Hi Everybody,

We are living during troubling times, and our current administration is proof of the problem. The Health Care bill that the Republicans are trying to push through the Senate would throw 22 million people off of their current insurance plan, abandon support for planned parenthood, cut medicaid, and reward the rich with huge tax breaks. It is a very bad bill, and needs to be defeated. We the people, have the power to keep this bill from passing, by bombarding our Senators with phone calls, letters, emails and petitions. It has already had an effect by postponing the vote until after the Fourth of July recess, but we can not let up the pressure. To the contrary, we need to pour it on! We need to call, and then call again, and then again. We need to keep those phones ringing! Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to speak with your Senator’s office. To find out who your Senators are, go to www.callmycongress.com. For Democratic Senators, thank them for fighting hard to defeat TrumpCare. For Republicans Susan Collins (Maine), Rand Paul (Kentucky) and Dean Heller (Nevada), thank them for going against the majority, and standing up for the people. For all other Republicans, tell them your stories and demand they vote against TrumpCare whenever it finally comes up for a vote.

As many of you know, I have been working with the River Fund Food Pantry for over 20 years, providing a Thanksgiving Feast and a Christmas Dinner to food insecure communities that they service. One of the reasons I am so attracted to this food pantry is because they realize that just giving people food is not enough, and  they do the work to go beyond the typical food pantry. To end the hunger problem, we need to get at the root of the problem, and address poverty and inequality on a much grander scale. The River Fund NY helps support education, health, jobs, and the whole family. They have a program called “Cradle to College” where they assist young mothers and their newborns to get the right start, assist families in navigating the system, and have a scholarship program to help graduating students go to college. They realize that to break the poverty cycle, the kids need to go to college and get a good paying job. However, reading Andrew Fisher’s new book, Big Hunger, has really gotten me thinking of other ways I can engage all of my volunteers!

My guest this week on the Progressive Radio Network is Andrew Fisher, the author of the book I am reading, Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance Between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups. It is an eye opening way to re-think the hunger problem, and to address the root causes of hunger, which is poverty and inequality. The Anti-Hunger movement and food pantries exploded in the 1980’s as a response to the recession, the loss of manufacturing jobs, and Reagan’s cutbacks to federally funded programs. It was meant to be a temporary solution to an emergency problem, but our government and business as usual got comfortable with it, and it is now how we deal with hunger as a country! Anti-hunger advocates are dependent on corporate donations for food and money, so they don’t want to address the elephant in the room, and hold business accountable for offshoring jobs, cutting benefits, exploiting workers, and resisting wage increases. In Big Hunger, Andrew Fisher takes a critical look at the business of hunger and offers a new way for the anti-hunger movement to move forward. Please join me tomorrow at 10am, for a very poignant conversation.

Remember, my show is recorded live, every Thursday, from 10-11 am, EST.  To tune in, navigate to PRN.fm and click the “Listen Live” button on the left. Also try downloading the PRN mobile app, and take the station with you wherever you go! If you want to call in during the show with any questions for me or my guest, the call in number is 888-874-4888.

If you can’t tune in at that time, you can listen to the show in the PRN archives, or through a direct phone line to my archives. Just dial 1-701-719-0880, and you can listen to the past 5 weeks of shows! Of course you can also access the shows through my website, or through iTunes. Please “like” iEat Green’s Facebook page and feel free to rate the show and leave comments on iTunes and on my website. Thank you all for your support.

With love and gratitude,

Bhavani