Americans will never be hungry again?
for Resonance Magazine by Evan Pritchard
"Americans will never be hungry again?"
Its not clear who actually said these words, but they appear at the head of a recent November 16th, 2006 article in the Washington Post by Elizabeth Williamson. The story behind it is rather fascinating, and was reported again by Amy Goodman on WBAI just after Thanksgiving. In fact, more Americans than ever, 35 million Americans this year, (12%) are going hungry, or have experienced what we all can recognize as hunger, but the USDA is basically saying that we don't know if they are feeling hungry or not, that's not our department, we just know they were unable to eat.
Well, excuse me but it seems to me that most people who are involuntarily deprived of food for two or three days normally feel what we all experience as hunger.
Yes, those who VOLUNTARILY don't eat may also experience hunger. In fact, some protesters may soon be VOLUNTARILY staging hunger strikes in their jail cells in solidarity with Americans below the poverty level who can't find or aquire food through legal means involuntarily. Thank you USDA for making this astute distinction. Not all who are hungry are unable to find food, and not all who don't eat experience hunger, and some who experience hunger may, who knows? Enjoy it!
The USDA is now saying to us that hunger is a subjective experience. Next they'll be saying "Hunger? Its all in your mind! Think positive, and you'll get over it." Hunger is now considered not scientific. Jesus fasted for 40 days in the desert, but never said he was hungry, at least not in the Bible. So taking that source as a "scientific" document, not eating has little or nothing to do with hunger.
In fact, if you don't eat for more than forty days, you are likely to starve to death and death is very scientific. True, death is black or white in some cases, but there is a long road to it by starvation and it is measurable by degrees.
All that aside, we can now look forward to a dismissal of "The War On Hunger," or any and all staged "Hunger Strikes," and feeding "the hungry and homeless." Too subjective! We will soon be changing the name of the country of "Hungary," to the country of "Unable to Secure Food Sources." That is the new term the government has come up with for people who can't afford to eat or are cut off from supplies due to the crumbling infrastructure of America.
In surveys this past year, millions of Americans told surveyors that they were going hungry. The USDA's message is clear, "Shut up about this hunger thing. Are you experiencing low nutritional security?"
In terms of rhetoric, it is a classic example of "governmenteze" which is like "legaleze" but with a Beltway spin to it. It takes something we all have a gut reaction to such as hunger, and rephrase it in words that have no emotional impact; often involving twisted, convoluted or abstract concepts or phrases that are devoid of immediacy. They are "anti-septic." Instead of "short people" they would have us say "vertically challenged." Perhaps "nutritionally challenged" will someday replace hunger, but that's more direct than what these guys have come up with.
Here is an excerpt from the Williamson article:
The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience "very low food security."
Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures Americans' access to food, and it has consistently used the word "hunger" to describe those who can least afford to put food on the table. But not this year.
Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey." Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, "We don't have a measure of that condition."
The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people -- could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the USDA has determined "very low food security" to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group.
The United States has set a goal of reducing the proportion of food-insecure households to 6 percent or less by 2010, or half the 1995 level, but it is proving difficult. The number of hungriest Americans has risen over the past five years. Last year, the total share of food-insecure households stood at 11 percent.
Less vexing has been the effort to fix the way hunger is described. Three years ago, the USDA asked the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies "to ensure that the measurement methods USDA uses to assess households' access -- or lack of access -- to adequate food and the language used to describe those conditions are conceptually and operationally sound."
Among several recommendations, the panel suggested that the USDA scrap the word hunger, which "should refer to a potential consequence of food insecurity that, because of prolonged, involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness, or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation."
To measure hunger, the USDA determined, the government would have to ask individual people whether "lack of eating led to these more severe conditions," as opposed to asking who can afford to keep food in the house, Nord said.
It is not likely that USDA economists will tackle measuring individual hunger. "Hunger is clearly an important issue," Nord said. "But lacking a widespread consensus on what the word 'hunger' should refer to, it's difficult for research to shed meaningful light on it."
Anti-hunger advocates say the new words sugarcoat a national shame. "The proposal to remove the word 'hunger' from our official reports is a huge disservice to the millions of Americans who struggle daily to feed themselves and their families," said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, an anti-hunger advocacy group. "We . . . cannot hide the reality of hunger among our citizens."
Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won't Call Them Hungry
By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 16, 2006; Page A01
for Resonance Magazine by Evan Pritchard
"Americans will never be hungry again?"
Its not clear who actually said these words, but they appear at the head of a recent November 16th, 2006 article in the Washington Post by Elizabeth Williamson. The story behind it is rather fascinating, and was reported again by Amy Goodman on WBAI just after Thanksgiving. In fact, more Americans than ever, 35 million Americans this year, (12%) are going hungry, or have experienced what we all can recognize as hunger, but the USDA is basically saying that we don't know if they are feeling hungry or not, that's not our department, we just know they were unable to eat.
Well, excuse me but it seems to me that most people who are involuntarily deprived of food for two or three days normally feel what we all experience as hunger.
Yes, those who VOLUNTARILY don't eat may also experience hunger. In fact, some protesters may soon be VOLUNTARILY staging hunger strikes in their jail cells in solidarity with Americans below the poverty level who can't find or aquire food through legal means involuntarily. Thank you USDA for making this astute distinction. Not all who are hungry are unable to find food, and not all who don't eat experience hunger, and some who experience hunger may, who knows? Enjoy it!
The USDA is now saying to us that hunger is a subjective experience. Next they'll be saying "Hunger? Its all in your mind! Think positive, and you'll get over it." Hunger is now considered not scientific. Jesus fasted for 40 days in the desert, but never said he was hungry, at least not in the Bible. So taking that source as a "scientific" document, not eating has little or nothing to do with hunger.
In fact, if you don't eat for more than forty days, you are likely to starve to death and death is very scientific. True, death is black or white in some cases, but there is a long road to it by starvation and it is measurable by degrees.
All that aside, we can now look forward to a dismissal of "The War On Hunger," or any and all staged "Hunger Strikes," and feeding "the hungry and homeless." Too subjective! We will soon be changing the name of the country of "Hungary," to the country of "Unable to Secure Food Sources." That is the new term the government has come up with for people who can't afford to eat or are cut off from supplies due to the crumbling infrastructure of America.
In surveys this past year, millions of Americans told surveyors that they were going hungry. The USDA's message is clear, "Shut up about this hunger thing. Are you experiencing low nutritional security?"
In terms of rhetoric, it is a classic example of "governmenteze" which is like "legaleze" but with a Beltway spin to it. It takes something we all have a gut reaction to such as hunger, and rephrase it in words that have no emotional impact; often involving twisted, convoluted or abstract concepts or phrases that are devoid of immediacy. They are "anti-septic." Instead of "short people" they would have us say "vertically challenged." Perhaps "nutritionally challenged" will someday replace hunger, but that's more direct than what these guys have come up with.
Here is an excerpt from the Williamson article:
The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience "very low food security."
Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures Americans' access to food, and it has consistently used the word "hunger" to describe those who can least afford to put food on the table. But not this year.
Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey." Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, "We don't have a measure of that condition."
The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people -- could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the USDA has determined "very low food security" to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group.
The United States has set a goal of reducing the proportion of food-insecure households to 6 percent or less by 2010, or half the 1995 level, but it is proving difficult. The number of hungriest Americans has risen over the past five years. Last year, the total share of food-insecure households stood at 11 percent.
Less vexing has been the effort to fix the way hunger is described. Three years ago, the USDA asked the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies "to ensure that the measurement methods USDA uses to assess households' access -- or lack of access -- to adequate food and the language used to describe those conditions are conceptually and operationally sound."
Among several recommendations, the panel suggested that the USDA scrap the word hunger, which "should refer to a potential consequence of food insecurity that, because of prolonged, involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness, or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation."
To measure hunger, the USDA determined, the government would have to ask individual people whether "lack of eating led to these more severe conditions," as opposed to asking who can afford to keep food in the house, Nord said.
It is not likely that USDA economists will tackle measuring individual hunger. "Hunger is clearly an important issue," Nord said. "But lacking a widespread consensus on what the word 'hunger' should refer to, it's difficult for research to shed meaningful light on it."
Anti-hunger advocates say the new words sugarcoat a national shame. "The proposal to remove the word 'hunger' from our official reports is a huge disservice to the millions of Americans who struggle daily to feed themselves and their families," said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, an anti-hunger advocacy group. "We . . . cannot hide the reality of hunger among our citizens."
Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won't Call Them Hungry
By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 16, 2006; Page A01
posted by evan pritchard at 12:24 PM
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