Wednesday, February 5, 2020

'America in a State of Denial About the Level of Poverty in This Country,' Says Ocasio-Cortez

Excellent article! Thank you Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez!! Blessed are the courageous and wise truth-tellers! They embody Love.

And the contrasting of those who are telling the truth and fighting for the well-being of humans, other beings, and the planet with Trump and with those who are corporate democrats, corporate republicans, corporate media propagandists, and other wealthy special interests illuminates the stark and overwhelming difference between those who are committed to a just and caring world and those who are fighting with everything they have to block it from being.

And I am absolutely outraged each time I hear NPR or CNN or any corporate funded mainstream media source say that we "have a strong economy" or we have "low unemployment rates." I am absolutely outraged by their sickening denial and brainwashing and toxic propaganda that outright lies to us over and over and over again! Don't they see all the people living in tents???

And in lying about reality and real human beings and the state of the Earth is like saying that the more than 40 million Americans who are living in poverty, are being poisoned, are suffering and dying don't matter, don't exist, and their suffering doesn't count because the freaking stock marker is doing great. Pisses me off! This is propaganda that is complicit with the predatory capitalists and that causes so much suffering, brainwashing, delusions, depression, dehumanization, and death. It is evil in its core. Just evil.

And their pervasive and insidious lies are pushing uninformed Americans to align with the greed and heartlessness of the oligarchs rather than with the political revolution to overthrow them and build a world which works for all. Herbert Schiller is among the many strong voices who illuminate how it is that we are led accept that which benefits the few to the expense of all of the rest of us — https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2019/12/herbert-schiller-how-did-thinking-that.html.

AND, gratefully, more and more of us are waking up and saying NO MORE!! NO MORE to the lies and propaganda, NO MORE to the politicians who've sold their souls to wealthy corporate donors, NO MORE to the ideology of domination and the patriarchal neoliberal predatory capitalist system that its wedded with, NO MORE to vast injustice and oppressing and killing people for profit, NO MORE to endless wars and militarism and the military industrial complex, no more to drill baby drill and the deadly fossil fuel industry, NO MORE to the immoral and insatiable greed of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, NO MORE to the Jim Crow brutality of the criminal injustice system and the prison industrial complex, NO MORE to insurmountable student debts and cutting off kids from continuing their education, NO MORE to the cruelty of the animal agricultural industry and all the horrifying ways that we treat other beings, NO MORE to the poisoning of our Earth! NO MORE, NO MORE, NO MORE!!!

We're done! And we're choosing to unite in the revolutionary movements to change our world to one where life matters, where life is protected and cherished and held with kindness and caring and reverence. The New Enlightenment is upon us! May we come together by the millions here in America and worldwide. We're all related, all family, all in this together, and all needed!

Lets turn all of our outrage into our collective awakening and actively participate together in this paradigm shift and evolutionary leap into birthing a New Story — one which works for everyone! — Molly
"We do not want to recognize the level of poverty in this country because if we did, it would be a national scandal."
 
By
Calling on her fellow lawmakers to pass legislation she put forward last year to better recognize—and move to eradicate—poverty in the United States, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez testified before her own House committee Wednesday about the U.S. government's willful failure to understand how many Americans are living in destitution.

Ocasio-Cortez joined several anti-poverty campaigners in testifying at a hearing regarding the effects of Trump administration policies on child poverty, hunger, homelessness, and healthcare. The first-term New York Democrat argued that the government's formula for calculating poverty—used long before President Donald Trump was in office—makes it impossible to account for the financial devastation millions of Americans face.

"The current level of the poverty line has simply been calculated by the price of minimum dietary requirements times three," Ocasio-Cortez said. "The current poverty line assumes that you have a spouse at home full-time, taking care of your children. The current poverty line assumes that you don't really have any significant healthcare costs. All of this is wrong."

The failure to account for how many children are growing up without sufficient food, secure housing, and enough resources to pay for basic needs—and the subsequent failure to provide sufficient welfare services—has left at least 40 million people in poverty, the congresswoman said.

"We cannot go another year with kids not getting food that they need—losing parents because they can't afford healthcare," said Ocasio-Cortez. "This is a moral wrong, and for children to lose their parents because they can't afford insulin or chemotherapy in what we proudly call the richest country in the world, is a moral injustice and a moral outrage."

As Common Dreams reported, the United Nations' top expert on poverty issued a scathing report in 2018, accusing the Trump administration of driving millions of Americans toward the point of "ruination" by cutting government assistance while lavishing the wealthiest people in the country with a $1.5 trillion tax cut.

The Oversight Committee's hearing came eight months after the Trump administration said it may change how inflation is calculated to even further reduce the number of Americans who are considered eligible for federal healthcare and housing assistance.

Ocasio-Cortez testified on the same day that the National Center for Homeless Education released a study showing that the number of public school students who are homeless has exploded by 15% in just the past three years, reaching more than 1.5 million—the highest number in more than a decade.

"America is in a state of denial about the level of poverty in this country," Ocasio-Cortez said.

After testifying in the hearing, the congresswoman joined her colleagues on the committee in questioning the other witnesses and discussing her proposal for the Recognizing Poverty Act, which, she said, lawmakers would only oppose if they wish to continue covering up the truth about poverty and economic inequality in the United States.

"It doesn't even direct us to expand social programs. We're not even there yet, we're just talking about recognizing poverty, and there's resistance to doing that," Ocasio-Cortez said. "Why? I believe that we do not want to recognize the level of poverty in this country because if we did, it would be a national scandal."

Should Ocasio-Cortez's proposal pass, the congresswoman said, "We will have to force ourselves to acknowledge that our systems have failed. And that we are not doing enough by our own people in a democracy that is supposed to be by the people and for the people, to serve the people of the United States of America."


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