DEMOCRATIC President has repeatedly and publicly pushed for austerity and budget slashing in this economy. Under Obama, heating assistance was slashed, and OBAMA used Social Security and Medicare as bargaining chips to pass an austerity budget.

Child poverty in this country jumped to 21.6 percent last year.

We have a bipartisan problem. That is why it is so critical that we occupy now.

I'm a Tennessean and I don't vote Republican.

What you should say is that a slight majority of Tennesseans vote Republican.

If more liberals would move here and/or we could get some liberal programming on our radio and television stations, we could swing that majority.

even those who are able to look past the stereotypes. Why? Same reason they won't move to other states like Missouri, Arkansas, etc-because there are no jobs available that actually pay a living wage.

It just keeps going in circles.

Most of us are stuck where we're at, hoping for the best. Few can afford to move anywhere right now, which is one of the many reasons why the same people tend to vote for the same old candidate. There's no real infusion of new blood and everything's stagnant.

For the record: I live in Missouri. It's no different here.

The biggest problem the South has is that it's more rural than urban. I live in a mid-sized city that just elected a very liberal mayor (in a non-partisan race, but we all knew who was what), yet the my county and the rest of my region are solid red.

The South is no different than anywhere else with the major exception that we're gerrymandered and our urban areas aren't as large. We're all purple states.

I live less than forty minutes from Independence, home of Harry S. Truman. The entire area should be deep dark blue but it's not-Jackson County is and the areas surrounding it are quite a bit more lavender, as I like to say, to actual red further out.

Gerrymandering is in full swing to this day and my state is no exception. They've been playing with areas yet again. The positive? A teabagging Congressperson will now have to represent Columbia, a decent size deep blue college town. (Between that town and another smaller college town that is starting to change colors she will not be in office much longer.) The negative? The games played on the state level have everyone's heads spinning.

The young and many of the "more liberal" are leaving rural areas yet again because there are no jobs available. I know a few who would love nothing more than to live in the country but cannot because of the job market.

She seems like she will do a good job, her strong support of labor unions is a welcome change of pace from most politicians here.

If they live up to their credentials, she'll have an awesome administration.

I want people to wake up! America is not immune to very real and very severe poverty.

have that problem. People do need to wake up.

There is NO EXCUSE for this. Not with the wealth we have in this country.

NONE.

Am I misreading your subject line? Am I missing a sarcasm tag? If yes, please disregard.

If not...why are "western" children more entitled to food than children in the developing world?

We are not a nation of sadists. We are a nation of distracted, apathetic hedonists.

Problem. We should be taking care of our Poor and those who do not have enough to eat and working on the problem of hunger in 3rd world nations.

I'm saying that for as "RICH AND POWERFUL" This country is suppose to be WE SHOULD NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM!

Their priorities do not include feeding the hungry or tending to the ill and infirm.

Apparently, however, they include enriching their own bankrolls in whatever manner the law allows, or doesn't allow.

because it's clear voting for Republicans isn't working out all to well for them.

Change is necessary.

Al Gore went to Grundy specifically to thank them for their support after the 2000 election.

I understand what you're saying, but there are all kinds of structural reasons people vote and act the way they do. Besides, the children who are suffering the most are too young to vote in any case.

does not a change make. They need to vote in Democrats from local to the governorship. Whatever structural reason these people have to continue to vote with an elitist party, it should never trump the welfare of their children. Never.

And I know children can't vote, but their parents can, and it appears their parents would rather cling to their hatred against blacks, Latinos, furners and other silly reasons rather than feeding their children.

I understand what you're saying, and I commend you for your understanding, but all the understanding in the world isn't going to feed those children just as long as they continue to vote for the party that's beholden ONLY to the wealthy and corporations, and nothing and no one else.

....congratulations, Right to Work Tennessee, you'll soon become a third-world state....

Instead of offering a possible solution,just set us out as going to shit.

There is little to no jobs in Grundy County,and most are done by illegal Mexicans,picking up rocks and stacking them, its a boom.Then sell to the rich folks in Atl to make pretty driveway walls.

Right to work is headed to a city near you,no matter where you are.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/nov2011/pove-n22.shtml

US Census figures show jump in child poverty
By Fred Mazelis
22 November 2011

Figures released by the US Census Bureau indicate an official child poverty rate of 21.6 percent, the highest since the specific surveys of child poverty began in 2001.

The report comes from the American Community Survey, a nationwide study that includes an annual sample size of about 3 million addresses across the United States, including every county in every state as well as Puerto Rico, where it is called the Puerto Rico Community Survey.

The highlights of the latest survey, for the year 2010, show that 15.75 million children lived in poverty and that more than 1.1 million children had been added to the total between 2009 and 2010....

for whatever failings or "wrongs" committed by parents. But, children are innocent. They did nothing and we are losing so many to poverty. Sure, a few will make it out, but many more will have their potential wasted.

And while the less-than-ideal political persuasions of the majority of my fellow Tennesseans are not ideal for combating these problems, I also know the history and the structural problems that have led to both the mindset and the poverty that exists today. All kinds of union organizing went on in a lot of our most beleaguered areas in generations past; people were active at fighting their own exploitation, but eventually the powerful won out--with the aid of the local, state, and federal government, so how can you blame people today for not trusting that the government will do what's best for them?

The poorest of the poor do not create their own ignorance or powerlessness. Witnessing a bunch of historically clueless outsiders smugly blame them for it while sitting comfortably in more prosperous and "progressive" regions, enjoying the economic advantages gained by robbing the coal and other resources from beneath our feet, is rather disheartening, to say the least.

Poverty breeds nothing but a dying society

to stories of poverty in the United States.

You get: the "At-least-it's-not-Ethiopia" types and the "They-did-it-to-themselves" types, the ones who make it political (it is), the ones who do, really, get it.

There's more to everything than meets the eye. We can solve problems like poverty in America, but only if we understand the true causes of poverty. Throwing all our pet hates in the air like confetti as a response to our discomfort with poverty won't work nearly as well as studying the long history and cultures of people affected by poverty.

Study the industries, and industrialists, who exploited the people. Study the government and the government officials who betrayed them. Study the businesses that exploit them today.

But look at their strengths as well, at their resources and their initiative in trying to correct economic disparity.

Don't blame it on one add-vitriole-and-mix cause. Or say it's not bad enough in Appalachia yet to care about Appalachia.

People in Grundy County are good, tough, proud survivors. They'd rather live on very little than be open to your scorn or pity.

But they shouldn't have to live on so much less than the rest of this nation.

Southern states engage in a race-to-the-bottom economic competition with other parts of the country via low regulations, low worker rights, and low levels of spending on things like public education.

Then these same Southern states demand help when they reach the "finish line" in the race-to-the-bottom.

The workers in those regions fought tooth and nail to unionize, to demand their rights in situations only nominally different than outright slavery. Several of them were murdered--by deputized police, acting on behalf of coal companies--in that fight. Decades of exploitation were committed by industrialists from more "progressive" regions, and the collusion of the state, local, and national government. Yes, they have won much of the propaganda fight. That's what happens in situations of oppression.

I know you are speaking about state-level decisions, not necessarily the mindsets of individuals, but I get very frustrated when the blame for the way things are rests solely on those backwards southerners not getting their act together--specifically the mountain South, which was largely (but not entirely) pro-Union and anti-slavery. I want people to see that it isn't all about the Civil War.

It provides a pretty good overview of Appalachia's contributions to American culture, as well as its struggles. Anything by Helen Lewis is also going to provide some good insights. There are a lot of books, documentaries, and other resources on the impact of coal mining and other extractive industries on Appalachia, both in the past and present.

You can learn a lot from nonfiction Appalachian authors such as Silas House, Denise Giardina, and Lee Smith as well.

you are right. Despite the South's reputation for conservatism, people have risked and lost their lives to fight for union rights. If anyone doesn't believe me, just watch Harlan County USA.

help children like these in need.

Oh wait, it won't.

I guess that's because TN lawmakers are flatulent assholes.

At least that's the figure given in this recent report, which highlights the near and dear to my heart Grundy County. This is the reality of Appalachia. I dare anyone to come to these hills and tell me that there is no poverty in the U.S. that touches that of the third world.

In some cases it SURPASSES the poverty in some parts of the third world.

Yes, I am familiar.

and reccomend

What to do?
I know! Poor women can sell their babies!

Edited just to say that I'm just posting a very cynical comment. But really, what are women (and parents in general) supposed to do?

kids.