quote:
>>> james withrow <writes
This food thing is a typical leftist method of dealing with
success. There are still people who miss meals and, yes, plenty of
people who would have been institutionalized back in the day still have
to dig thru dumpsters for food. But hunger as a problem similar to
hunger and malnutrition overseas is not the problem Mark Jones made it
out to be. Suggesting that you can simply visit a ghetto and witness
the unfed is simply untrue and it devalues hunger in truly impoverished
nations. The combination of food stamps, family, friends, and charity
feeds the hungry.
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Now ask yourself what image you want the public to have of hunger
in the U.S. in the year 2002-- that we've always had great problems with
hunger that can never be solved no matter how much money you throw at
them or that the new welfare laws are directly responsible for millions
of children growing up malnourished.
I would come away feeling properly chastised by the attacks on what
I said if they came from people who come into contact with big city
ghettoes on a regular basis and actually could point to types of people
who are currently going hungry. If people are going hungry I want to
know why.
From my time a few years ago in inner city class rooms, I can tell
you what teachers have said about what inner city students write in
journals about their lives. The kids aren't writing about missing meals.
They write about who they're attracted to and sometimes about the
problems of sex and of course a lot of real blather. And, they're
afraid of their neighborhoods, which is due in about equal parts to our
insane drug laws and the ineffectiveness of the criminal justice system.
Fellow leftists, take credit for our accomplishments. There will
always be more to be done. But in the last 40 years, we've seen great
strides made on important social questions: racism, sexism, the poverty
of the elderly, hunger, and even the environment. To deny that
government action and commitment to movements has made a great
difference is to say that it's not even worth the effort-- an ideology
in too great a supply, already.
_____________-
Charles: I don't think hunger in the U.S. is
as bad as in many poor nations. But a few years ago
there were public health case reports of kwashikur
in Harlem. And infant mortality rates in some cities
are reported as "at third world levels" from time to
time. Low birth weight is a cause of infant mortality
and malnutrition of the mother can be a cause of
that. Going into a ghetto might not turn up cases
as easily, unless you are a public health professional
or a legal aid attorney, etc. The political point on capitalism is that
there is some extreme poverty in the midst of
enormous abundance. This is the main paradox
that we do not have to stand for if we have
the revolution.
What is written in journals by kids is part of
the story, but not the whole story. Inner city
kids have pride. They know about
paternalistic, white liberalism at some level.
They are not going to necessarily be
socio-psychological guinea pigs for
bleeding heart liberals. However, you are
right that there is a lot of accomplishment going
on despite institutional racism and capitalist
empoverishment.
It's true that mass struggle has won reforms
in the 40 years before the last 20 .
Yet, because they are only reforms, they
have been and are being taken back in
in the last 20 in
Reaganism and neo-liberalism, neo-racism
etc. Our attitude toward the reforms of the
40 years ending about 1980 should be to
say "see , capitalism cannot be reformed.
If it is not destroyed it takes back the
reform concessions wrestled from it in
its weakness. Next time it is weak , we
must put it fully in its grave.
Charles Brown
Detroit, where the city is the ghetto.
what everyone else got? Is that funny and I just skimmed to fast to get the jokes?
