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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: Children, Hunger and School Lunches
Message-ID: <1054@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Mar-86 09:18:14 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.1054
Posted: Tue Mar 18 09:18:14 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Mar-86 18:05:27 EST
References: <358@ihnet.UUCP> <28200625@inmet.UUCP> <363@ihnet.UUCP> <1029@whuxl.UUCP> <14@vaxb.calgary.UUCP>
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> In article <1029@whuxl.UUCP>, orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) writes:
> 
> > ...
> > But for many poor children (who are incidentally the majority of
> > the children in this country at this time) ...
> 
> This illustrates how ridiculous this debate can become. By what possible 
> standard can the majority of the children in one of the richest countries
> in the world be poor? I don't doubt that Sevener has read some study that
> reached this conclusion, but its definition of "poor" must have been 
> designed to ensure a scathing report decrying the lack of social programs
> under Reagan...
> 
> Are these children poor compared to those in Bangladesh? If not, perhaps
> it would be best to cease using words like "poor" that fail to communicate
> anything but emotional bias.
> 
>      Radford Neal

A *VERY* good question, Radford! How is it that one of the richest
(Sweden and other nations have overcome our per capita income at this point)
countries on the earth allows over 50% of its children to be impoverished?
A rather sorry state of affairs isn't it?   The basis for my statement
that a majority of children in this country are poor are numerous studies
which have shown that a majority of children live in families with incomes
under the official poverty line.  The official poverty line is not
a joke.  The New York Times last Sunday had an interesting article
on the beginning of working-class homeless coming into shelters for
the homeless because they had no place else to go.  The percentage
of income which goes for rent has increased in these families from a
median level of 20% 20 years ago to 50% today.  Some families wind
up paying 75% of their income just to have a roof over their head.
This is not a joke: it is a national tragedy of monumental proportions.
 
Sure, one can say, well in the streets of Calcutta people literally
eat shit to gain sustenance.  But that hardly makes the poverty in
our own country any better or justifiable.  If you don't believe
that try to live in poverty for awhile and see what it's like.
Even when I was a student I was never below the official poverty line
and yet I was constantly broke.  Such is not a pleasant feeling.
 
There are a number of reasons *why* children are the particular
victims of poverty.  One is a society which promulgates the idea
that the sole justification for sexual activity is having babies.
At the same time that many powerful elements of our society take
this peculiar *moral* stance, other elements of our society find
that using sex to sell everything from soap to toothpaste is quite
profitable.  Nowhere do such commerical purveyors of the images
of sexual pleasure point out that such sexual pleasure also
involves a *responsibility* - that indeed, children *WILL* result
from sexual activity if no precautions are taken.
Thus our society has a teenage pregnancy rate many times higher than
that in every country in Europe.  How welloff do you suppose
a teenage mother is likely to be?  Do you think she is likely to
go to college, to finish high school, or to get any kind of decent
job?
 
When the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists tried
to put on an ad suggesting that people consult a gynecologist or
obstetrician about sexual responsibility, CBS refused to air it
as "too controversial".
 
While the middle-class has reduced its children because of birth
control and the feeling that too many children is not a good thing,
dual careers and so forth, the poor have kept having children.

         tim sevener  whuxn!orb