Being human yet one who is open to working on his own flaws, I was one of the countless who survived a poverty stricken childhood and I have come to understand first hand the realities of those faced with dilemmas that the ordinary citizen who enjoys the creature comforts the supposed normal family enjoys every day. Daily activities such as a family meal every day, a proper and healthy diet, and access to education and healthcare, most will never find themselves having to ponder over as poverty prone environments can become a maze of fear, trauma, crime, hunger, shame, self-defeat, depression and death.
Presently, in filling a bag with groceries for a local food bank one day, I found it inexcusable and embarrassing that we as a nation, who displace only four percent of the world’s population, the richest nation on the globe, we continue to consume 70% of the world’s natural resources. Yet, we live in a society that includes people like that of our last administration who continually use food as a social and political wedge in and between social classes.
Sustenance not unlike water being vital to the continuation of human life is supposed to be non-political and more abundant in an alledged free society, not to mention local. As we allegedly live in a Christian nation, food is used as such a device of power. I wonder how many of the community’s outspoken self-proclaimed pundits of the human condition who call themselves Christian, think they are going to heaven because they think are a little higher in human status. I realize that was a cheap shot, but how old does the argument have to get until people feel the cringe of human guilt to actually show some type of basic empathy, or better yet, compassion?
I hope that the present administration will begin to look at this most crucial and central issue of the links between abuse, homeless-ness, hunger, and mental illness in a more financially progressive and giving fashion. I also hope it will re-instate the nation-wide trauma centers that old ‘trickle-down’ Reagan dismantled. Our time is limited upon this earth so why do we continue to make those who are in need suffer in the realm of lower animal species when we can help and assist them in rising and growing beyond the sum of our parts and paths?
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