Bread lines in Western Ohio

[incontrovertible]

I've been boiling inside ever since watching tonight's sixty minutes, detailing the wait in line for basic foodstuffs by more than a thousand working-class Western Ohioans.

This is becoming just stupefying to me. Do we really even have to broach the debate on conservative vs. liberal social policies at this point? Do the citizens of the richest nation not only in the world, but in the HISTORY of the world, really have to beg charity from the likes of bankrupt churches, to eat?

What is it going to take to undo this abject nightmare? The immediate rollback of the ridiculous Bush tax cut, obviously, but what else? The end of NAFTA and GATT, maybe? Can we please stop rewarding corporations for outsourcing their whole workforce - like, bar them from practicing commerce in the United States, perhaps? Anything?

The Dean campaign should acquire the re-broadcast rights from CBS and run 15-minute campaign ads from now until November 2004, ending with the statement "This is your future if you vote Republican."

I think I'm gonna start smoking again.

[Fescue4u]

1. Where??

Western Ohio guy. This is the first I've heard about.

[incontrovertible]

4. 60 Minutes II

Tonight's lead story. Marietta was the town:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/08/60II/main535732.shtml

Totally infuriating.

[Lady President]

11. My cousin teaches in Marietta-- very sad

I have a cousin who teaches in Marietta and things are tough. It's unspoken, but all the teachers know that if you want your students to have supplies, it falls on the teacher to provide them. Lack of proper education is, of course, only going to make things harder on the next generation in the workplace.

Historically, the western part of Ohio has always depended on industrial jobs and there are none to be had. Even people lucky enough to find a service industry job aren't making enough money to provide for their families. These are people who are used to working very hard to make a living and now it is virtually impossible to do so. Very sad...

[Rhiannon12866]

13. I also saw this segment on ``60 Minutes II''and thought of posting it

It was heartbreaking, as well as infuriating.:-(

Thanks for posting the link.:-)

[catzies]

2. Don't you dare start smoking again. Big Tobacco doesn't deserve

your money! Take that anger and that frustration and do something positive with it.

[incontrovertible]

6. thank you

although I've already picked up cigarillos again recently.

I've been chewing all night on What To Be Done. In the broadest terms, I think it might be time, with the benefit of hindsight, to revisit both the War on Poverty and the Great Society concepts, which failed, I think, due to 1960s era Great Bureaucracy, a total lack of digital innovation and modern efficiency, and the like.

For example: What didn't work?

Cabrini Green, to sum it up in two words. Giant poor people storage boxes, owned-by-the-government, forever-to-be-owned-by-the-government. Went to crime-ridden decay inside a decade.

But what works now?

The housing projects in modern Philadelphia, for one. Modern suburbs, quaint little charming neighborhoods, all public assistance housing, and the residents can earn ownership of their own home through contribution to the community, a small mortgage, and so forth.

What else didn't work?

Food Stamps, for another example. Rife with fraud - you could trade them for anything. They were money by another name.

But what works now?

In my own state, the Lone Star Card - essentially an ATM card applicable only to food, usable only in grocery stores. Saved millions upon millions of dollars, serves the people magnificently. Put in place by the last progressive candidate for Governor, former comptroller John Sharp, and a brilliant success, Republican lies to the contrary notwithstanding.

I also think frankly we need to change the language and wrest it away from "conservative vs. liberal." That's the stuff of the mid sixties. Today's reality is "corporatism vs. communites," or "corporatism vs. citizens."

Honestly, when was the last time you, or anyone you know, ever heard of any community defeating any corporate entity in some naked money / power / resource grab? Ever heard of anyone preventing a Super Wal-Mart from being built in their neighborhood, in the past, oh, thirty years? Ever heard of a subdivision being stopped from being developed over a pristine aquifer recharge zone?

Twenty miles away from my own home town, the progressive Mecca, Austin, Texas, Alcoa - the filthiest polluter in Texas (fathom that) - just sailed through the approval process to move two huge state highways, strip-mine tens of miles of the most beautiful land within a hundred miles of here, drain the aquifer, and sell their leftover water to the city of San Antonio - a city which, owning to sound "conservative" principles, refuses to finance its own dams and reservoirs, demanding instead to siphon water from elsewhere. And so what if it kills four whole counties.

All this, despite probably 95 percent disapproval from the whole of the effected populace.

I think we're getting close to a high-tide mark here. Either the United States leads the world into a sustainable, humane and tolerable future, or it becomes the last ballwark against third-world two-class misery for a brief time, before finally succumbing into corporate wage-slavery and cultural/economic ruin.

[grasswire]

12. that's a thoughtful post...

....incontrovertible. I appreciate your thoughts.

[cherryperry]

3. Yes, PLEASE, where in Western Ohio and

could you please give a bit more detail from the 60 Minutes' story you saw?

Yes, end NAFTA and GATT right now! Yes, rescind this ridiculous Bush tax cut! Listen, corporations get plenty of welfare, so why are these people reduced to standing in bread lines a la the great depression of the 1930's?

Abso-f***ing-lutely shameful!

I think you are just kidding about taking up smoking again, but please don't let these a-holes make you feel like doing anything self-destructive, okay? Some exercise would be better ...


:hi: :kick:

http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=resources_contact

Go ahead and contact Dean @ the address above, if you want, ok?

[Maple]

5. Sigh...

You can't end NAFTA and GATT.

GATT is the WTO...an organization of 146 countries.

And leaving NAFTA would make the Great Depression (with it's 25% unemployment) seem like child's play.

[incontrovertible]

7. just wanted to make sure you saw the link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/08/60II/main535732.shtml

[KamaAina]

15. Marietta is actually in southeastern Ohio

a gracious and historic town right on the Ohio River.

Western Ohio will not have any food lines for another few weeks :evilgrin:

[Rhiannon12866]

18. This aired on ``60 Minutes II.'' I saw the segment and it was

heartbreaking. You need to see the faces to understand their despair.;(

In case you missed it, Wonk kindly posted the video and the transcript on the GD thread on this. Here is the link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=239112&mesg_id=239807&page=

[Coffee Coyote]

8. welcome to the New Depression

Not as widespread and devastating as the old one. Thankfully SOME - though weakened in recent years - of the safety net is in place.

I am not fooled by the "latest rising economic indicators". Rises in consumer spending are very likely debt-based - people maxing out their credit cards or taking out second mortgages because of the low interest rates.

But in many ways, the lingering recession is a depression, as long as debt remains high on federal, state, and local levels, and of course, personal levels, and most of all as long as unemployment remains high.

History does not repeat itself. With civil liberties eroding, and fear as the governing ethos from above, we have a new kind of depression.

[Wonk]

9. General Discussion thread on this, including mp3 and quicktime

here

[incontrovertible]

10. thanks

posting there now.

[Rhiannon12866]

16. Thank you, Wonk!

This is an important story that everyone needs to be made aware of. I saw the ``60 Minutes II'' piece and was very affected by it. I think you need to see these people to really understand their desperation and fear. I understand that, when it originally aired, viewers contributed generously to help out these stricken families.

I will kick your post, as well. To see this is to be moved by it. It is so tragic that this is happening in 21st-century America.;(

[dolo amber]

14. Y'know what I think would be interesting?

For someone to go to Marietta and take a poll to see just how many of those on the bread-line voted for Bush, and how many were likely to again. If I remember correctly, wasn't OH a big ol' red blotch in 2000? (Not at ALL trying to say "they're getting what they asked for", just curious as to whether they're making the connection. Or if they somehow think this is tied in with Clinton's penis. :eyes:)

edit--sorry, meant to post on the GD thread

[Nikia]

17. My hometown Ohio small city declined starting w/Reagan

A few large factories closed in the 80's and a few have closed since then. Fortunately, a few replaced them. Unfortunately, the new factory jobs pay around 8/hour while the factories that closed paid twice that. Good department stores close when people no longer have extra income. The service jobs left involve working at places like Walmart, fast food, and used car dealerships. The higher paying jobs are health care for an aging population since no one moves where there are no jobs and education, which doesn't really pay all that well in my part of Ohio. Unemployment was always over 7%. I volunteered at a food bank when I was in high school. There were lines then and I am sure there are lines now.

[VolcanoJen]

19. DON'T start smoking again, incontrovertible!!!

I had quit for three years, and ended up buying three packs and several bottles of wine on 9/11.

I'm strong again, and won't give in to such weaknesses. Hang tough... and as a fellow Buckeye, I am also saddened by what I see happening around me, here in the real world.

:-(

- Jennifer