A mass of people wait in a concrete pit open to the wind and rain the dim sun promises to bring. 

Most of the people are black and brown, though there are a few that could pass if they didn’t speak with such a heavy accent. More languages are known between them than there are people in the pit, and yet those in the pit almost never speak to each other. They remain stuck in their spheres of solitude.

There is just enough room for everyone to sit down on the bare ground. Only the smallest among them can stretch out straight. The rest must curl-up on themselves in dirt that’s dark and muddy from still sticking human waste. 

A young mother, is given room to lay with her weakly crying child next to a teen, too skinny and dirty to betray their gender, who scratches another tick in the wall. 

It’s been 124 days by their count. 

Some people came earlier, others came later. A minority were counting the days even before arriving at the pit. Fewer still don’t bother counting at all because all that matters is that this is the end. 

Beyond the wall, the sound of a monstrous machine grows louder. It’s engine roars and echoes inside of the pit. It sounds like it has the power to break through the concrete wall, instead, it stops just beyond. 

From somewhere out of sight a guard and his dog appear on the wall. 

Covered head to toe in blood-red armor the guard patrols unarmed. It’s only ever a single guard per pit, and even that is just for show, there’s little that needs monitoring. It takes four people standing on each other’s shoulders to send a fifth over the top. It’s only ever tried once per pit. Then it becomes clear to everyone below that they’ll never be faster than the lid snapping closed. 

The guard doesn’t need a weapon because his dog is always at his side. As loyal as it is fierce, this dog is the greatest weapon ever made through selective breeding, cybernetics, and genetic engineering. So much so, that no one in the pit can recognize it as a dog. 

Their dogs played with their children and protected their homes. However, this thing on the wall must be kept far away from children and all things precious.

The guard and his dog patrol the perimeter of the concrete pit. Its walls are thick enough that he and the dog can walk comfortably side by side. 

While the man’s on the outer edge, looking beyond, the dog splits its attention between the guard and the people in the pit whose gaze it greets with a growl in the back of its throat, even as they do their best to keep to the side opposite the patrol. 

Someone slips in the filth as the crowd moves around the pit and the dog snaps to attack position, barking loudly with its teeth full bare. The guard stops to look on as the person scrambles back into the throng of pitiful people. The dog reverts back to its perpetual growl.

The guard stops near to where the engine beyond the pit has been idling loudly. A signal from the guard and the engine kicks into gear, this time accompanied by the sound of hydraulics raising something large. 

The dog is barking again. Its joined by another, and another, and another, until its a deafening, terrifying chorus that drowns out all else before a heavy slab of metal slams onto concrete, releasing cries and screams into the mix, and masking the sound of thunder from the clouds bursting above. 

Then there they are, the screaming crying people, standing in the rain on the edge of the pit. Throngs of people. Brown, black, and white people. Miserable people, getting wet like those in the pit. Stopped at the edge, too scared to go forward though there’s clearly nowhere else to go as the guards and dogs corral them in. 

Too well trained to ever break the rules, the dogs snap at the legs, fingers, and toes of those on the edge. Close enough that they can feel the heat of the dogs’ breath, but never enough to claim they’ve been bitten. 

Those at the very edge and close to falling turn around. They use their arms and their pleas to hold the rest back. But there’s too many and their numbers are growing. 

The weakest go over, tearing open the floodgates, so the rest fall, push, or are shoved into the pit. The first to land are crushed beneath those that follow. Their blood mixing with the mud.

Phillip Morris is a Californian living in Amsterdam. When he’s not writing dry instructions he’s writing colorful fiction.

The post The Pit appeared first on Pandemic Magazine.

Written by Christian Hazes, Staff Writer

It is safe to say that ample initiatives coming from American presidents have miserably failed. Ronald Reagan’s intense acceleration of the War on Drugs, originally commenced by President Nixon, and its devastating impact on incarceration rates and especially the Black community, is probably one of the most fitting epitomes of those unfortunate initiatives.

Sometimes, though, a hidden gem comes to the surface. Unlike several other Wars On something started by the United States, the War on Poverty and particularly its 1961 re-introduced food stamps system received critical acclaim. It was President John F. Kennedy that suggested the food stamps system as a pilot and eventually secured sufficient and healthy nutrition for a staggering number of American families living below the poverty line. Up to this day, a vast amount of Americans continues to rely on what is now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), preventing widespread hunger across the country including all of its disastrous consequences. In 2016, a staggering 45 million Americans benefited from SNAP.

However, if current president Donald Trump has his way, getting food on the table will soon be a difficult task for a large portion of Americans. Envisaged budget cuts for 2019 jeopardize a precious and effective American welfare component, thus leaving many American families in peril.

Trump aims at trimming the SNAP-related spending severely over the next decade. Approximately a quarter of the current program’s funding will have to be cut according to the president. What this boils down to is the fact that a significant number of current SNAP recipients will lose access to this invaluable social safety net. In the case that Trump is able to fulfill his wishes, the aforementioned number of 45 million Americans that participate in SNAP will drastically decline.

Unsurprisingly, SNAP has always been a vexed topic within U.S. politics. The debates on SNAP make a longstanding and notorious schism in American culture come to the surface once again. On one side, liberals laud the bulwark of the American social safety net, emphasizing that the program spares millions of American households from misery. On the other hand, (mostly Republican) conservatives tend to detest the program due to its alleged motivation-stifling nature.

Obviously, every individual is allowed to have a certain ideological preference. But, the primarily positive effects of SNAP cannot be denied. More importantly, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly guarantees freedom from hunger, thus making access to food a human right.

SNAP’s first and foremost goal, quite evidently, is to reduce food insecurity. In other words, the nutrition assistance aims to prevent having uncertain or insufficient access to food. Research consistently shows that participating in SNAP is accompanied by a decreased risk of food insecurity. What’s more, the height of the sum that participants get plays a huge role: the higher the benefit received, the lower one’s food insecurity risk is.

But SNAP does more than simply put food on the table of the needy; its positive long-term effects are likewise noteworthy. The incidence of babies born underweight – a tragic event that comes with a slew of complications during later stages of life – fell relatively drastically; roughly 10% fewer occurrences were measured after the inception of the food stamps program. Seeing as access to nutrition assistance in early life stages is vital, health problems dawning in adulthood can be circumvented by ensuring access to SNAP in utero and during early childhood.

SNAP’s reach extends to the economic domain as well. The initiative lifts numerous American households out of poverty, as well as many out of deep poverty (those living below half the poverty line). But that’s not everything. Food stamps have become an automatic stabilizer of the American economy. The program stimulates the economy by virtue of a larger enrollment rate when the economy slumps and many families need nutrition aid. On the other hand, when the economy overheats, SNAP participation decreases. Furthermore, essential expenses such as medical bills and rent can be maintained more easily when food is being provided by the government.

Fortunately, SNAP can expect much support in its battle for survival. SNAP is part of the Farm Bill, a bill supporting the demand, thus boosting production, for food. The food industries and agricultural lobby groups would be far from happy with shrinking the size of SNAP. In addition, the vital function of the nutrition assistance as a social safety net is much appreciated by many Americans. Cracking down on the already minimal welfare provisions of the U.S. will not be a very popular decision amongst the needy and the liberal. Cutting back on SNAP expenses will maybe even mean political suicide for Trump; a great deal of states that chose Trump over Clinton have a population that relies heavily on SNAP.

Despite the moderate chances of passing, the attempt to cut back on SNAP funding is worrisome. Concentrating on ambitions, goals, and desires instead of an empty belly is so important in life and many people would not be able to develop that part of themselves without food stamps. SNAP remains, somewhat uniquely, one of the most successful initiatives within the U.S. Cutting back on SNAP would not fix something that is broken, rather, it would break something that actually works.

The post Oh SNAP! Food Stamps are Under Pressure appeared first on Pandemic Magazine.