How do you spell hope?

Once a month in his "Open thread for night owls," Meteor Blades features an excerpt from the always interesting Harper's Index. From the current month's--these two factoids:

• The percentage change since 1996 of the number of children living in poverty in America is plus 12%.
• Likewise, the change in those receiving cash aid from our government is minus 60%.

Not surprisingly, the suicide rate in the U.S. has increased 23% over the last decade.  And a recent study shows that--again, surprise, surprise--the republican austerity agenda is to blame.  The study notes that when the wealth and wages of the working class falls, suicide rises--and that when the government provides proper stimulus during economic downturns, it stays flat.

At a time in America when the republican party controls one-third of our federal system, too many of our state legislatures, and flat doesn't give a shit about anyone not in the moneyed elite, when corporate America runs roughshod over its workers and owns our system of justice, and when the wealthy think they deserve every privilege that comes their way but think the rest of us should earn them, the only way any of us can spell hope is G-O-V-E-R-N-M-E-N-T.  As shown above, people's lives depend on it.

Our government may be incompetent at times and overmatched at others, but it is not intrinsically evil.  Those noted in the preceding paragraph are.

Peace,
emaycee