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	Poverty: a spectre that still haunts US by Amy Goodman, Louisa Loveluck Democracy Now & agencies   June 2013   Five decades on, we have yet to meet Martin Luther King"s challenge and find the will to end hunger and deprivation, writes Amy Goodman.   The 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr"s "I Have a Dream" speech is rapidly approaching, commemorating the historic 28 August 1963 March on Washington. But 45 years ago, in 1968, the year of his assassination, King was waging the Poor People"s Campaign to eradicate poverty. He addressed the congregation at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, saying:   "We are challenged to rid our nation and the world of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, poverty spreads its nagging, prehensile tentacles into hamlets and villages all over our world. Two-thirds of the people of the world go to bed hungry tonight. They are ill-housed; they are ill-nourished; they are shabbily clad. I"ve seen it in Latin America; I"ve seen it in Africa; I"ve seen this poverty in Asia."   That was 31 March 1968, four days before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to march in solidarity with striking sanitation workers. The minimum wage that year was at its historic high, in terms of real purchasing power. It was first established in 1938 by President Franklin D Roosevelt, who said:   "Our nation so richly endowed with natural resources and with a capable and industrious population should be able to devise ways and means of insuring to all our able-bodied working men and women a fair day"s pay for a fair day"s work."   Forty-five years after King launched his Poor People"s Campaign, poverty is again at crisis levels. That all-important bulwark against poverty, the minimum wage, is now $7.25 per hour, a result of a bill signed into law by President George W Bush. President Barack Obama, when he was first elected, promised a minimum wage of $9.50 by 2011. In his 2013 state of the union address, having failed to make that goal, he said:   "Tonight, let"s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour. This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families. It could mean the difference between groceries or the food bank; rent or eviction; scraping by or finally getting ahead."   Consumer advocate Ralph Nader is not impressed by the president"s rhetoric. "Has there been a bigger con man in the White House than Barack Obama?" Nader asked angrily.   "He hasn"t lifted a finger since he made those statements … he said nothing for four years on raising the minimum wage. He made no pressure on Congress. He hasn"t even unleashed people in his own White House on this issue."   Nader is out with a new book, "Told You So", which is fiercely critical of the Obama administration on a wide range of issues, from coddling corporate criminals to the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo. He continued, on the minimum wage:   "The cruelty is unbelievable here. We are an advanced third world country. We have great military equipment and science and technology. Half of the people in this country are poor. They can"t even pay their bills. They"re deep in debt …   "Thirty million workers in this country are making less today than that workers made in 1968, inflation-adjusted. These are the workers who clean up after us, grow our food, serve us in the stores, take care of our ailing grandparents … These are the workers that are most underemployed, underinsured. They work in often the most dangerous situations. They don"t have unions."   Nader, a four-time presidential candidate, is calling for people to issue a "summons" to their respective members of Congress in the form of a petition obtainable at the website TimeForARaise.org, and to demand public meetings during the congressional recess in August.   And it"s not just Ralph Nader. The International Human Rights Clinic at New York University"s School of Law has just released a new study, "Nourishing Change: Fulfilling the Right to Food in the United States". They report that 50 million individuals – that"s one in six Americans – live in a household that cannot afford adequate food. Of these, nearly 17 million are children. Despite this, Congress is moving to weaken food security program funding, like food stamps.   King"s words from that National Cathedral speech ring true today, as we face again the crisis of poverty and hunger:   There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will.   • Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column. http://www.democracynow.org/   Nourishing Change: Fulfilling the right to Food in the United States, by International Human Rights Clinic Project Director Smita Narula, Faculty Director, IHRC.   The United States is facing a food security crisis: One in six Americans lives in a household that cannot afford adequate food. Of these 50 million individuals, nearly 17 million are children. Food insecurity has skyrocketed since the economic downturn, with an additional 14 million people classified as food insecure in 2011 than in 2007.   For these individuals, being food insecure means living with trade-offs that no one should have to face, like choosing between buying food and receiving medical care or paying the bills. Many food insecure people also face tough choices about the quality of food they eat, since low-quality processed foods are often more affordable and accessible than fresh and nutritious foods.   Food insecurity takes a serious toll on individuals, families, and communities and has significant consequences for health and educational outcomes, especially for children. Food insecurity is also enormously expensive for society. According to one estimate, the cost of hunger and food insecurity in the United States amounted to $167.5 billion in 2010.   The U.S. government’s predominant response to food insecurity involves a series of programs known as Domestic Nutrition Assistance Programs (“DNAPs”) that provide food and nutrition services to low-income Americans. Millions benefit from these programs: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, serves approximately 1 in 11 Americans each month, while more than half of infants born in the United States receive nutrition benefits through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).   Yet DNAPs fail to adequately address the needs of the 50 million Americans who live in food insecure households. First, eligibility requirements may be drawn too narrowly, thereby excluding many food insecure individuals from receiving benefits. Second, eligible participants face numerous administrative barriers to participation, such as complicated application and renewal processes. And third, the benefits provided through DNAPs may not be sufficient to meet participants’ food-related needs. The limitations of government nutrition assistance programs are reflected in Americans’ increasing reliance on private “emergency” food providers, like food pantries, which many now turn to as a routine source of food. Yet private entities are themselves struggling in the face of the economic downturn and a growing demand for assistance.   Food insecurity in the United States is not the result of a shortage of food or of resources; it is the result of poverty and of policies and programs that fail to prioritize the needs of low-income Americans. Despite the magnitude of the problem, and its far-reaching implications, eradicating food insecurity has not been a political priority. Instead of addressing critical gaps in food assistance, the U.S. government is considering severe funding cuts and other reforms to DNAPs that could strip millions of Americans of crucial support, exacerbate already alarming rates of food insecurity, and push families into deeper crisis.   The time is ripe for a new approach to the problem. A human rights approach to food shifts the focus from food assistance as charity to adequate food as a human right. The right to food is a universally recognized norm that calls on governments to ensure that all people have access to food that is safe and nutritious, meets their dietary needs, and is appropriate to their cultural backgrounds.   Adopting a human rights approach to food offers the U.S. government a road map for addressing the root causes of food insecurity while empowering those who are least able to provide for themselves. Particularly in times of economic crisis, when governments face resource constraints and must manage trade-offs between various goals, the human rights framework signals to governments that they must prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable and ensure that peoples’ basic needs and fundamental rights are fulfilled.   http://chrgj.org/ihrc-publishes-report-nourishing-change-fulfilling-the-right-to-food-in-the-united-states/ http://chrgj.org/project/clinic-projects/   May 31, 2013   Making the poor and vulnerable even less secure.   At stake, funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (called SNAP), which provides access to staple foods for millions of families living beneath or skirting the poverty line.   "For millions of Americans, that monthly food allowance is an unsavory reminder of the consequences of social disinvestment: no matter how hard you work, at the end of the day, you’ll still be hungry." writes Michelle Chen, In These Times.   Paul Krugman highlights in his New York Times article, readers who understand what is happening in the bill should not just be shocked or cynical about the Republican"s latest attempt to "shrink" then "effectively kill" a key social program, they "should be very, very angry."   Krugman writes:   The shrinking part comes from the latest farm bill released by the House Agriculture Committee (for historical reasons, the food stamp program is administered by the Agriculture Department). That bill would push about two million people off the program. You should bear in mind, by the way, that one effect of the sequester has been to pose a serious threat to a different but related program that provides nutritional aid to millions of pregnant mothers, infants, and children. Ensuring that the next generation grows up nutritionally deprived — now that’s what I call forward thinking.   And why must food stamps be cut? We can’t afford it, say politicians like Representative Stephen Fincher, a Republican of Tennessee, who backed his position with biblical quotations — and who also, it turns out, has personally received millions in farm subsidies over the years.   These cuts are, however, just the beginning of the assault on food stamps. Remember, Representative Paul Ryan’s budget is still the official G.O.P. position on fiscal policy, and that budget calls for converting food stamps into a block grant program with sharply reduced spending. If this proposal had been in effect when the Great Recession struck, the food stamp program could not have expanded the way it did, which would have meant vastly more hardship, including a lot of outright hunger, for millions of Americans, and for children in particular.   Also addressing the assault on SNAP in a recent column, Michelle Chen lashed out at the GOP, saying conservative lawmakers are going a step further from their well-known “starve the beast” strategy "by trying to starve actual people."   And what"s worse, explains Chen, is that the GOP rationale is a refusal of the realities that have caused the recent increase in food stamp assistance. She writes:   Ever since 2009, conservatives have been railing against the rapid expansion of the SNAP program as if it was a policy choice by Obama. (Recall Newt Gingrich’s endless invocations of the “food stamp president” during the 2012 GOP primary.)   But food stamp usage increased as a natural function of the steep recession, which created a lot more people who were eligible for the program. (In fact, Republican counties are responsible for most of the food stamp growth.) Republican demands to enact deep SNAP cuts, while crudely punitive to the millions of low-income Americans who depend on food stamps, are also unnecessary.   As economists repeatedly point out, food assistance programs like SNAP actually have a stimulative effect on the economy. As Krugman explains, "estimates from the consulting firm Moody’s Analytics suggest that each dollar spent on food stamps in a depressed economy raises G.D.P. by about $1.70 — which means, by the way, that much of the money laid out to help families in need actually comes right back to the government in the form of higher revenue."   And it gets worse. As The Nation"s George Zornick recently reported:   [Cutting poverty assistance is] absurdly out of sync with economic realities of the working poor. (They’re also heaped on top of a current cut to food stamps due to the expiration of a temporary boost from the federal stimulus package.) Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) estimatesthat over one-sixth of the population faces hardship in securing an adequate food supply--with appalling rates of food insecurity among black and Latino households. And among those who can afford to keep their pantries stocked, many are still too poor to afford healthy, fresh food. Food stamps just dent that gap in food security, with monthly payments averaging a luxurious $280 per household.   For all the eagerness in Congress to shrink food stamps, the program’s problem is not that it helps too many, but that it reaches too few, as Monica Potts has reported. About one in four people who qualify for some reason do not receive benefits, according to federal estimates, perhaps due to stigma or bureaucratic barriers in the application process. Many immigrant families are also excluded due to their legal status.   And Chen"s argues that the debate around SNAP provides a perfect symbol of the overall debate surrounding the nation"s economy and ongoing budget negotiations.   "That millions of people can’t afford to eat is not a cause for alarm for politicians so much as a burdensome line item," writes Chen. And continues:   Erasing public benefits make it easier to make the poor invisible in the public mind. After all, food stamps symbolize not only the failure of “free markets” but the power of social policy to reduce endemic human suffering. For millions of Americans, that monthly food allowance is an unsavory reminder of the consequences of social disinvestment: no matter how hard you work, at the end of the day, you’ll still be hungry.   And for those lucky enough not yet starved of their political will, as Krugman urges, perhaps it"s time to get "very, very angry" about the nature and substance of this lousy debate.   July, 4th: Get Involved in the Fight Against Poverty, by Greg Kaufmann   Regular readers of this blog know the statistics: more than 46 million Americans living below the poverty line on less than $18,000 annually for a family of three. More than 1 in 3 of us—106 million Americans—living on less than $36,000 a year, struggling to afford the basics like food, housing, healthcare, and education.   Meanwhile, food stamps are under attack by both Republicans and Democrats despite the fact that 50 million Americans are struggling with hunger; cash assistance (TANF) reaches only 27 of every 100 families living in poverty; the minimum wage is a poverty wage, and there is a proliferation of low-wage work.   Our nation could reverse these trends if we wanted to—that’s one of the key motivations for The Nation in creating this blog—that it’s simply not true that “we don’t know what to do about poverty.” Below is a link to groups that can help you get informed and get involved in the fight against poverty: http://www.thenation.com/blog/175122/july-4-weekend-poverty-get-involved-fight-against-poverty http://www.thenation.com/blog/174094/house-gop-plans-even-deeper-food-stamp-cuts# http://www.thenation.com/blogs/greg-kaufmann   Inequality – Let"s Fix It   Inequality is the most pressing economic issue in the US today. The Economic Policy Institute has created the website Inequality.is to bring the issue home to people. The site explains how inequality is real, personal, expensive, created and fixable. Inequality.is uses animations, easy-to-understand charts and this video narrated by Robert Reich to explain how inequality affects ordinary Americans. http://inequality.is/real http://inequality.is/created http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/opinion/from-the-mouths-of-babes.html?ref=opinion&_r=1& http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/31-0 http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/07/09-9 http://halfinten.org/talkpoverty http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/income/income_inequality/index.html http://inequality.org/ http://bigstory.ap.org/article/exclusive-4-5-us-face-near-poverty-no-work-0 http://www.measureofamerica.org/measure_of_america2013-2014/ http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2012.pdf http://billmoyers.com/segment/bill-moyers-essay-the-united-states-of-inequality/   * Wealth Inequality in America - YouTube, see link below. Visit the related web page
	Demonstrators move Brazil’s politicians to action by Rafeal Spuldar, Raquel Rolnik Index on Censorship & agencies Brazil   Brazil’s mass protests represent a new force in the country’s politics. The wave of demonstrations have shaken the country’s lethargic leaders into action, Rafael Spuldar reports.   Initially organised by Movimento Passe Livre (MPL) to protest the rising cost of transport in Brazil’s largest cities, the demonstrations, which began in early June, have evolved and swelled in size to give voice to a range of grievances from underfunded health and education systems to political corruption and the huge cost of the World Cup.   Political scientist Pedro Fassoni Arruda from PUC-SP University said that these protests are undoubtedly a new form of participatory politics in Brazil – a country that hasn’t been used to mass demonstrations.   “There was uneasiness, a spreading feeling of discontent with the representative system. People have power once every four years at election time, but they are unheard during the period in between”, Arruda commented.   Though Arruda said he feels it is still early to say if this kind of mass protest will endure “things change quickly. A month ago no one could predict the size these demonstrations would eventually have. Not even the most optimistic members of MPL imagined a hundred thousand people out in the streets.”   Though not a certainty, Brazilians should expect future large-scale demonstrations. Scattered groups with different demands will mount protests via social media, according to professor Cláudio Couto from the Public Administration course at FGV University in São Paulo.   “If I were a cartoonist, I’d already have drawn an extraterrestrial landing in Brazil and asking the protesters to take him to their leader, like the sci-fi movies. That’s because we can’t see anyone that can be identified as a representative of this movement. Many protesters joined the demonstrations by themselves, not obeying any leadership, and this is a new pattern”, said Couto, who regards the 2014 World Cup and general elections as an opportunity for these groups to go back to the streets and voice their demands again.   Brazil’s politicians responded with uncommon speed to the crowds’ demands.   Officials in São Paulo – and, before them, the ones in the southern capital of Porto Alegre – reversed the rise in fares.   On the federal level, officials moved to meet protest demands to tackle corruption. For the first time since 1988 a Brazilian congressman, who was convicted of embezzling public monies and criminal conspiracy, was sentenced to prison. Further, all political parties united to quash a proposed constitutional amendment that would have limited the investigation powers of the public ministry. Prior to the demonstrations, the amendment had appeared certain to be adopted.   Federal deputies also approved a bill that applies 75% of oil extraction royalties on public education and 25% on the health care system — another demand of the protesters. In addition, the “gay cure bill”, which would have allowed psychologists to treat patients that wished to be “cured” of homosexuality, was withdrawn from consideration after pressure from the streets.   President Dilma Rousseff announced her intention last week to have a plebiscite to let Brazilians decide on changes to the political system. The referendum would include changes in political party financing and the apportionment of congressional representation, possibly a district-like framework similar to the US. The proposed plebiscite was delivered to Congress on 2 July.   Rousseff first’s idea — now abandoned — had been to use the plebiscite to decide on the creation of a special constitutional assembly aimed at political reform – a move criticized by jurists and members of the federal Supreme Court. Now some politicians want political reform to be discussed first in Congress and later brought to a public referendum, a solution the president rejects.   A plebiscite should raise concerns in Brazil, said FGV’s Couto.   “A plebiscite turns everything into a matter of ‘yes or no’, ruling out negotiation, the ‘art of compromise’, which is the defining element of politics”, he added. “It will not solve all problems, it is not a panacea. I believe a plebiscite creates a low-quality democracy.”   PUC-SP’s Arruda is more optimistic about the plebiscite. He believes the president seized a one-of-a-kind opportunity to bring a fundamental issue into the light.   “Not only the population has gone out to the streets, the political class itself has also stepped out of lethargy. It is a very opportune moment to announce the intent of reforming politics, which is an idea dear to so many parties.”   But even these moves could not prevent the plummeting popularity of most Brazilian politicians after demonstrations bgan. Rousseff’s approval rating fell from 57% to 30% in only three weeks, according to a national survey. São Paulo’s governor Geraldo Alckmin and mayor Fernando Haddad also had poor results.   “What we have now is clearly a representation crisis”, says Couto. “Nobody’s satisfied with the ‘powers that be’, no one is safe from public scrutiny. The repression of protesters against political parties seen during the demonstrations – which is a worrying thing by itself, for there is no democracy without political parties – is one more element on this crisis.”   Couto referenced reports that protesters ordered participants carrying flags belonging to political parties to be expelled from the demonstrations. He sees this and the violent police reaction as worrying aspects of the unrest.   “Marching in one demonstration I caught myself warning people that [ordering parties’ flags to be put down] was wrong, it was censorship, that not even the police did it”, says Arruda. “These people didn’t realize the gravity of their gesture. Maybe they ignored the fact that the last time political parties were prohibited in Brazil was during the military regime.”   Arruda believes that some of the protesters acted like this after being manipulated by fringe groups that infiltrated in the demonstrations. “People act thoughtlessly when they’re in a crowd. They may not be ill-intended, but they often become a mass serving to some particular groups.”   Police violence was noted during the first weeks of unrest, especially in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where protesters and media professionals were targeted by rubber bullets, stun grenades, tear gas and mace. Over the weeks, while demonstrations grew and became more diverse, sacking and beatings by far-right groups became common place during protests, leading to more clashes between the crowds and the police.   The demonstrations have also led to a debate over the demilitarization of police in Brazil – where each state has both Military Police, which is in charge of street patrolling and riot control, and Civil Police that mostly focuses on investigation.   “The military police has not made any transition from dictatorship to democracy. It follows the norms from the military period”, says Couto. “It does not have the expertise to deal with social problems that demand a kind of acting that’s not purely repressive.”   PUC-SP’s Pedro Arruda regards military police as excessively authoritarian. “During the recent protests police restricted people’s freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. People were detained merely ‘for inquiry’, something that happened only under the military regime, or because they carried vinegar to protect themselves from tear gas. It’s clear that the demilitarization of the police is something to be discussed.”   * Rafeal Spuldar is a freelance writer based in Brazil.   http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2013/07/demonstrators-move-brazils-politicians-to-action/ http://newint.org/blog/2013/07/03/brazil-protest-world-cup/   14 June 2013   Brazil: Championing Football… But What About Housing Rights?   On the eve of 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Raquel Rolnik, said today: “I acknowledge that mega sporting events can be an opportunity to enhance access to adequate housing, for example, by providing better transportation systems and environmental improvements in the host cities. However, past experience has shown that these events often result in forced evictions, displacement, sweeping operations against the homeless and a general augmentation of the cost of adequate housing.”   “The situation is, unfortunately, not different in Brazil as we speak. We expected that the champion of many football cups would use this opportunity to show the world it is also a champion of the right to housing, in particular for people living in poverty, but the information I have received shows otherwise,” Ms. Rolnik added.   On 15 June, Brazil will inaugurate the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, an international football tournament that serves as a prelude to the 2014 World Cup, also to take place in Brazil. The Olympic Games are also planned in several of the same host cities in 2016. The organization of back-to-back mega events of this kind is at the centre of the urban planning and development policies in the country.   During the past three years, the independent expert has received allegations of evictions without due process or in detriment of international human rights standards. In various cases, residents have not been consulted and have not had the opportunity to participate in decisions having a grave impact on their standard of living. Concerns have also been expressed about very low compensation that might lead to the creation of new informal settlements with inadequate living conditions or greater rates of homelessness.   “As I have said many times, including in communications with the State and local authorities in Brazil, they must refrain from forced evictions in the preparation for mega-events. Where evictions are justified, they should be undertaken in full compliance with the relevant procedures and international instruments and guidelines. Above all, authorities should avoid at all costs any negative impacts on then human rights of the individuals and communities, especially the most vulnerable,” the UN independent expert highlighted.   “Given the large amount of financial resources that is invested in the preparation of these events, priority must be given to plans that create and improve low-income housing, including informal settlement upgrading and regularization. The authorities should ensure that their actions, and those of third parties involved in the organization of the events, contribute to the creation of a stable housing market and have a long term positive impact in the residents of the cities where events take place. Steps must be taken to prevent speculation in housing prices and to deliver more affordable housing.”   “I call for the adoption of urgent national regulations to guide the activities of local governments and third parties involved in these projects. This is an essential step in the effective preparation and planning for the series of mega-events taking place in Brazil. Just as the world will be watching the football champion, the international human rights community will also be watching how well the housing rights of all are protected in these coming weeks and years”, the Special Rapporteur said.   http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/housing/index.htm
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