California’s Newly Poor Push Social Services to Brink
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California’s Newly Poor Push Social Services to Brink
By Vivien Lou Chen
Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- In California’s Contra Costa County, 40,000 families are applying for just 350 affordable-housing vouchers. Church-operated pantries are running out of food. Crisis calls have more than doubled in the city of Antioch, where the Family Stress Center occupies the site of a former bank.
The worst financial crisis in seven decades is forcing thousands of previously middle-income workers to seek social services, overwhelming local agencies, clinics and nonprofits. Each month 16,000 people, including many who were making $60,000 to $100,000 annually just a few years ago, fill four county offices requesting financial, medical or food assistance.
“Unless we do things differently, not only will we continue to be on life support, but the power to the machine is going to die,” said county Supervisor Federal Glover, who represents Antioch and the cities of Pittsburg and Oakley about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of San Francisco.
Contra Costa, an East Bay suburban region of more than 1 million, turned thousands of farmland acres into housing in the past two decades, becoming an affordable alternative to San Francisco. Now, the area is being hit by a double whammy, as rising unemployment increases demand for social services, while plunging home values shrink tax revenue and squeeze agency budgets.
County officials made $90 million in cuts during the current fiscal year, and plan to reduce another $56 million, out of a $1.2 billion general-fund budget, in the coming year. County administrator David Twa said he doesn’t expect to see a “gradual recovery” in property taxes until 2012 or 2013.
Safety Net
The social safety net is being stretched “all over the country,” said Jacqueline Byers, research director for the National Association of Counties in Washington. “The formerly middle class who lost jobs, homes, or both suddenly are requesting assistance for the first time.”
Nationwide, demand for food stamps, one of the first benefits that new applicants for services qualify for, has mushroomed since the recession began in December 2007. About 31.1 million people received food stamps in November, an increase of 13 percent from the end of 2007, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department, which administers the program.
A record 5.11 million Americans were collecting unemployment benefits in the week ended Feb. 14. The jobless rate in Contra Costa, currently at 9.3 percent compared with a U.S. rate of 7.6 percent, is likely to reach as high as 12 percent, Twa said. Among local employers that have cut jobs or forced workers to take unpaid leave are USS-Posco Industries, a joint venture of U.S. Steel Corp. and Posco of South Korea, and newspaper publisher MediaNews Group Inc.
“We are in a critical situation and it’s not likely to get better over the next several years,” Twa said.
Therapy for Staff
Lines snake out the door of Contra Costa County’s employment and human services office in Antioch. At the Richmond office, the applicants’ stories of foreclosures and repossessed cars are “weighing” on staffers, who are offered therapy, said division manager Renee Giometti.
“People are physically going through a slow death,” said Karen Stewart, an area real-estate agent who earned about $80,000 a year just three years ago and is now down to her last $700. “You don’t have any support and the support systems that were in place before aren’t in place anymore.”
Recently separated, Stewart, 45, said she has been without a steady income since 2006 and is living on a county-issued food- debit card. The five-bedroom house in Brentwood she and her husband had purchased for $500,000 went into foreclosure in January. She said she hasn’t ruled out moving into her Lexus sedan and sending her 12-year-old son to live with a relative on the East Coast.
‘On the Edge’
Shelley Bowen, a 35-year-old stay-at-home mom from Antioch, said she and her husband Jason are “teetering on the edge,” as they face slowing sales of his art work and a $2,500 monthly mortgage that will go up by $1,000 in April.
Even though Jason makes $90,000 to $95,000 a year as an oil painter and instructor, “we’re kind of holding our breath, hoping nothing else happens,” Bowen said. If necessary, the couple would turn to family and friends, then church-welfare services and government assistance, she said.
“It’s a combination of a housing crisis and unemployment crisis like we’ve never seen before,” said Antioch realtor Kay Trail, a former city-planning commissioner. “Instead of being a bedroom community where people could live a certain lifestyle for an affordable price, now there’s quiet dread.”
Homeowners Default
The county’s median house price has plummeted 53 percent to $220,000 from $463,000 in a year, according to MDA Dataquick in San Diego. In the fourth quarter, 3,135 notices of default representing the first stage of foreclosure were filed against county homeowners, the firm said. That’s more than 10 times the number in San Francisco.
In Antioch’s old-town district, the Peacock Expressions art gallery, More to Love clothing store, and Rivertown Cafe are gone, replaced by empty storefronts.
About five miles away, signs reading “bank-owned home” are scattered throughout neighborhoods. Single-family properties built by KB Home are offered for less than $300,000. At the County East Mall, TJX Cos.’ Marshalls and Gottschalks Inc. stores were almost empty.
The county’s Housing Authority has a five-year wait for affordable-housing vouchers, said executive director Joseph Villarreal. Requests for homeless assistance statewide were up 26 percent in September over a year earlier, according to the California State Association of Counties in Sacramento.
Suicide Threats
“There’s always a level of desperation” in applicants, Villarreal said. “But the degree and depth of it now I’ve never seen: I’m not used to getting calls from clients saying they’ll kill themselves if they don’t get on the wait list.”
California’s 58 counties are $1 billion short of the amount needed to administer social-service programs in the current fiscal year that ends in June, said Paul McIntosh, executive director of the statewide group of counties. The local-government crisis was aggravated by state Controller John Chiang’s move earlier this month to start delaying almost $270 million in payments to counties for social services.
Neither the California legislature’s new budget package approved on Feb. 19 nor President Barack Obama’s $787 billion federal stimulus plan signed into law two days earlier will be enough to completely or immediately help counties, said McIntosh and Glover. Counties will still fall short of what they need even if Chiang releases previously withheld funds, they said.
“Contra Costa is near the front of the pack” among counties with the deepest financial woes, McIntosh said. “But the pack is tightly bunched and all headed in the same direction: off a cliff.”
California’s Newly Poor Push Social Services to Brink
By Vivien Lou Chen
Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- In California’s Contra Costa County, 40,000 families are applying for just 350 affordable-housing vouchers. Church-operated pantries are running out of food. Crisis calls have more than doubled in the city of Antioch, where the Family Stress Center occupies the site of a former bank.
The worst financial crisis in seven decades is forcing thousands of previously middle-income workers to seek social services, overwhelming local agencies, clinics and nonprofits. Each month 16,000 people, including many who were making $60,000 to $100,000 annually just a few years ago, fill four county offices requesting financial, medical or food assistance.
“Unless we do things differently, not only will we continue to be on life support, but the power to the machine is going to die,” said county Supervisor Federal Glover, who represents Antioch and the cities of Pittsburg and Oakley about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of San Francisco.
Contra Costa, an East Bay suburban region of more than 1 million, turned thousands of farmland acres into housing in the past two decades, becoming an affordable alternative to San Francisco. Now, the area is being hit by a double whammy, as rising unemployment increases demand for social services, while plunging home values shrink tax revenue and squeeze agency budgets.
County officials made $90 million in cuts during the current fiscal year, and plan to reduce another $56 million, out of a $1.2 billion general-fund budget, in the coming year. County administrator David Twa said he doesn’t expect to see a “gradual recovery” in property taxes until 2012 or 2013.
Safety Net
The social safety net is being stretched “all over the country,” said Jacqueline Byers, research director for the National Association of Counties in Washington. “The formerly middle class who lost jobs, homes, or both suddenly are requesting assistance for the first time.”
Nationwide, demand for food stamps, one of the first benefits that new applicants for services qualify for, has mushroomed since the recession began in December 2007. About 31.1 million people received food stamps in November, an increase of 13 percent from the end of 2007, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department, which administers the program.
A record 5.11 million Americans were collecting unemployment benefits in the week ended Feb. 14. The jobless rate in Contra Costa, currently at 9.3 percent compared with a U.S. rate of 7.6 percent, is likely to reach as high as 12 percent, Twa said. Among local employers that have cut jobs or forced workers to take unpaid leave are USS-Posco Industries, a joint venture of U.S. Steel Corp. and Posco of South Korea, and newspaper publisher MediaNews Group Inc.
“We are in a critical situation and it’s not likely to get better over the next several years,” Twa said.
Therapy for Staff
Lines snake out the door of Contra Costa County’s employment and human services office in Antioch. At the Richmond office, the applicants’ stories of foreclosures and repossessed cars are “weighing” on staffers, who are offered therapy, said division manager Renee Giometti.
“People are physically going through a slow death,” said Karen Stewart, an area real-estate agent who earned about $80,000 a year just three years ago and is now down to her last $700. “You don’t have any support and the support systems that were in place before aren’t in place anymore.”
Recently separated, Stewart, 45, said she has been without a steady income since 2006 and is living on a county-issued food- debit card. The five-bedroom house in Brentwood she and her husband had purchased for $500,000 went into foreclosure in January. She said she hasn’t ruled out moving into her Lexus sedan and sending her 12-year-old son to live with a relative on the East Coast.
‘On the Edge’
Shelley Bowen, a 35-year-old stay-at-home mom from Antioch, said she and her husband Jason are “teetering on the edge,” as they face slowing sales of his art work and a $2,500 monthly mortgage that will go up by $1,000 in April.
Even though Jason makes $90,000 to $95,000 a year as an oil painter and instructor, “we’re kind of holding our breath, hoping nothing else happens,” Bowen said. If necessary, the couple would turn to family and friends, then church-welfare services and government assistance, she said.
“It’s a combination of a housing crisis and unemployment crisis like we’ve never seen before,” said Antioch realtor Kay Trail, a former city-planning commissioner. “Instead of being a bedroom community where people could live a certain lifestyle for an affordable price, now there’s quiet dread.”
Homeowners Default
The county’s median house price has plummeted 53 percent to $220,000 from $463,000 in a year, according to MDA Dataquick in San Diego. In the fourth quarter, 3,135 notices of default representing the first stage of foreclosure were filed against county homeowners, the firm said. That’s more than 10 times the number in San Francisco.
In Antioch’s old-town district, the Peacock Expressions art gallery, More to Love clothing store, and Rivertown Cafe are gone, replaced by empty storefronts.
About five miles away, signs reading “bank-owned home” are scattered throughout neighborhoods. Single-family properties built by KB Home are offered for less than $300,000. At the County East Mall, TJX Cos.’ Marshalls and Gottschalks Inc. stores were almost empty.
The county’s Housing Authority has a five-year wait for affordable-housing vouchers, said executive director Joseph Villarreal. Requests for homeless assistance statewide were up 26 percent in September over a year earlier, according to the California State Association of Counties in Sacramento.
Suicide Threats
“There’s always a level of desperation” in applicants, Villarreal said. “But the degree and depth of it now I’ve never seen: I’m not used to getting calls from clients saying they’ll kill themselves if they don’t get on the wait list.”
California’s 58 counties are $1 billion short of the amount needed to administer social-service programs in the current fiscal year that ends in June, said Paul McIntosh, executive director of the statewide group of counties. The local-government crisis was aggravated by state Controller John Chiang’s move earlier this month to start delaying almost $270 million in payments to counties for social services.
Neither the California legislature’s new budget package approved on Feb. 19 nor President Barack Obama’s $787 billion federal stimulus plan signed into law two days earlier will be enough to completely or immediately help counties, said McIntosh and Glover. Counties will still fall short of what they need even if Chiang releases previously withheld funds, they said.
“Contra Costa is near the front of the pack” among counties with the deepest financial woes, McIntosh said. “But the pack is tightly bunched and all headed in the same direction: off a cliff.”
If I was to smile and I held out my hand
If I opened it now would you not understand?
If I opened it now would you not understand?
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
a monetary based society where people can't afford the goods=failure. especially considering there are plenty of goods to go around.
I don't see the Venus Project happening anytime soon, that's for sure.
Good.
Central planning is NOT the answer, and is a "false opposition" solution.
My personal POV is that while capitalism may not be perfect, there is NOTHING better to replace personal property and consumer freedom of choice.
The biggest inhibitor to the free market process as a functioning vehicle towards the prosperity of the people is the parasitic combination of the centralize double inverted pyramid model of fractional reserve banking (and its sister evil, deposit "insurance") and WAY overextended corporate privelage.
The most viable option for restoring personal wealth around the world would be for the people to make a grassroots movement for massive reform of corporate privelage and for the abolition of centralized banking and restoration of locally empowered institutions that live and die at the mercy of the FREE MARKET and consumer scrutiny.
As long as a centralized (and cartel-ized) system of "insurance" and massive bailouts is institutionalized to protect and PROVIDE UNFAIR ADVANTAGE TO the largest CORPORATIONS in the world at OUR DIRECT EXPENSE, the PEOPLE will NEVER have the POWER.
Banking reform, and corporate reform.
And give the people a NON-iNFLATIONARY currency for fucks sake.
jeez.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
the reason why people cant afford anything is b/c they are being taxed to death.
Hey commy if capitalism is so bad why don't you move to another country and see how you like it and report back to us..
I'd consider moving to Scandinavia, but I'm too lazy to figure out the visa and citizenship runaround, let alone learn a new language. So I'll stay. It's not so bad here that it's worth the hassle, but that doesn't mean it's not better elsewhere.
Because if they stayed in their countries they would simply be DYING.
If not because we were starving them to death with sanctions or exploitation, then by dropping bombs on them in the name of "Democracy".
:shock:
If I opened it now would you not understand?
I don't know about Mexico recently, which has been playing kiss ass with us for at least 20 years, but is that a joke about Central\South America?
SERIOUSLY?
U.S. Interventions in Latin America (current to 1996)
1846
The U.S., fulfilling the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, goes to war with Mexico and ends up with a third of Mexico's territory.
1850, 1853, 1854, 1857
U.S. interventions in Nicaragua.
1855
Tennessee adventurer William Walker and his mercenaries take over Nicaragua, institute forced labor, and legalize slavery.
"Los yankis... have burst their way like a fertilizing torrent through the barriers of barbarism." --N.Y. Daily News
He's ousted two years later by a Central American coalition largely inspired by Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose trade Walker was infringing.
"The enemies of American civilization-- for such are the enemies of slavery-- seem to be more on the alert than its friends." --William Walker
1856
First of five U.S. interventions in Panama to protect the Atlantic-Pacific railroad from Panamanian nationalists.
1898
U.S. declares war on Spain, blaming it for destruction of the Maine. (In 1976, a U.S. Navy commission will conclude that the explosion was probably an accident.) The war enables the U.S. to occupy Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
1903
The Platt Amendment inserted into the Cuban constitution grants the U.S. the right to intervene when it sees fit.
1903
When negotiations with Colombia break down, the U.S. sends ten warships to back a rebellion in Panama in order to acquire the land for the Panama Canal. The Frenchman Philippe Bunau-Varilla negotiates the Canal Treaty and writes Panama's constitution.
1904
U.S. sends customs agents to take over finances of the Dominican Republic to assure payment of its external debt.
1905
U.S. Marines help Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz crush a strike in Sonora.
1905
U.S. troops land in Honduras for the first of 5 times in next 20 years.
1906
Marines occupy Cuba for two years in order to prevent a civil war.
1907
Marines intervene in Honduras to settle a war with Nicaragua.
1908
U.S. troops intervene in Panama for first of 4 times in next decade.
1909
Liberal President José Santos Zelaya of Nicaragua proposes that American mining and banana companies pay taxes; he has also appropriated church lands and legalized divorce, done business with European firms, and executed two Americans for participating in a rebellion. Forced to resign through U.S. pressure. The new president, Adolfo Díaz, is the former treasurer of an American mining company.
1910
U.S. Marines occupy Nicaragua to help support the Díaz regime.
1911
The Liberal regime of Miguel Dávila in Honduras has irked the State Department by being too friendly with Zelaya and by getting into debt with Britain. He is overthrown by former president Manuel Bonilla, aided by American banana tycoon Sam Zemurray and American mercenary Lee Christmas, who becomes commander-in-chief of the Honduran army.
1912
U.S. Marines intervene in Cuba to put down a rebellion of sugar workers.
1912
Nicaragua occupied again by the U.S., to shore up the inept Díaz government. An election is called to resolve the crisis: there are 4000 eligible voters, and one candidate, Díaz. The U.S. maintains troops and advisors in the country until 1925.
1914
U.S. bombs and then occupies Vera Cruz, in a conflict arising out of a dispute with Mexico's new government. President Victoriano Huerta resigns.
1915
U.S. Marines occupy Haiti to restore order, and establish a protectorate which lasts till 1934. The president of Haiti is barred from the U.S. Officers' Club in Port-au-Prince, because he is black.
"Think of it-- niggers speaking French!" --secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, briefed on the Haitian situation
1916
Marines occupy the Dominican Republic, staying till 1924.
! 1916
Pancho Villa, in the sole act of Latin American aggression against the U.S, raids the city of Columbus, New Mexico, killing 17 Americans.
"Am sure Villa's attacks are made in Germany." --James Gerard, U.S. ambassador to Berlin
1917
U.S. troops enter Mexico to pursue Pancho Villa. They can't catch him.
1917
Marines intervene again in Cuba, to guarantee sugar exports during WWI.
1918
U.S. Marines occupy Panamanian province of Chiriqui for two years to maintain public order.
1921
President Coolidge strongly suggests the overthrow of Guatemalan President Carlos Herrera, in the interests of United Fruit. The Guatemalans comply.
1925
U.S. Army troops occupy Panama City to break a rent strike and keep order.
1926
Marines, out of Nicaragua for less than a year, occupy the country again, to settle a volatile political situation. Secretary of State Kellogg describes a "Nicaraguan-Mexican-Soviet" conspiracy to inspire a "Mexican-Bolshevist hegemony" within striking distance of the Canal.
"That intervention is not now, never was, and never will be a set policy of the United States is one of the most important facts President-elect Hoover has made clear." --NYT, 1928
1929
U.S. establishes a military academy in Nicaragua to train a National Guard as the country's army. Similar forces are trained in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
"There is no room for any outside influence other than ours in this region. We could not tolerate such a thing without incurring grave risks... Until now Central America has always understood that governments which we recognize and support stay in power, while those which we do not recognize and support fall. Nicaragua has become a test case. It is difficult to see how we can afford to be defeated." --Undersecretary of State Robert Olds
1930
Rafael Leonidas Trujillo emerges from the U.S.-trained National Guard to become dictator of the Dominican Republic.
1932
The U.S. rushes warships to El Salvador in response to a communist-led uprising. President Martínez, however, prefers to put down the rebellion with his own forces, killing over 8000 people (the rebels had killed about 100).
! 1933
President Roosevelt announces the Good Neighbor policy.
1933
Marines finally leave Nicaragua, unable to suppress the guerrilla warfare of General Augusto César Sandino. Anastasio Somoza García becomes the first Nicaraguan commander of the National Guard.
"The Nicaraguans are better fighters than the Haitians, being of Indian blood, and as warriors similar to the aborigines who resisted the advance of civilization in this country." --NYT correspondent Harold Denny
1933
Roosevelt sends warships to Cuba to intimidate Gerardo Machado y Morales, who is massacring the people to put down nationwide strikes and riots. Machado resigns. The first provisional government lasts only 17 days; the second Roosevelt finds too left-wing and refuses to recognize. A pro-Machado counter-coup is put down by Fulgencio Batista, who with Roosevelt's blessing becomes Cuba's new strongman.
! 1934
Platt Amendment repealed.
1934
Sandino assassinated by agents of Somoza, with U.S. approval. Somoza assumes the presidency of Nicaragua two years later. To block his ascent, Secretary of State Cordell Hull explains, would be to intervene in the internal affairs of Nicaragua.
! 1936
U.S. relinquishes rights to unilateral intervention in Panama.
1941
Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia deposes Panamanian president Arias in a military coup-- first clearing it with the U.S. Ambassador.
It was "a great relief to us, because Arias had been very troublesome and very pro-Nazi." --Secretary of War Henry Stimson
1943
The editor of the Honduran opposition paper El Cronista is summoned to the U.S. embassy and told that criticism of the dictator Tiburcio Carías Andino is damaging to the war effort. Shortly afterward, the paper is shut down by the government.
1944
The dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez of El Salvador is ousted by a revolution; the interim government is overthrown five months later by the dictator's former chief of police. The U.S.'s immediate recognition of the new dictator does much to tarnish Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy in the eyes of Latin Americans.
1946
U.S. Army School of the Americas opens in Panama as a hemisphere-wide military academy. Its linchpin is the doctrine of National Security, by which the chief threat to a nation is internal subversion; this will be the guiding principle behind dictatorships in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Central America, and elsewhere.
1948
José Figueres Ferrer wins a short civil war to become President of Costa Rica. Figueres is supported by the U.S., which has informed San José that its forces in the Panama Canal are ready to come to the capital to end "communist control" of Costa Rica.
1954
Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, elected president of Guatemala, introduces land reform and seizes some idle lands of United Fruit-- proposing to pay for them the value United Fruit claimed on its tax returns. The CIA organizes a small force to overthrow him and begins training it in Honduras. When Arbenz naively asks for U.S. military help to meet this threat, he is refused; when he buys arms from Czechoslovakia it only proves he's a Red.
Guatemala is "openly and diligently toiling to create a Communist state in Central America... only two hours' bombing time from the Panama Canal." --Life
The CIA broadcasts reports detailing the imaginary advance of the "rebel army," and provides planes to strafe the capital. The army refuses to defend Arbenz, who resigns. The U.S.'s hand-picked dictator, Carlos Castillo Armas, outlaws political parties, reduces the franchise, and establishes the death penalty for strikers, as well as undoing Arbenz's land reform. Over 100,000 citizens are killed in the next 30 years of military rule.
"This is the first instance in history where a Communist government has been replaced by a free one." --Richard Nixon
1957
Eisenhower establishes Office of Public Safety to train Latin American police forces.
! 1959
Fidel Castro takes power in Cuba. Several months earlier he had undertaken a triumphal tour through the U.S., which included a CIA briefing on the Red menace.
"Castro's continued tawdry little melodrama of invasion." --Time, of Castro's warnings of an imminent U.S. invasion
1960
Eisenhower authorizes covert actions to get rid of Castro. Among other things, the CIA tries assassinating him with exploding cigars and poisoned milkshakes. Other covert actions against Cuba include burning sugar fields, blowing up boats in Cuban harbors, and sabotaging industrial equipment.
1960
The Canal Zone becomes the focus of U.S. counterinsurgency training.
1960
A new junta in El Salvador promises free elections; Eisenhower, fearing leftist tendencies, withholds recognition. A more attractive right-wing counter-coup comes along in three months.
"Governments of the civil-military type of El Salvador are the most effective in containing communist penetration in Latin America." --John F. Kennedy, after the coup
1960
Guatemalan officers attempt to overthrow the regime of Presidente Fuentes; Eisenhower stations warships and 2000 Marines offshore while Fuentes puts down the revolt. [Another source says that the U.S. provided air support for Fuentes.]
1960s
U.S. Green Berets train Guatemalan army in counterinsurgency techniques. Guatemalan efforts against its insurgents include aerial bombing, scorched-earth assaults on towns suspected of aiding the rebels, and death squads, which killed 20,000 people between 1966 and 1976. U.S. Army Col. John Webber claims that it was at his instigation that "the technique of counter-terror had been implemented by the army."
"If it is necessary to turn the country into a cemetary in order to pacify it, I will not hesitate to do so." --President Carlos Arana Osorio
1961
U.S. organizes force of 1400 anti-Castro Cubans, ships it to the Bahía de los Cochinos. Castro's army routs it.
1961
CIA-backed coup overthrows elected Pres. J. M. Velasco Ibarra of Ecuador, who has been too friendly with Cuba.
1962
CIA engages in campaign in Brazil to keep João Goulart from achieving control of Congress.
1963
CIA-backed coup overthrows elected social democrat Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic.
1963
A far-right-wing coup in Guatemala, apparently U.S.-supported, forestalls elections in which "extreme leftist" Juan José Arévalo was favored to win.
"It is difficult to develop stable and democratic government [in Guatemala], because so many of the nation's Indians are illiterate and superstitious." --School textbook, 1964
1964
João Goulart of Brazil proposes agrarian reform, nationalization of oil. Ousted by U.S.-supported military coup.
! 1964
The free market in Nicaragua:
The Somoza family controls "about one-tenth of the cultivable land in Nicaragua, and just about everything else worth owning, the country's only airline, one television station, a newspaper, a cement plant, textile mill, several sugar refineries, half-a-dozen breweries and distilleries, and a Mercedes-Benz agency." --Life World Library
1965
A coup in the Dominican Republic attempts to restore Bosch's government. The U.S. invades and occupies the country to stop this "Communist rebellion," with the help of the dictators of Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
"Representative democracy cannot work in a country such as the Dominican Republic," Bosch declares later. Now why would he say that?
1966
U.S. sends arms, advisors, and Green Berets to Guatemala to implement a counterinsurgency campaign.
"To eliminate a few hundred guerrillas, the government killed perhaps 10,000 Guatemalan peasants." --State Dept. report on the program
1967
A team of Green Berets is sent to Bolivia to help find and assassinate Che Guevara.
1968
Gen. José Alberto Medrano, who is on the payroll of the CIA, organizes the ORDEN paramilitary force, considered the precursor of El Salvador's death squads.
! 1970
In this year (just as an example), U.S. investments in Latin America earn $1.3 billion; while new investments total $302 million.
1970
Salvador Allende Gossens elected in Chile. Suspends foreign loans, nationalizes foreign companies. For the phone system, pays ITT the company's minimized valuation for tax purposes. The CIA provides covert financial support for Allende's opponents, both during and after his election.
1972
U.S. stands by as military suspends an election in El Salvador in which centrist José Napoleón Duarte was favored to win. (Compare with the emphasis placed on the 1982 elections.)
1973
U.S.-supported military coup kills Allende and brings Augusto Pinochet Ugarte to power. Pinochet imprisons well over a hundred thousand Chileans (torture and rape are the usual methods of interrogation), terminates civil liberties, abolishes unions, extends the work week to 48 hours, and reverses Allende's land reforms.
1973
Military takes power in Uruguay, supported by U.S. The subsequent repression reportedly features the world's highest percentage of the population imprisoned for political reasons.
1974
Office of Public Safety is abolished when it is revealed that police are being taught torture techniques.
! 1976
Election of Jimmy Carter leads to a new emphasis on human rights in Central America. Carter cuts off aid to the Guatemalan military (or tries to; some slips through) and reduces aid to El Salvador.
! 1979
Ratification of the Panama Canal treaty which is to return the Canal to Panama by 1999.
"Once again, Uncle Sam put his tail between his legs and crept away rather than face trouble." --Ronald Reagan
1980
A right-wing junta takes over in El Salvador. U.S. begins massively supporting El Salvador, assisting the military in its fight against FMLN guerrillas. Death squads proliferate; Archbishop Romero is assassinated by right-wing terrorists; 35,000 civilians are killed in 1978-81. The rape and murder of four U.S. churchwomen results in the suspension of U.S. military aid for one month.
The U.S. demands that the junta undertake land reform. Within 3 years, however, the reform program is halted by the oligarchy.
"The Soviet Union underlies all the unrest that is going on." --Ronald Reagan
1980
U.S., seeking a stable base for its actions in El Salvador and Nicaragua, tells the Honduran military to clean up its act and hold elections. The U.S. starts pouring in $100 million of aid a year and basing the contras on Honduran territory.
Death squads are also active in Honduras, and the contras tend to act as a state within a state.
1981
The CIA steps in to organize the contras in Nicaragua, who started the previous year as a group of 60 ex-National Guardsmen; by 1985 there are about 12,000 of them. 46 of the 48 top military leaders are ex-Guardsmen. The U.S. also sets up an economic embargo of Nicaragua and pressures the IMF and the World Bank to limit or halt loans to Nicaragua.
1981
Gen. Torrijos of Panama is killed in a plane crash. There is a suspicion of CIA involvement, due to Torrijos' nationalism and friendly relations with Cuba.
1982
A coup brings Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt to power in Guatemala, and gives the Reagan administration the opportunity to increase military aid. Ríos Montt's evangelical beliefs do not prevent him from accelerating the counterinsurgency campaign.
1983
Another coup in Guatemala replaces Ríos Montt. The new President, Oscar Mejía Víctores, was trained by the U.S. and seems to have cleared his coup beforehand with U.S. authorities.
1983
U.S. troops take over tiny Granada. Rather oddly, it intervenes shortly after a coup has overthrown the previous, socialist leader. One of the justifications for the action is the building of a new airport with Cuban help, which Granada claimed was for tourism and Reagan argued was for Soviet use. Later the U.S. announces plans to finish the airport... to develop tourism.
1983
Boland Amendment prohibits CIA and Defense Dept. from spending money to overthrow the government of Nicaragua-- a law the Reagan administration cheerfully violates.
1984
CIA mines three Nicaraguan harbors. Nicaragua takes this action to the World Court, which brings an $18 billion judgment against the U.S. The U.S. refuses to recognize the Court's jurisdiction in the case.
1984
U.S. spends $10 million to orchestrate elections in El Salvador-- something of a farce, since left-wing parties are under heavy repression, and the military has already declared that it will not answer to the elected president.
1989
U.S. invades Panama to dislodge CIA boy gone wrong Manuel Noriega, an event which marks the evolution of the U.S.'s favorite excuse from Communism to drugs.
1996
The U.S. battles global Communism by extending most-favored-nation trading status for China, and tightening the trade embargo on Castro's Cub
If I opened it now would you not understand?
please tell all of us which country we are starving because of sanctions..
c'mon....you weren't clear at all. You asked when the US bombed central/south america, yet tell him to give his head a shake :roll: That's a pretty big slip on your part, nothing you should be chastising anyone for objecting to. it's called humility.
funny, you're backpedaling, yet ignoring the valid point he made that central and south america have been fucked by the US, (and the largely US controlled world banking systems), probably more than anyone else.... for many of those people, their best chance at a decent life is to take a 'can't beat 'em, join 'em' approach, and try to get to the US. If Canada had better weather and common borders, they'd all be coming here instead, so don't get too egotistical about it
This is getting re-god-damn-diculous.
FROM THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT'S OWN WEBSITE:
Office of Foreign Asset Control
OFAC Country Sanctions Programs | Abbreviation | Date Program Last Updated
Balkans Sanctions [BALKANS] 03/04/2008
Belarus Sanctions [BELARUS] 02/23/2009
Burma Sanctions [BURMA] 01/15/2009
Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Sanctions [COTED] 09/19/2006
Cuba Sanctions [CUBA] 01/15/2009
Democratic Republic of the Congo Sanctions [DRCONGO] 03/30/2007
Iran Sanctions [IRAN] 01/22/2009
Iraq Sanctions [IRAQ] 09/16/2008
Former Liberian Regime of Charles Taylor Sanctions [LIBERIA] 05/23/2007
North Korea Sanctions [NORTH KOREA] 06/26/2008
Sudan Sanctions [SUDAN] ; [DARFUR] 07/31/2008
Syria Sanctions [SYRIA] 07/10/2008
Zimbabwe Sanctions [ZIMBABWE] 11/25/2008
ANY OF THOSE PLACES SOUND LIKE THEY MIGHT BE STARVING RIGHT NOW?
I'll give you a small hint:
HEADLINE FROM FEBRUARY 11th, 2009: Rural Zimbabweans are desperately panning for gold powder to ward off starvation.
Jeez.
Go Figure.
The United States of America is one of the greatest conceptual ideas in the history of the world.
Our founding fathers, and what they put down in words and on record regarding the virtues and liberties extolled by our allegedly great republic, represent a magnificent contribution to the prosperity and freedom of all mankind. That they weren't perfect men is to be sure. That their hearts were true and their convictions genuine can not be doubted. For which revolution have you risked your life?
The REAL direction in which our government has found its self steered by certain ideologies and influences is condemnable on every level, however. Unfortunately for them, the internet will be their downfall. Humanity is now free (for the time being at least) to read all about it if they so choose. No army is so powerful as an idea whose time has come. When will be our time? The revolution awaits.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
Sounds official to me.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
Yes.
He is an evil man,
so his people should starve.
Maybe one day the people of Zimbabwe will be so lucky as to have their very own Democracy.
Maybe we can bring it to them?
If I opened it now would you not understand?
that's not our fault
You could call me a conservative libertarian.
You could call me a traditional or Jeffersonian republican.
You could call em a Jacksonian Democrat.
Hell, you could even call me a classical Liberal.
But you sure as fuck could never call me "left wing" or leftie.
Save that one for Commie. :oops:
If I opened it now would you not understand?
Yes, you're right.
Maybe OUR solution lies in sanctions?
Surely, if we can't print or spend our way out of this hole,
maybe some altruistic nation would be willing to impose sanctions upon OUR government,
and then we can be saved from this mess?
I mean, hey.
It's working for Zimbabwe right?
If I opened it now would you not understand?
you sure got me fooled into thinking that,sorry
in the case of Iraq, as agreed to by secretary of state madeline albright, the sanctions in Iraq killed over 250,000 children.
how in any twisted nationalist view of the world is that justified? sanctions starve a people, they rarely affect the leader.
Iran is no threat. the media have told you it is a threat, and you have followed along, but in reality Iran is only a threat to the financial institutions. it can impact the supply of oil, something the elite go to great lengths to control.
the US attitude toward Iran is actually encouraging it to develop its nuclear arsenal. North Korea hasn't been invaded yet, exactly because they have nukes. and north korea is no threat either.
the european commission did a poll, and found that the biggest threat to world peace was Israel, and the US. and that's accurate. the world is more afraid of the US and Israel than they are of Iran, North Korea, and they have every right to be. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=35383 Israel and teh US are on the offensive more than any other 2 countries.
and to your earlier question..why don't I leave? its very simple. this is my country. I was born here. no way I"m giving it over to the corporations. no way I'm letting greed and selfishness rule. gonna do what I can.
and it takes shit like the california example to happen. whenever people see excess, when they have nothing, something switches. they realize this isn't the best way do be doing what we're doing.
but california is a terrible example, maybe the worst cesspool of consumer, fake, artificial lifestyles that I've ever come across. So Cal is beautiful, but I don't ever want to live there again.
ok. just think about the situation for sec. if Iran used its 1 or 2 nukes on Israel, it would cease to exist very shortly after that. either by Israel's hand or the US's. Obama has already said "all options are on the table" regarding Iran, which very clearly implies nukes. Israel has a US umbrella over it, any action against Israel would be dealt with by the US.
So Iran would have to be suicidal to even attempt to destroy Israel. and, as it is, they don't even have that capacity.
Do you really think Iran would destroy itself to attack Israel? Do you think Ahmednjad would kill everyone of his countrymen to attack Israel? seriously, do you think that is a likely scenario?