poverty

They have descended from homes built on the mountainside. Women sit together in the cemetery not to mourn but to wait for the duvet distribution to begin. When I approach them, each woman extends a hand in greeting. Some have the needed small stamped pieces of paper to receive two duvets but most don’t. One of the women tells me about the pain in her chest, her legs. She talks about the war. I listen to all the manifestations of her suffering. I understand only a handful of words but as she clasps my hand, I know she wants my help in receiving a pair of duvets, too.

For many poor women, welfare and family assistance was their primary means of escaping abusive mates. Such programs provided support for them and their children. Cutbacks in welfare have now caused a dramatic drop in the number who dare attempt to flee hurtful relationships. Low paying jobs, chronic unemployment, and poverty in general have left many impoverished women with few survival resources.

It’s on full blast now, Christmas jingles, holiday “cheer”, and the endless exhortations to consume.  And here comes Santa.
Why is this myth so powerful?  Why does it capture imagination so deeply?  Why do generations perpetuate this massive fraud to their children?

Finished the first draft of a book about my commentary looking at the belly of the beast from the lower intestine up at the unending gluttony of Capitalism. It feels good, and I am ready to send it to the publisher, after a fellow dissident — John Steppling — looks at it, and, I hope writes a bang up introduction to inculcate some magic from my muses. As always, though, being hyper precarious in this rot gut society, I can’t see much these days as worthy of celebratory zeal to the point of letting my guard down.

Here are some examples of the distorted thinking leading to the demise of a once-vibrant American society.
The post Signs of a Dying Society appeared first on The Anti-Media.

  “We never tried to wake our children up on weekends: the more they sleep, the less they eat.” -Natalia Recently, the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet got flooded with personal photographs from the 1990s. I first took note of them on my own Facebook feed. Some appeared expectedly funny—imagine the hairstyles!—others were nostalgic. Yet what seemed like … Continue reading If You’re So Smart, Then Why Are You So Poor? Russia’s 1990s Revisited.

News item: California’s Right to Rest Act would give homeless people the right to use public space without discrimination. It also describes the right to rest in public, to protect oneself from the elements in public, to eat in public and to occupy a legally parked car.
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Awakening once again to songs of mourning doves and the clanging of numerous church bells, I’m counting my last few precious days here in the heart of Mexico. Ornately painted calacas (skulls), elegantly clad skeletal Catrinas, ten foot tall mojigangas (giant puppets), fireworks and parades of Dia de Los Muertos are finished. Now it’s back to life as usual the streets of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato.

Canada and Israel equally practice occupiers’ justice. Both occupy land in contravention of their constitutions. When Israel was constitutionally established by international law fiat it was on condition that its land base would be counterbalanced by the complementary land base of the Palestinian State.

The TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the corporate Mega-deal on “free trade” has been concluded between the partner states, and is now in the final stages of its ratification.  This deal involves the US and 11 other countries (Canada, US, Mexico, Chile, Peru; Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Brunei, Japan) of the Pacific Rim, representing 40% of global economic activity.  The text was secretly negotiated by hundreds of corporate lobbyists.  It has now been released, and Congress will have 90 days to examine the 6000 page text before approving, which will allow the President to sign it in