How hungry is hungry? If we are on a diet and decide to cut back our food intake… lessen the per portion sizes…refuse that dessert…is that hungry? How often have we gone hungry? We have the flu lost our appetite…decided to fast so we could fit into that dress that bathing suit…had to finish our tasks at work or cram for a test no time to eat…is that going hungry? How do we feel about being hungry? I hate the service at this restaurant at least there could be bread on the table…we were stuck in traffic for hours had nothing to eat…we missed the last exit and the next food court is two hours away…is that how we feel about hunger?
Our US Congress is deciding on how hungry is hungry, who should go hungry, and how to define hunger. The men and women (most proclaiming first to be good soldiers of Judeo/Christianity, secondly better Americans) elected to establish laws in this nation, want to cut back funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) a program established to provide food/nutrition for those under the poverty line, at the poverty line or just enough above the poverty line to not completely drown. These self proclaimed soldiers of hungry want to decide just how much food is enough and when too much food is kind of sorta like socialism, communism or anti-Americanism. These demigods of hunger who have only wined or complained because they missed a meal or two insist that cutbacks in the SNAP program are really for the good of our children, not the current crop of kids but the next generation. Food stamps, they shout from their ivory towers, just make you lazy…three meals a day as they preach with a Bible in their hands makes you selfish…you want to eat, they demand, then find a job.
The divide between the very rich and the very poor has widened. The have’s are clearly enjoying banquets while the have not’s are settling for scraps. We are reminded just how much this nation has strayed from Christian values as we are told that the hunger is not really on God’s to do list. Hunger is being debated by men and women who have only experienced a delay in the waiter delivering a meal, a forgotten trip to the grocery store, left overs because no one was able to cook a fresh meal. We are told that while tax breaks for the rich, corporations are people, the military budget is the key to our success as a free democratic nation, those poor citizens, non corporation people, and any one not producing a bomb, battleship or bazooka are non essential for democracy or decency. We are told primarily by Tea Party/Republican jihadists that if you are hungry it is your own fault and the government has absolutely no responsibility to help out. Just how hungry is hungry?
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