My dad used to tell me about growing up during the "Great Depression" and being hungry much of the time. Millions of Americans were getting only minimum amounts of food. Not enough for bigger families. My dad talked about the hunger pains, the actual pain of not eating for a few days after the rations had been consumed and none were coming until the next week. Hunger for him was a very real trauma. My dad had three brothers and his mom to look after. He was the oldest son in his teens and he often didn't eat so his younger brothers and mom could. His dad had long been out of their lives. He scrounged around for anything he could find that was edible. And made sure the rest of the family was fed before him.

It was a very hard time for millions. For my dad, it left him always in fear of being hungry again even when he worked and made good wages. He was always a "soft touch" whenever someone approached him about being hungry.

Today they call hunger "food insecurity". Millions of Americans are still hungry. A large number are children. Maybe the greatest majority are children. In this time of CEO compensation reaching record levels, of the rich getting richer and the disparity of income becoming the largest in recorded history, Americans go hungry. More kids in our public schools go hungry than most of us realize. Some kids can't wait for holidays away from school. Kids who are hungry aren't so happy. It means they lose any school breakfast or lunch program while school's out.

Every hour of every day kids and families are hungry in this nation while almost two or three times each hour on network or cable television there's commercials displaying food. Most of us go to bed without hunger and may well fool ourselves into believing we live in the land of plenty. Food from households, restaurants and fast food sites is thrown away on daily basis. Grocery stores often toss absolutely good food if not picked up on their markdown counters or picked up by food banks. 

How does a nation touting itself as the greatest nation on earth have so many families with children going hungry? We can look at the insanely ineffective federal and local governments filled with partisan hacks for a lot of the answer. Today the Congress is debating the need for keeping a tax credit for families that has proven to reduce child hunger. Some want a work requirement as part of the deal. Some want to lower income thresholds. At the same time Congress is quite willing to increase the military budget to record levels and allow the arms industry to reap record profits.

Outside of families and children, hunger is prevalent for the elderly living Social Security check to Social Security check. They have to choose between life saving medications and food. They have to worry if their rents will increase making things worse. They have to worry if the power companies will increase rates to make things worse. They have to worry if huge retail food stores will gouge them more and more for the cost of any food they might buy at their stores. Stores that may be the only site selling food other than exorbitantly high cost convenience stores. 

And while the hungry worry where they might find relief, where they might find the next meal, conglomerate stores like Kroger, Wal-Mart and Target reap record profits. Huge energy companies like XCEL continue unabated in doubling and tripling their bills while reaping record profits. They claim they need the extra costs to upgrade the infrastructue but never ask their stock holders to take less of the record profits. 

And while the Fed screams out about inflation and raises interest rates almost weekly, it is the poor and lower middle class who will suffer the greatest amount with those increases. And what they fail to admit is inflation post pandemic has more to do with price gouging by huge corporations than anything else. The Fed is more concerned with propping up the "market" than propping up those going to the markets.

This nation has been one that consumes and consumes, allows the military budget to take over half our national budget and refuses to adopt sensible healthcare for all. It spends obscene amounts of money on elections where only the rich can be elected rather than adopt election reform. It loses citizens on a weekly basis to mass shootings and refuses to do anything about controlling the availability of weapons meant to do only one thing, kill other humans. The stress of these senseless killings on local and federal budgets means less money for feeding those who are hungry.

We refuse to address homelessness where hunger is epidemic. We prefer to look at the homeless as the addict or alcoholic. Refuse to think of them as families sending kids to schools hungry. Refuse to think of them as working for poverty wages at large corporate run businesses. Refuse to understand the wage scale in this nation has been pathetically inadequate to keep up with the true cost of living. Politicians posture about balancing budgets and how a living wage as the minimum wage will kill businesses. They posture as they live opulent lifestyles totally out of touch with most of their constituents.

The capitalistic system has failed most of us because it promotes greed and consumption. It promotes continued destruction of the environment. And that destruction and consumption eventually causes more hunger. The heating of the planet created by the greed of industries emitting toxic wastes or destroying water supplies leads to horrific drought and massive wildfires killing farmlands and creating more refugees in the grips of food insecurity.

We can choose to ignore the hunger all around us or the escalating events that will increase hunger. As long as we have food we can choose to think all is well. We can look through the homeless population in our neighborhoods. Ignore children who go to school hungry. Ignore the elders who lack income and are in failing health that go hungry. We can choose to ignore but we will not be able to escape the ultimate effects of our ignorance.