by Rev. Amari Magdalena
Poverty is about not having enough money to meet basic needs including food, clothing and shelter. Yet there are many kinds of poverty that are not economic. There is social poverty, the inability to interact comfortably with a range of diverse people. There is emotional poverty the case of our incomes not meeting our outcomes. There is physical poverty, bodies that are damaged perhaps at birth, returning from war injured, accidents that severely alter our lives. There is spiritual poverty, a bankrupting of the soul. All these types of poverty represent lack.
Like many nations we have our very own caste system: the super-rich, the dying middle class, and the exponentially and growing the super-poor and other poor. 1% of our economic wealth is held by now billionaires; while our poor are now living in tents in vacant lots and the middle class is disappearing like some maestro’s magic trick.
Our national dialogue and important documents declared that we are all equal and entitled to live, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet our longevity is diminishing while of costs of existence are skyrocketing. Few but the rich are not feeling the bite. Some blame the president and political parties. Others realize that since 1980 we’ve become a corporatocracy. Businesses are hiking prices in every corner of our lives. Housing is up. Food is up. From sea to shining sea of our democracy prices are being jacked up by greedy corporations who are unbridled.
This, of course, forms a circle of poverty in every way. Can’t afford housing, food, essentials? What are your choices? Theft certainly is an option after one has exhausted all the reasonable solutions. The rich housing market has put a strain on our social need networks rendering them even poorer—with no funds for the needy. Help is diminishing.
Perhaps the hidden agenda that goes unaddressed is the spiritual poverty of not caring for others outside of our own lavish lifestyles and labeling the poor “lazy, chronic non workers, milkers of the common good, scum, chronic abusers of the social structure of helping others in need, etc.” Easy to call names and denigrate others when you are at the top of the food pyramid. Could be a truly rude awakening of your gold toppled and you were destroyed like King Midas.
Other aspects of basic survival come into play. Education is one of those aspects. The dumbing down of America has been on the agenda of the super-rich for some time wanting a servant class. Don’t imagine they thought of the possibility that not everyone wanted to serve them. Perhaps many of those same people bought the American Dream that you can work hard and become someone and get rich.
That Horatio Alger myth, is no more. As we now wish to end immigration to supposedly soil our population (mostly white Europeans). Yet the backbone of our country after we seized it from Indigenous people, was raised on diverse people coming from all over the world.
The right-wing conservatives would like us to time travel back to the 1950’s when white dominated and women and people of color lacked many of the constitutional promises afforded white men. And sadly, a raging group of Americans with misdirected anger are deifying a billionaire and looking a him to save them. They are like the members of Jonestown happily accepting the cups of poison intended to in many ways kill them.
As Ben Franklin posited, its great to have a Republic if we can keep it. And therein lies the current poverty of our political leanings. As some are pushing us toward fascism. too few people have any idea of living in that reality and how it promises major losses of freedoms and all the basic needs that we are supposedly entitled to. Totalitarian is a system completely devoid of personal freedoms. Man, that would be a shock to many rabid followers of The Man Who Would Be King? Ever watch the movie? Do. Didn’t turn out to glamorously in spite of riches promised.
Poverty, just doesn’t fit the description of the richest country in the world and supposed shining light of freedom, does it? The Statue of Liberty is metaphorically falling down.
It is time for a rising up of thoughtful citizens to set us back on the track of a free country beckoning others to enjoy our abundance. More than ever, our vote must account for a slam dunk on those who wish to enslave us and take away freedoms and the social network of assistance for citizens in need.
We rise or fall this November. And, if we go down, is there any other country who wishes to save us like we did in Europe in the Worlds Wars I & II? I think not. So, I suggest we have The Great Wake UP and get us back on track to setting an example for the world of democracy. And, further that we implement more and more programs to help people by actually giving them tools for survival and not imprisoning them with tiny handouts for minimal survival.
Set your alarms! They are going off to warn us. Pay attention, heed their loud interruption. Get up, wake up, stand up, and reach down in your soul to resurrect the democratic principals that, by example, can influence the world toward good and unity.
“Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.” -Aristotle
“In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.” -Confucius
“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” -Plutarch
“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” -Albert Einstein
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
“There is enough in the world for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” – Frank “Bushman
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”– Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of these United States
“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”– John F. Kennedy, 35th President of these United States.
“Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.”
-Muhammad Ali
