I Guess We Should Consider It A Blessing That Conservatives Don't Just Kill Poor Children Outright And Have Done With It

I hope you remember-- and remember as fondly as I do-- my favorite recent video on the nature of conservatism. It looks like they've gone and done a part two:



Oh, but it's just about those damn oil spilling Brits, you say? No, the nature of conservatism spans all eras and all geographic space. Conservatives are selfish, greedy sociopaths. Didn't you watch the video? It doesn't matter where they live or at what point in history they lived. It's like a cockroach; they never change-- and you can never get rid of them. After the Civil War they started the KKK and were back in power relatively quickly. After WWII, how long did it take for conservatives to regain the reins of power all across Europe and even the U.S.? Money talks... loudly.

Yesterday my friend Jill Richardson, author of Recipe For America, as well as of the best food policy blog in the country, LaVidaLocavore.org alerted me to the latest action on the school lunches legislation. Hopefully you'll recall the Blue America chat last month with Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) about the importance of healthy, nutritional school lunches. Jill was just in DC when the Child Nutrition Bill was introduced. She's far more elegant in her phrasing but, as she pointed out, it just sucks. There are good things in the bill, of course, but, in the end, conservatives are making school lunches about... what else? Their money. They don't want to educate or medicate or feed children born into impoverished circumstances. They don't see children as national resources for making out country richer and stronger, just as burdens on their ability to buy that third SUV they must have in the 6-car garage. End of story. That's what conservatism is. The hell with the well-being or the future of the country; I've got mine/screw the rest of you. Didn't you ever watch Cartman on South Park?

For those not obsessed with the difference between being a billionaire and a mere multimillionaire-- and, I'll admit I think billionairism should carry an automatic death penalty-- it is clearly understood that a refusal to fund school lunches means poor nutrition and no chance of an adequate education. The makes the country's future very bleak indeed. Jill blames the predicament on the conservative triumph called PAYGO, something they selectively use to keep rich people's taxes low and poor people's ability to break out of the chains of poverty even lower.

Somebody in DC decided that the deficit is a huge problem. And somebody also decided that we will deal with it by spending very little on government. If we increase spending somewhere, we have to offset it with cuts somewhere else. Within a committee like the House Education and Labor Committee or the Senate Agriculture Committee-- the two committees responsible for the child nutrition bill-- they can only take from certain programs to give money to school lunch. The Senate took money from agriculture conservation programs. The House hasn't told us yet (to my knowledge) where they will find the money, but it could be farm subsidies, conservation, or something else agriculture-related like that. It won't be (and CAN'T be if I understand things correctly) things outside of the committee's jurisdiction-- like taxing rich people or cutting outdated Cold War weapons programs from the bloated Pentagon budget.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine put on a happy face, calling the bill a "first historic step," while recognizing "much more needs to follow in order to deal with the childhood obesity epidemic by enabling schools to have equal access to and the ability to serve more vegetables, fruits, and low-fat, cholesterol-free meals."

Senior clinicians called for amendments that would bring forward the introduction of healthier plant-based meal options in accordance with recommendations made by the American Medical Association and the American Public Health Association.

The bill, in its current form, does little to encourage the substitution of high fat content foods (such as meat and cheese) with low-fat fruit and vegetables. Such substitutions are crucial in fighting childhood obesity and have been endorsed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and 66 members of the House of Representatives... Clinicians at PCRM have suggested that the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act could easily be improved by including provisions from the Healthy School Meals Act, H.R. 4870, legislation introduced by Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado and co-sponsored by 65 additional Members of Congress.

From what I can gather, school lunches currently cost $2.68 per child per day. Conservatives would like to reduce this-- or cut it out entirely-- and Democrats, mighty defenders of progressivism, are willing, many just grudgingly, to increase it by a whopping six cents. Last year chef and nutrition expert Alice Waters did an OpEd in the NY Times insisting that Congress address the nutritional quality of the lunches and allocating $5.00 per child per day.

Many nutrition experts believe that it is possible to fix the National School Lunch Program by throwing a little more money at it. But without healthy food (and cooks and kitchens to prepare it), increased financing will only create a larger junk-food distribution system. We need to scrap the current system and start from scratch. Washington needs to give schools enough money to cook and serve unprocessed foods that are produced without pesticides or chemical fertilizers. When possible, these foods should be locally grown.

How much would it cost to feed 30 million American schoolchildren a wholesome meal? It could be done for about $5 per child, or roughly $27 billion a year, plus a one-time investment in real kitchens. Yes, that sounds expensive. But a healthy school lunch program would bring long-term savings and benefits in the areas of hunger, children’s health and dietary habits, food safety (contaminated peanuts have recently found their way into school lunches), environmental preservation and energy conservation.

The Agriculture Department will have to do its part, by making good on its fledgling commitment to back environmentally sound farming practices and by realizing a separate program to deliver food, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, from farms to schools. It will also need to provide adequate support for kitchens and healthy meal planning. Congress has an opportunity to accomplish some of these goals when it takes up the Child Nutrition and Women Infants and Children Reauthorization Act, which is set to expire in September.

Ann Cooper, the "Renegade Lunch Lady," and the nutrition director for the Boulder Valley, Colorado public school system, describes her life's work as transforming "how we feed our children in school each day, from highly processed to highly nourishing food-- one school lunch at a time." She thinks it can be done for about $1.00 more per child per day. All experts agree that replacing junk food with real food is what has to happen. Junk food manufacturers, of course, have another perspective. And they somehow figured out that teaming up with conservatives would go a long way towards maintaining the status quo, regardless of the original intent of the legislation meant to serve as a health safety net for poor children.