Eomaia's Quest for Hope

History, Hardship, and Hope

Eomaia — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:17:45 EST

After hearing Senator Harkin talk about the WPA, I emailed my Auntie Pat to ask her about Grandpa working for the WPA during the Great Depression.

Here's her reply:

" Why do you think I’ve worked so hard on some issues?
I’m not afraid to talk about things that I’ve been through in my life, The one thing I’ve said for years is that every lawmaker should put every law through a “reality” check before they pass it.

WPA stands for Works Project Administration. It was part of FDR’s “New Deal”. It was a school, library, bridge, road infrastructure building project to put adult men to work. Yes, your Grandfather was part of that. I’ve spoken many times how I remember so well when he got that 1st paycheck, your Grandmother, Mother & I went to the grocery store to purchase all the fixings for a Pot Roast, you know; the meat, potatoes, carrots, onions. + milk and dessert. It was the first “real” meal we had. Mom used to say, when we’d ask what’s for supper, “you name it, you can have it”.We invited my Grandma Taylor, Aunt Dorothy & Uncle Bob. Grandma & Grandpa Hoppe couldn’t come, no transportation. Uncle Fred was up near Ely in the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) a similar program for young men. The windmill teapot, sugar & creamer I have was the first gift Uncle Fred ever gave his sister. I’ve got a couple of letters he wrote from the camp he was at.

Later , in the 60’s, LBJ started in his “War On Poverty”. His big project to put people to work all over the country was the freeway system. Also, education was his big item, he was the first to start the “Title”. That’s how I got my job at the Finland School under the program that was income & failure based. The Finland School fit the criteria, my specialty was reading and math on a one-one basis.

WPA didn’t get us just food. Some day could you look at your Mom’s birth certificate and see what our address was when she was born? Mine shows Grandpa & Gramma living in a real hovel, then my first memories of my little sister are in a 4 plex in another slum neighborhood at 2313 11th Ave. So. Dad got that for place at a cheaper rate by being their handyman. That place was bigger, but still a cockroach & rodent filled hole. I was so happy when Roberta was old enough to be in a bed, we got bunk beds & they were in the dining room. I was VERY happy I was the oldest so got the top bunk. The big problem to my sister & I was that we were scared to get up at night so we wet our bed instead of taking the chance of stepping on something.

With some money coming in we got a car, now Dad didn’t have to walk to work.They saved their pennies to get us in a house, they finally did in 1942, for $5,000 and payments, I was in 2nd gr.. That’s the house you’ll see in a lot of photos & where we lived until the house was bought to build I35. What that WPA job did was give my Dad a step to a career. He started WPA as a laborer, then he was made a janitor in the public schools. He had to get a 4th class boilers license, (males only ). Dad took the opportunity to continue working on the next higher license, and the next. He would read the textbooks, have me read them too and then question him on the chapters. That kept on until he made the highest license, Chief Engineer. (With my studying with him & testing him made it possible for me to pass the test for the power plant at the mining co. The first woman to even apply for the power plant AND to really change management thinking, passing the exam with the highest score). So that minor WPA job was the step needed so my Dad & our family could improve our living conditions and to be able to help my grandparents too.

You are welcome to use anything I write wherever you want. Most of the 18-60+ population has no idea of what real sacrifice means , they need to hear from the older generations of what a depression, a World War &, and no unions REALLY meant for people that lived through those days. Especially the children. I remember how I said one time to Grandma Hoppe that I wish Mike could be a “kid” while he was still one. Her reply? “Why, you never were”."

That inspired me to start a group called "History, Hardship and Hope", for people to share their stories, and their family's stories of getting out of poverty. It gives me strength to know that my family has been through worse and survived. Knowing what helped and what didn't in the past will help us come up with ideas for the future.

So, what's your story?

Who will be the new Assistant Secretary for Children and Families?

Eomaia — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:29:49 EST

I know, you're probably trying to figure out why that even would matter. Honestly, I hadn't heard of the position myself until I started doing some research last night.

According to Wikipedia:

"The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is a division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It is headed by the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, which from 2001 to 2007 was Dr. Wade F. Horn. It has a $47 billion budget for 65 programs that target children, youth and families. These programs include assistance with welfare, child support enforcement, adoption assistance, foster care, child care, and child abuse."

So, this is the position that has the most direct power over the DHS/CPS, and thus the lives of poor families. Who knew an assistant secretary could be this important?

Bush appointed Dr. Horn, who believed strongly in abstinence until marriage, and that for women, finding a husband was a better way out of poverty than getting the skills needed for a good job. Since he left, Daniel Schneider has stuck with the same idealologies as Acting Assistant Secretary for Children and Families.

Now, it's Obama's turn. I trust that he will pick someone who understands the struggles of families trying to get out of poverty, and the relationship between poverty and child maltreatment, and who views all people as having basic human dignity. In other words, someone with a clue.

I know Obama doesn't believe the stereotypes about "Welfare Queens", and I'm sure he understands how broken our child protection/foster care system is. I know that in the last decade, Illinois has drastically reduced the number of children in foster care, while keeping children safe. Wouldn't it be great if Obama could appoint someone who'd get the rest of the country to follow Illinois' lead?

He's probably got some ideas already, and I'm sure that anyone he picks will be a huge improvement, but I'd like to suggest Richard Wexler or Martin Guggenheim. Both of them get it. They understand that it's not that poor people are stupid and lazy and don't love their children, it's that being poor SUCKS, that minor problems become major catastrophes when you don't have the money to fix them, and it's hard to be a good parent while dealing with all the stress and instability that are an inevitable part of poverty. At very least, consult Mr Wexler and Mr Guggenheim about who to put in charge of the Administration for Children and Families, and what changes need to be made. They'll have some great ideas, and it will be very much in line with Obama's basic policy of "We'll do what works."

Changing Bureaucracy to Wikiocracy

Eomaia — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:19:30 EST

Last night, I was reading Wikinomics, and thinking about the implications of the news that mybarackobama.com is staying up and active, even though the election is over.

How could the tools and concepts used on sites like wikipedia, livejournal, ravelry knitters, ok cupid, gather, youtube and mybarackobama be used to revolutionize the way the government is run?

OK Cupid lets users create quizzes, take each others' quizzes, and keeps track of the results. Couldn't that tool be used for more meaningful purposes than "Which Star Wars character would you be?"? Ravelry lets users set goals, keep track of their progress, and show off their successes. That could be useful for goals that are completely unrelated to yarn. Wikipedia lets users add and edit information, resulting in the largest compilation of human knowledge ever, with a comparable accuracy rate to printed encyclopedias- the difference being that wiki errors can be caught and corrected. Many sites allow user to rate content and post comments in reaction.

Different branches of government don't even share information freely with each other yet, resulting in redundancies that cost tax money. It's a waste to pay someone to sit in a cubicle and enter information into his computer when the same information is already on file in another county or state, or with another government agency. Why does DHS waste time making people provide proof of income when the IRS and Social Security already know how much money that person has made in their whole life? Why can some people manage to get away with collecting food stamps in several different states when all the agencies involved require documentation and have internet connections? So, government bureaucracies need to evolve, connect with each other, and allow more input from citizens.

What to do with drawing?

Eomaia — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:54:03 EDT

Frustrated by an inability to donate money to the campaign (husband unemployed, working 2 jobs and not even making ends meet) and wanting to volunteer but the only free time I could find was after the kids were in bed, I started drawing this picture back in June. The background is a traditional quilt pattern: Our Next President. The words “hope” “change” and “yes we can” are repeated in different languages in the background too. Once I finished it, I got it scanned but I haven’t been able to figure out what to do with it next. I know there’s a project that uses artwork to raise money for the campaign, but I could not find a link on the official site.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/StitchwitchD/Quilting%20and%20Art/obama-hopechangeyeswecan_0001.jpg

Any ideas?

Does anyone know how to donate artwork for the campaign?

Eomaia — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 23:48:23 EDT

I put a lot of work into a drawing, and brought it to the viewing party. Everyone said I should do something with it, like make t-shirts or posters or something. So I got it scanned as a PDF, but I have no clue what to do next, and emailing the campaign just gets an automatic response.

Any idea on what to do next?

Men's fashion history and energy conservation

Eomaia — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:37:21 EDT

Ok, I know this is lame of me, but I saw this article http://blogs.iht.com/tribtalk/business/green/?p=190#comments , and I was so proud of the comment I wrote that I wanted to re-post it to show off:

1000 years ago, guys could get away with just wearing a short little tunic in the summer. Then Europe went in the Little Ice Age, and upper-class people- who lived drafty stone castles- got in the habit of dressing more warmly, which is when the basic idea of men’s attire- shirt, vest, jacket, trousers- originated. When Europeans started colonizing the rest of the world, they were loathe to give up civilized clothing for a more comfortable loincloth or caftan, but did compromise by switching to summer versions in light colors and breathable fabrics.

Then air-conditioning was invented, and men could be comfy wearing 3-piece wool business suits year-round. A generation later, and people justify cranking up the air because they need to wear “traditional” business attire, as if their great-great-grandpa would have dressed like that if the summers in his day were as hot as they are now. Traditions are fine, if they make sense. It does not make sense to waste energy by changing your surroundings so you can comfortably wear clothing that was originally developed as an adaptation to a cool climate. It’s like turning on the office sprinklers because your ancestors carried umbrellas with them because they lived in buildings with leaky roofs.

How much money could be saved if all US government buildings turned down climate control year round?

(And yes, I am a massive geek with a costuming background, although I managed to resist diverting into stories about how the tin hats used to visit us a lot on hot days because the costume shop was one of the few places at the Renaissance Festival with air-conditioning.)

Reframing issues project

Eomaia — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 01:32:48 EDT

Here's the basic idea:

People make/decorate picture frames to "reframe" issues, sell them, and donate the money to the campaign.

Would this work better as an event, a group, or a fundraising page? Would anyone be interested in participating?

Obama's next visit

Eomaia — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:55:23 EDT

At the Unite for Change party last night, someone was talking about how Obama wanted to come to CR after the flood, but was told to stay away because security/traffic/too much to deal with already. He is planning to come back sometime between now and the election, but is looking for ideas on when.

It seems like the routine for politicians following a natural disaster is to show up, have a photo op, maybe even wear jeans and a windbreaker, then go home and talk about the poor pathetic victims that they met. Big whoop.

Wouldn't it be more interesting for Obama to come a bit later, maybe after the convention, and be blown away by how much progress we've made? When Obama comes back, he'll bring the spotlight of the world with him, and I'd rather that we look damn good next time we're on TV.

Lynch mob mentalities

Eomaia — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:38:46 EDT

I keep up with the NCCPR Child Welfare Blog http://www.nccpr.blogspot.com/ and the last few posts have dealt with the Washington DC CPS and a couple recent infant deaths, including links to Washington Post articles http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/14/AR2008071401044.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/09/AR2008070902237.html Both articles have a bunch of comments at the bottom, the majority of which are some variation on the theme of "Poor people shouldn't breed".

Now, I don't know Jesus Garcia or Morgan Herrara-El, so they might be horrible people who kick puppies and vote for George W Bush, but the people posting those comments don't know them either. However, many Post readers are more than willing to go back to Buck Vs Bell based on a few facts:

1. They have had 4 children in the last 4 years.

2. They are low income.

3. They aren't white.

4. They've had some relationship problems.

5. Their baby died of unknown causes.

Somehow, these facts jelled together into a stereotype of BAD PEOPLE WHO SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO BREED, and people have responded to Baby Isiah's death with all the sympathy of blood-crazed sharks at a feeding frenzy.

Maybe it's not "us" that "they" hate

Eomaia — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:56:31 EDT

Earlier today, I was reading Arianna Huffington's "Right is Wrong" and she said something about George W Bush being Al Queda's main recruiting tool.

Then after lunch, I listened to NPR, and they were talking about heavy metal fans in the Middle East and North Africa http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92421152.

Something in my brain clicked. First of all, I think music is important- if you're dancing to the same song, what does it matter if you're the same color, or the same religion or speak the same language? So, it's not like some Goth kid in Dubai is going to hate American Goths, or some punk kid in Morocco is going to hate punks in New York, or metalheads in Iran hate metalheads in Chicago. In fact, they would probably all get along just fine if they were put in a room together, and they probably all hate George W. Bush. Therefore, once Bush is gone (1-20-09!) and Obama is president, it's going to be pretty hard for Al Queda to convince young Muslims to go fight for them.

Translate Hope, Change, and Yes we can

Eomaia — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:32:13 EDT

I'm working on a drawing that I'm planning to donate to the Obama campaign. It's in my usual style (a bunch of my drawings are up here http://www.freewebs.com/stitchwitchd/majorarcana.htm), with a quilt pattern in the background. The foreground image is a picture of Barack that I saw in an Onion article titled "Obama Practices Looking-Off-Into-Future Pose", and the background quilt pattern is "Our Next President".

I use words as a visual element in my drawings, and I want to have "Hope", "Change" and "Yes we can" translated into a bunch of different languages. I know enough Spanish, German, French, and Russian to trust that I've got those right, but I'm not confident to use Bablefish for other languages I want to use, like Hebrew, Arabic, and Swahili.

So, any help from people more linguistically-capable than me would be appreciated. I'm not limiting it to the languages I mentioned either, so if you speak Hindi, or Yupik, or even Klingon and want to help out, go for it. TIA!

Family history

Eomaia — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 21:54:14 EDT

I had emailed my aunt to tell her that I was getting interested in politics, and why.

She replied:

"Why do you think I've been so involved with politics all these years? So was your Mom. Her first letter of injustice was one to then Sen. Humphrey explaining her anger about being unable to get a G.I. or gov't insured mortgage because your Dad "did not make enough money". That was for the house on Unity, the cost was $13,xxx and your Dad worked at the P.O. Obviously they got the mortgage. How could Humphrey argue with the logic of why was a gov't worker told they do not make enough money for a modest home?

Right now I'm a Town Board Supervisor, serve as a member of the county Board of Adjustment ( a part of Planning & Zoning"), and am Chair of the Lake Co. DFL. In Minnesota the Democratic Party is the Democratic/Farmer/Labor Party. Your Grandpa helped in the forming of the DFL in the early 1940's I imagine you know that Grandma Castle & Aunt Agnes were suffragettes & marched for the vote. They also worked on Al Smith's Presidential Campaign. Smith, a Democrat lost to either Harding or Coolidge. Mark is running for County Commissioner in Carlton Co. this Nov. Both County Commissioners & Town Board Supervisors are bipartisan positions so we have to be really fair in our decisions. Most of the things we vote on are financial, not policy or law making. That's up to the State & Federal Legislators, BUT your local politicians are the grassroots & those higher up do listen to you. We are both strong DFLers though. Both of us have made expanded acquaintances within the state DFL elected officials. I am on very good terms with my state Sen. & Rep. I helps when you have a problem to be able to get the support of someone who knows you & can work effectively on your problem. That goes both ways though, you have to work for them to get them elected, and find out info for them when they ask. I worked from 7-3 today then had a Town Board meeting from 6-8 so I'm pooped. Goodnight!"

After that, I looked up Al Smith in wikipedia, and saw some parallels with Barack Obama. My great-grandma died before I was born, but I've always loved hearing stories about her. She was a pretty incredible woman. She'd grown up in an orphanage. Later, she thought she was married, until she was pregnant for the second time and her husband abandoned her and she found out that the priest who married them was actually an actor with a priest costume. Thus, she raised 2 boys on her own in the 1910's/1920's. During WWII, she went out to California and operated a forklift and a crane in the ship yards.

Unite for Change on June 28th?

Eomaia — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:02:57 EDT

It seems that no one has signed up to host an event on June 28th. Our townhouse is small and currently infested with kittens, so I don't think that would work too well. So, is there anyone in Linn county who has a reasonably dry location to host an event? I'm willing to help out. I'd even bring kittens to give out as door prizes!

Carpool to Des Moines on Tuesday?

Eomaia — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:53:37 EDT

I want to go. I really want to go. I saw him in CR the night before the caucuses, and it would be so awesome to be there when it comes full circle.

However, I drive a minvan that only gets about 20/mph, gas is $3.59/gal (unless it went up again- I try not to look) and money is too tight for me to not hesitate before driving 220 miles unless I really have to go. So, is anyone interested in carpooling?

What "we are the change we've been waiting for" means

Eomaia — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:41:56 EST

On NPR's Talk of the Nation today someone said he didn't know what "We are the change we've been waiting for" is supposed to mean.

I thought about it, and decided it means that Obama isn't the knight in shining armor to our damsel in distress, or the star quarterback to our cheerleading squad.

He's more like Bob the Builder.
It even works:
"Barack Obama
Can we fix it?
Barack Obama
Yes we can!"
(If you don't know the tune, ask any parent with young children.)

Another politician phrased a similar idea as "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

If you're in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, or Rhode Island and legally able to vote, get off your butt and go do it tomorrow, or shut up and stop complaining about how somebody should do something about (fill in the blank).

Nice to meet you!

Eomaia — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:18:48 EST

So, who all was at the meeting tonight?

It was my first political meeting. Partially interesting, but lots of boring nuts and bolts stuff. Still, that's important to getting things done, finding an office to run a campaign out of, figuring out who is going to be making phone calls, and meeting people. Before, I'd always just gone in on election day and wondered who all those people were who didn't have ads on TV. This time around, I'm getting involved because how are you going to get change to happen unless you actually get off your butt?

I was sitting across from Derek wearing a burgundy velvet shirt. If I met anyone who is on here, it was nice to meet you and I look forward to working with you.

Thinking back to the Iowa caucus

Eomaia — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:49:51 EST

In our precinct, it was in the school library.

There were 76 people in the Obama group. Edwards got 78. Clinton 58.

Of the Obama group, there were only 3 black adults. Most of them were white. There were a bunch of teenagers, but some older people too.

A few kids were there. A black single mom had 2 boys, who kept asking how much longer they had to stay. A older white lady taught them to chant "I-O-W-A, Barack Obama all the way". A girl had a portable dvd player and was watching the remake of Hairspray, and the other kids crowded around too. So, that's my lasting memory of the Iowa caucus- a white girl, an Asian girl and 2 black boys all crowded together watching a musical about integration.

Who should care about family rights

Eomaia — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 14:03:31 EST

I've been talking to other parents who are fighting to get their kids back. One local family rights advocate has been trying to convince me that Republicans are better for family rights and that Democrats are the ones who make laws like ASFA that make it too easy for the government to destroy families. To a degree, he's right. In Michigan, it's been Republicans who have been pushing for real reform while the Democrats have been playing games.

That's not how it should be. CPS targets low income families. African-American children are disproportionaly represented in foster care. Single mothers are more vulnearable than 2 parent families. So, the families most likely to be torn apart by CPS are also likely to vote Democrat. They are also likely to have extended family and friends who see what's going on and how desperately we need to change the system.

Thus, reforming our child protection and foster care system is an issue that Democrats need to deal with. Traditionally, it's been framed as protecting vulnearable children versus respecting the privacy of abusive parents. When it's put like that, of course everyone will side with the children! A more accurate way to describe the problem is a corrupt system preying upon troubled families, hurting children and parents in order to make money. When you paint that picture, who is going to side with the corrupt system?

Family rights can't just be an issue that parents who have children in foster care are concerned about. It's a civil rights issue, a fight against a racist system. It's a reproductive rights issue, since it doesn't matter much if you've got a choice to carry a pregnancy to term if you don't have the right to choose to raise the child you give birth to. It's an economic issue, since poverty is the cause of most problems families face and poverty makes it impossible to hire a good lawyer who can fight the system. It's obviously a family values issue- how could anyone claim to value families while tearing them apart? Sometimes it's a gay rights issue or a religious rights issue, since families who do not fit in the mainstream idea of a 50's sitcom family are more likely to be targeted, whether it's because they are gay, or because they are fundamentalist Christians who homeschool.

I know there are plenty of people who don't care because they believe it couldn't happen to them. They don't do drugs, they don't abuse their children, and they assume that no one is ever falsely accused. Jesus said "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." CPS could investigate anyone whose child has a suspicious bruise, or who takes their eyes off their child for a few minutes, or who has a neighbor who dislikes them and can exaggerate, or whose child says something inappropriate in front of a teacher that can sound bad taken out of context. In other words, every parent should be concerned. Sure, middle to upper income parents can hire a good lawyer, but wouldn't you rather change the laws than have to spend your savings fighting in court against accusations that you are a bad parent?

Meanwhile, we should ALL care about the people who are hurt worst by the system: the children. The ones like Nixmary Brown who are left in the care of abusive parents by caseworkers too busy or incompetant to notice signs of abuse. And the children like Isaac Lethbridge who are taken from loving parents and placed in abusive foster homes. They both died for the same reason: a caseworker equated cleanliness with safety and messiness with abuse. How many more children will die before they figure out that a white glove test is not a reliable predictor of abuse?

Red Rover Red Rover

Eomaia — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:10:50 EST

Take all the kids who have aged out of foster care. Add in all the parents whose kids are in, or have been in, foster care, and all their parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, etc. Then multiply when you remember the number of parents who have been investigated, or who live in constant fear of being investigated. How many people does that add up to? I have no clue, but I'd guess at least 10 million. So, why haven't we gotten together and spoken up more?

Maybe we're just coming at it from too different perspectives to notice the others. An inner-city African-American single mom, a white liberal extra-crunchy Vegan non-vaxing couple, a bi-racial lesbian couple and a rural Christian homeschooling family might not seem to have much (or anything) in common, but they all LOVE their children. All of them face being judged for being different, and none of them fit mainstream cultural norms of what ideal parents should be like. If we overlook all the differences, we could work together on the issue that is most important to all of us.

At the NCCPR Child Welfare Blog, there is a quote from John Edwards:

"You know, we talk about 37 million Americans who live in poverty -- that's more than the population of California -- in the richest nation on the planet.

I've been to hundreds of places around this country who take care of the poorest of the poor, extraordinary, wonderful places. But I'll never forget, just a year or so ago, I was with a woman in Kansas City who told me the story -- worked full-time, worked full-time. She had several children.

Every night in the winter, she could not pay both her heating bill and her rent. She had to choose. Single mom, working full-time, she had to put her kids in all of their winter clothing, in their coats, bundle them up in the bed together, put as many blankets on top of them as she could.

And she'd get them out of bed in the morning and send them off to school. And the last thing she would say to them? "Please, for goodness's sakes, don't tell anybody at school what's happening here, because they'll come and take you away from me."

No mother in America should have to live like that. We are a better country than that."

Does anyone else think Obama/Edwards '08 has a nice ring to it?

Meanwhile, while I have huge problems with Huckabee on almost everything else, I did have to agree with him when he said "We've stood for the idea that mothers and fathers raise better kids than governments do. And government ought to undergird a family, not undermine a basic family's rights to raise their own kids. And that's one of the reasons we're here tonight."

That made me wonder if there might be Huckebee supporters whose primary issue is family rights, who might be swayed to Obama if Huckabee drops out. It might make for odd bedfellows, but that's politics. I doubt my grandfather was the only pro-life Catholic who voted both for Kennedy and Reagan. Sometimes people can overlook a lot of differences to focus on focus on the really important issue: family.

The rest of the ballot in November

Eomaia — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:37:42 EST

I was reading "The Audacity of Hope", and at the beginning Barack is talking about running for State Legislator and driving around the country for events that only a few people showed up for, and I realized that there are people running for office that the media doesn't even cover. So, while we're waiting around to see what happens with the rest of the states primaries and caucuses and the convention, we could find out more about the people here in Iowa who are doing like Barack was and driving around to talk to whoever shows up.

Then, come November 4th, we won't just go in and vote for Obama and just automatically check all the other boxes even though we have no clue who any of these people are. If we get involved now, we can actually help pick which peoples' names end up on the rest of the ballot, not just at the top.

So, does anyone know how to find out what offices are going to be up for election and who the candidates are? What about judges? I know they get on the ballot, but I have no clue if they are fair or if they are corrupt and should be kicked out of office. It might not be big news, the media might completely ignore it, but the names on the rest of the ballot are people who make choices that directly effect our everyday lives, like if the pothole on your street gets fixed, or if your neighborhood park gets new playground equipment.

Hillary's village is foster care

Eomaia — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:38:25 EST

Back in the 90's, I voted for Bill Clinton both times. I liked what he did for the economy. My personal economic measure is how far can I go on the amount of gas that I can buy with one hour's wages. At the begining of the Clinton era, that worked out to about 75 miles. By the end, it was around 300. I knew about all the welfare reforms, but it was so easy to get a job or 2 or 3 that it didn't seem to matter much. I don't remember hearing about the Adoption and Safe Families act, and even if I did, I didn't think it would ever affect me. I knew about "It Takes a Village", but didn't read it.

By the end of 2006, with an hour's wages, I could buy enough gas to drive about 60 miles. My husband was unemployed and we had 2 kids to support. My mother had died on Mother's Day, and we had CPS "checking up" on us regularly. While it seems obvious to me what our problems were, they mostly seemed concerned about how clean our house was, and that added to our stress levels. We did need some help or support, but we didn't need to be treated as if our problems were all due to our own stupidity, laziness and total inability to parent. On the anniversary of my mother's funeral, my 4 year old managed to slip out of the yard- I thought he was sitting in the van and that my husband was watching him, he thought he was playing in the sandbox and I was watching him. It was only a few minutes, but CPS took both children away for "failure to supervise".

Since then, my husband got a job, I got a second job, we've both been in therapy and marriage counseling, we moved to a nice townhome, and in my opinion, we've solved all our own problems. I think we could have done it much faster and easier if CPS had treated us with some basic respect and dignity and tried to help us improve our lives rather than trying to make us feel guilty for being in that situation. Our social worker still claims to have "concerns". I know that what she really means is that she's worried that if she returns the kids, and something unpredictable and horrible ends up happening, she'll be held responsible. Of course, nothing happens to a social worker who seizes children for trivial reasons, and she can avoid risks for herself if she just keeps claiming to have "concerns" until our parental rights are terminated.

Now, you might be wondering what this has to do with politics. Back in 1997, when I wasn't paying attention, Hillary helped write the Adoption and Safe Families act, which put strict limits on the amount of time that children can be kept in foster care before parental rights are terminated, while providing incentives for adoption. While it does say that "reasonable" efforts are supposed to be made to keep families together, it does not define "reasonable" or take any measures to ensure accountability or prevent corruption. A friend of mine says "Hillary's village is foster care."

While looking at candidates, I tried to find out what their positions on foster care reform are. There really is not enough information out there, as if no one cares. Of course, Hillary talks a lot about protecting children, but now that I've read "It takes a village", her tone seems condescending and self-congradulatory. John Edwards and Barack Obama both seem more respectful and understanding of the real problems that low-income families have. I've looked at the other side of the aisle too- Ron Paul wants to get rid of DHS altogether. When Rudy Guiliani was Mayor of NYC, he was against spending money to support families and prevent children from being put into foster care, even though preserving families cost much less than foster care. Ultimately, I decided that Obama must have known families who were dealing with CPS BS when he worked on the South Side of Chicago, and I liked his message of hope, so I caucused for him.

If it was so hard for me to find information, imagine how hard it is for a more typical mother in my situation, who doesn't have internet access or a college education. There are 500,000 children in foster care right now, most of whom have living parents. Add in grandparents, other relatives, friends and neighbors and that adds up to at least a few million adults who know a child in foster care. Remember the foster parents, and all the kids who age out of foster care. Multiply that by the decades that CPS has had major problems, and you've got a big chunk of voters who know that our foster care/child protection system is in serious need of reform.

If everyone whose life was impacted by CPS all got together, we could really do something. The problem is that we're invisible, even to each other. We don't go around wearing t-shirts that say "CPS took my kid!" or "I aged out of foster care". Many families try to just forget about it after the investigation is over. The stigma of being involved with CPS is like being labeled a witch 500 years ago, or a Commie in the 1950's, with a similar requirement for evidence backing up the accusation. I'm still nervous about telling people that my kids are in foster care; there are so many negative stereotypes about "bio" parents, and I don't want anyone assuming I'm like that. Similarly, many people assume that foster children are all damaged, unwanted, unloved and incapable of loving. Our shame keeps us silent, and our silence keeps us powerless.

So, with Tsunami Tuesday coming up, maybe it's time for us to speak up and demand change. We need to get the word out about what is really going on, and how things really work in Hillary's village, and how badly things need to change. If we can get all those people who have been though the foster care system to get out and vote, we can stop being silent and invisible.