The
majority of Americans are fortunate to never know what it means to be
destitute, or exist in a condition where they lack enough money to
afford basic human needs such as food, clothing, shelter, or health
care, but there are forces in this country intent on creating an entire
population living in poverty. Over the past thirty years, repugicans
and their libertarian funders used a variety of means to create an
economic environment conducive to the wealthy increasing their fortunes,
and they couched their plutocratic machinations with promises that if
the people gave more to the rich, their largesse would be rewarded with a
return on their investment down the road that did nothing but crash the
economy and create more wealth for the richest one-percent of income
earners. Over the past four years, repugicans and their corporate
masters changed tactics and promised the people that cutting the
nation’s debt and deficit through austerity was the key to creating a
vibrant economy, full employment, and a thriving middle class, and
through it all the number of Americans slipping into poverty increased
with no sign of letting up in the near or foreseeable future. Now, repugicans have abandoned any pretense of helping Americans improve
their economic fortunes, and with unflagging support of their wealthy
support mechanism are on a tear to create the nation of peasants America
is destined to become.
Over the past week, repugicans who know there are over 47-million
Americans living in poverty and dependent of the Agriculture
Department’s SNAP (food stamp) program passed a farm bill providing $195
billion in subsidies to agricultural corporations and eliminating food
stamp and nutritional programs they considered extraneous, or
irrelevant. Half of those affected are children, and over 10% are senior
citizens living in poverty. It was not even an assault on minorities
because more white Americans receive food stamps than African Americans
or Hispanics proving that the repugican cabal’s goal is withholding food from all
Americans living in poverty and they have enlisted a powerful ally to
send more Americans deeper into poverty.
On Tuesday, billionaire libertarian Charles Koch
joined repugicans pushing to eliminate the nation’s minimum wage he implied
was the ultimate secret to lift Americans out of poverty as well as the
major obstacle to economic growth. In fact, Koch said “
we need to
analyze all these government subsidies, all these things that are
creating a culture of dependency, and we’ve got to clear out what
reduces the mobility of labor.” A Koch-funded
ad
in Kansas insinuated minimum wage Americans earning $34,000 annually
should consider themselves fortunate, but an American working full-time
making minimum wage only earns $15,080 annually, if they can find
full-time work. As it is, the poverty level for a family of four is
$22,283 annual income, and even in the poorest state in the nation a
worker earning minimum wage has to work 67 hours per week to afford the
most meager apartment if they are fortunate enough to find a full-time
job; food, utilities, and clothing are luxuries out of the realm of a
poverty-level worker’s budget. Most medium to large businesses prevent
full-time employment to avoid giving lunch breaks or benefits, and those
working-poor Americans make up a large share of food stamp recipients
Republicans just drove into hunger by eliminating SNAP funding from
their Draconian farm bill.
Koch had the temerity to
claim
him and his brother’s political efforts to create poverty are not for
their own benefit, but for the country’s greater good, and by country he
means corporations; not the people. He also asserted that “
other large companies are promoting some kind of special cronyism where they’re undermining economic freedom”
and he certainly meant companies such as Costco Stores and Starbucks
that pay a living wage that, according to Koch, are destroying
Americans’ opportunity at economic freedom and chance of escaping
poverty. Koch doubtless joins the Walton family company, WalMart, that
recently threatened to
scuttle
plans to build three poverty-wage stores in Washington D.C. because the
city council were considering a bill to require large companies to pay
employees a living wage. As it is now, each WalMart store costs
taxpayers a minimum of
$1 million in public welfare and healthcare costs because they pay poverty-level minimum wage and maintain a strict policy
against overtime pay, allowing workers to take bathroom breaks, or receive basic medical accommodations. According to Koch, who
along with
the Walton family holds more wealth than the majority of Americans,
the minimum wage is forcing companies to fire employees and rails at the
notion of raising it to $9 an hour that would
barely help 15 million poverty-level American workers afford to eat, find shelter, or afford basic healthcare.
What Americans are witnessing now is a conservative movement that is
finally revealing their only economic agenda is creating poverty for the
masses by openly raping what is left of economic opportunity from the
people, or any chance for tens-of-millions of Americans to escape
extreme poverty borne of pathetic minimum wages at part-time jobs. The
nation already ranks near the bottom of every category for a developed
country whether it is middle class wealth, infrastructure,
social programs, healthcare, education spending, or children living in
poverty and still, repugicans voted to eliminate overtime pay, end
Medicare and Social Security, food stamps, promote eliminating the
minimum wage, and all to, as Charles Koch says, lift Americans out of
poverty and to spur economic growth. The Koch’s have even turned on
their John Birch acolytes in the teabagger movement in Georgia by
fighting the tea party
to stop expansion of solar energy development because the billionaire
brothers have not yet figured out how to charge Americans for harvesting
energy from the Sun.
Americans are being assaulted on all fronts by repugicans and their
corporate funding machine, and there is little doubt their intent is
creating a destitute population. Last year the Koch brothers claimed the
2012 election was the mother of all battles, and since they lost that
battle to create poverty by a repugican president are mobilizing to
eliminate what little economic and survival protections the people have
left. Eradicating funding for food stamps from the farm bill is just the
beginning as repugicans threaten to block a debt ceiling increase
unless President Obama submits and implements the Paul Ryan budget to
hand over Social Security and Medicare to privatization, and any
concerns over the $135 billion in food stamp cuts in Ryan’s budget were
just eliminated when repugicans excluded SNAP funding from a farm bill.
Now that their main contributor openly called for eliminating the
minimum wage, the people must realize that last year’s mother of all
election battles has escalated into open warfare to create what repugicans have panted for over the past thirty years; a nation of
peasants serving a ruling plutocracy headed by Charles and David Koch.
Pay
attention; this one is complicated. Two guys in a Lexus in Craighall,
South Africa, witnessed a BMW hitting a Peugot in a hit-and-run and then
followed the perpetrator. When the two cars stopped, the Lexus
passenger got out to take pictures for evidence. Three men got out of
the BMW. One of them jumped into the Lexus and pointed a gun at the
driver. The Lexus driver hit the gas pedal and backed the car swiftly
into a wall. The wall collapsed, and thousands of enraged bees swarmed
from their hive behind the wall and into the Lexus.
Loggerhead
tortoises are endangered and the most dangerous period of their life is
when they cross from their nest to the sea. That's because birds find
the little cuties to be tasty little snacks. Fortunately, this July 1,
when 100 loggerheads recently headed to the sea from the Caribbean
island of Bonaire, there were plenty of volunteers there to help guide
the little babes to the ocean without fear of attack -and to keep them
from getting lost on their short journey.
