The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident. Charles Lamb
It is imperative if we are to lead a successful and happy life that we learn to be generous, loving and giving. This is absolutely true statistically. It starts with ourselves and needs to grow into loving our fellow humans. What good does it do if one claims to be loving yet approaches the task from a platform of indifference or hatred toward others? This is like being on a diving board and diving head first into an empty pool. Ouch!
The golden rule is of no use to you, unless you realize it's your move. Doug Larson
It distresses me hugely that so many messages given by some religious groups emphasize churlishness toward anyone who is not in their club. Worse, they propose if you are rich it is God's favoritism and the poor--- well it's their own fault. However, the fact is, in most countries in the world, most wealth is inherited. Only a very minuscule percentage of the very wealthy have "earned" it themselves and some of those who have "earned" their wealth did so by shamelessly exploiting the working class. Odd, this sounds like the worst aspect of capitalism, doesn't it?
I've been reading a series of books lately that describes how very wretched poverty has been throughout the ages. [How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Museum of Extraordinary Things to name two.] Another of the books: Call the Midwife volumes I and II [also a TV series on PBS] by author Jennifer Worth describes in Dickensian detail the abysmal conditions of the poor in London after WWII. Basically the entire country was suffering in the aftermath of the war but none so great as the already poor. I kept reading wishing that there was someone with more heart overseeing the conditions of these people, but there was intentional neglect, callousness and rationalization as to why people lived in these horrifying conditions. Sadly, many of the men and women in these families were veterans of WWI and WWII.
Although dreadful housing conditions are not new or shocking information, there had been a small safety net of sorts, in the centuries before. The churches would help the poor. Then King Henry VIII put an end to aid to the poor when in 1530 he broke off with the Catholic church and started his own church. Ah, the ego of a narcissistic murderer. It was only when his daughter, Elizabeth I came into power in 1601 and wrote "the Act for the Relief of the Poor" that some compassion came back into England.
Let's look at our country. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness [NAEH]:
"the decreases in chronic and veteran homelessness [in 2011-12] indicate that, with federal, state, and local investment in strategies proven to end homelessness, progress can be made. The ongoing and increased development of permanent supportive housing, a proven solution to ending homelessness for people with disabilities, is bringing down chronic and veteran homelessness numbers in communities across the country. Emphasis needs to be placed on creating more affordable housing and strengthening the safety net to prevent homelessness."
That got me thinking about the poor and the homeless in this country. When I was growing up in the 50's and 60's there weren't throngs of homeless that you'd see on the streets of the big cities. However, there were tons of homeless people after the crash of 1929, but the situation was greatly reduced by FDR who created the WPA projects which put many of the homeless back to work. Good use of the country's taxes. Of course the population was much smaller then. Though far from perfect, in the '50's and 60's we had institutions that took in the people with disabilities, and the ones who were unable to make it in the world due to mental illness. That all changed in the 1980's with Ronald Regan. He opened the flood gates and the inmates were released to fend for themselves. Supposedly this was a good thing, they were being sent back "home" but the truth: his government just didn't want to take care of or pay for the crazies anymore. "Send them back to their communities," sounded so good but there was no money provided for these communities to handle the mentally ill and drug addicts. Many, many of these people were veterans with PTSD with no place to go. "Do unto others..." Shame on the heartless.
Today many homeless are families and the principal wage earner lost their job. So, not all of the homeless are mentally ill or drug addicts, but you can bet a good percentage of them were/are. You can turn a blind eye to the homeless, but they exist and there has got to be a more humane and civilized way that we treat the impoverished and the unfortunate in our own country.
What's so interesting about corporate welfare is some believe that we can afford it. In my state Boeing paid no taxes, they "earned" a refund of $199 million. That money could be put to such good use for their employees or even for housing, or treatment programs for the homeless. Think about that money and then read the sentence below.Right now there is a movement afoot to raise the minimum wage and it is being fought tooth and nail by big business, they still believe in 'Trickle Down'. They don't want to pay more to their employees, even though their CEO's get exorbitant salaries and typically make thousands times more than the workers. Yet because the employees do not have a living wage, they have to file for welfare or food stamps which we all pay for with our taxes. Hence, this is the system that is being fought for and quite simply it is called corporate welfare. It's got to stop.
"Federal assistance that was previously available to fill some of those gaps [for people that are homeless]—through the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP)—has been depleted and not replaced." [NAEH].
There needs to be overwhelming public support to restore the funds for this very necessary and needed program. Instead the talk is about reducing the tax rate for the very wealthy. Make sense of this for me.
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| Every good parent teaches children the joy of sharing |
And I'm stuck like a dope with a thing called hope and I can't get it out of my head... Rogers and Hammerstein
We are better, finer than the people who preach stinginess. It is generosity, not stinginess that makes this country great. Time to demand it--- for goodness sake. Please, do unto others.
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