🚀 go-pugleaf

Pennsylvania Dutch <PennsylvaniaDutch@mail2usa.com> wrote in message news:<iJKdnQegjvMsZtzcRVn-qA@centurytel.net>...
> Greg Butterfield wrote:
> > Wisconsin hard-hit by growing poverty
> 
> If this is the case, how come you got all those Somalis and all those
> Latino illegal aliens running around in your state...make you
> bed...sleep in it with the Somalis, Lost Boys and other foreign coons
> like Mexicoons...


Because Wisconsin still suffers from latent political insanity. Will
the arrival of "brownies" this is changing. The question is: will
Whites awake in time to resist.

James

> > 
> > By Bryan G. Pfeifer
> > Milwaukee
> > 
> > If anyone has any doubts about the ruling class's unrelenting
> > onslaught against the working class and oppressed in the United
> > States, recently released poverty statistics by the Census Bureau for
> > 2003 should put them to rest.
> > 
> > One of the states with the worst social crisis is Wisconsin.
> > 
> > Reporting on the Census Bureau's figures released Aug. 26, the
> > Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote that 528,000 people out of a
> > population of 5 million are estimated to be living below the poverty
> > level in the state. That is a ten-year high.
> > 
> > With costs of rent, and of staples such as milk and gas, increasing,
> > the federal poverty thresholds of $18,810 for a family of four and
> > $12,015 for two people are abysmal and impossible to survive on.
> > 
> > Even worse, the bureau found that 187,000 children are in poverty and
> > that 593,000 Wisconsin residents were without health insurance in
> > 2003. That is a staggering 46 percent increase over 2000.
> > 
> > And although urban areas like Milwaukee and Madison with large
> > populations of nationally oppressed people, especially women and
> > children, have been decimated, rural and semi-rural areas of the state
> > have been steamrolled as well.
> > 
> > Census figures show Waukesha County, just northwest of Milwaukee, with
> > the second-lowest poverty rate in the United States in 2003 among the
> > 233 counties with a population of 250,000 or more. But Karen Tredwell,
> > director of the Food Pantry of Waukesha, is skeptical.
> > 
> > "It's very difficult for me to reconcile the information that poverty
> > is reaching low percentages in Waukesha County," she said. In July the
> > pantry helped more people than any month in its 25-year history.
> > "That's a huge number of people in need in this very wealthy country."
> > (www.jsonline.com)
> > 
> > Although it is undeniable that the continuing loss of mostly union
> > manufacturing jobs due to capitalist economic policies like
> > NAFTA--estimated at 84,000 since January 2001--has had a devastating
> > impact in the state, the Journal Sentinel completely ignored an
> > objective factor ravaging Wisconsin: W-2.
> > 
> > Wisconsin became known as a national leader in "welfare reform" by
> > implementing a pilot program,"Pay for Performance," in 1996. It was a
> > precursor to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. TANF replaced the
> > 60-year-old federal welfare program when the welfare-repeal law,
> > passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in August
> > 1996, became effective on Sept. 1, 1997.
> > 
> > TANF lifted most federal mandates on all 50 states, allowing them to
> > develop their own workfare programs, as they came to be popularly
> > known. Under the old program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children,
> > states were required to abide by strict federal mandates. TANF, in
> > contrast, allowed states to create their own limits and programs with
> > a bare minimum of federal oversight and regulation.
> > 
> > There is a five-year lifetime limit for benefits under TANF. After
> > recipients use up five years' worth of benefits they are on their own
> > to survive, or not.
> > 
> > The results have been catastrophic.
> > 
> > "We have gone since 1996, when Pay for Performance hit, from
> > distributing 1.5 million pounds of food to 10 million on an emergency
> > basis," said Sherrie Tussler, executive director of the Hunger Task
> > Force of Milwaukee.
> > 
> > "If people don't see that as a troublesome statistic, they surely
> > should see the census numbers as troublesome. A lot of people are
> > piecing together two and three jobs just to be able to make a rent
> > payment. All of those things are symptomatic of a lack of household
> > income to meet basic needs."
> > 
> > TANF dismantled AFDC, the guaranteed federal entitlement program that
> > had been in effect since it was won through militant struggles by the
> > working class and oppressed in the 1930s. Both contenders for the 2004
> > presidential election support TANF. Democratic contender Sen. John
> > Kerry voted for its passage.
> > 
> > Under the leadership of Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, now Bush's
> > Health and Human Services secretary, Wisconsin created the most
> > demanding workfare program, called W-2. Under W-2, non-profit and
> > private agencies with multi-year state contracts replaced counties in
> > dispensing services to recipients.
> > 
> > One of the greatest victories for the ruling class in the recent
> > period, the TANF legislation and many states' workfare language was
> > largely written by right-wing think tanks such as the Heritage
> > Foundation, bankrolled by capitalist philanthropies like the Bradley
> > Foundation.
> > 
> > Since 1997 labor and community organizations and even the corporate
> > media have reported on W-2 agency executives profiting from contracts
> > that rewarded agencies providing minimum levels of service, and
> > declaring recipi ents "job-ready" prematurely, among many other
> > abuses.
> > 
> > From the outset various labor and community organizations such as the
> > Milwaukee-based Job is A Right Cam paign denounced W-2 as a
> > slave-labor, union-busting program, and called for the unionization of
> > W-2 workers.
> > 
> > The way to end the wrenching poverty described in the Census Bureau's
> > survey is not to steer the working class and oppressed to vote for
> > capitalist politicians like Bush and Kerry who profit from their
> > misery.
> > 
> > The way forward includes mobilizing and fighting in the streets for
> > people's programs like AFDC and to organize the unorganized.
> > 
> > The Oct. 17 Million Workers March in Washington, D.C., is just such an
> > endeavor. See www.millionworkermarch.org.
> > 
> > 
> > Reprinted from the Sept. 9, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper
> > 
> > (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and
> > distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not
> > allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY,
> > NY 10011; via email: ww@workers.org. Subscribe
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