By John Marciano
The Daily Press did this community a service by publishing four articles on poverty and wealth (Nov. 30): on Father Maurice “Dollar Bill” Chase who dispenses money to the homeless in LA’s skid row; the “list of perfect luxury gifts” from the Robb Report, whose readers with an average annual income of $800,000 can think about buying an $80 million submarine or a $70 million airplane; a U.N. report stating that “nearly 40 nations face food shortages,” 25 of them in Africa which is already under siege from AIDS, mounting starvation and war; and the “immoral irony” of higher hunger rates in the rural West. The four related articles form a powerful quartet; linking them together reveals how great wealth and poverty/homelessness are as “American as apple pie.” You cannot have one without the other in this unequal and unjust economic system.
Father Chase, and other concerned individuals and groups attempt to heal the immediate pain of hunger and homelessness. In my former hometown of Ithaca, N.Y. (population about 29,000), home to Ivy League Cornell University and its $30,000 plus tuition costs per year, the Loaves and Fishes free lunch program serves thousands of meals per month in an effort to alleviate hunger. Father Chase and Ithaca’s Loaves and Fishes must appeal for funds to continue their good work.
Compare this to the gargantuan tax revenues that serve as corporate welfare to fund the capitalist war machine, pumping hundreds of billions of dollars each year in well-padded military contracts to warmakers that proclaim their allegiance to the “free enterprise” system.
What kind of a society do we have when the Pentagon spends $2 billion on a warship when telethons and marches are necessary to raise funds to fight diseases; where some can purchase a $10 million necklace and others must beg; where the wealthy can buy a $300,000 Mercedes originally made for a dictator and others cannot afford to commute to work; where, in Santa Monica, some can buy a $995,000 townhouse while nearby people look through the trash container for something to eat?
When linked together, these four separate stories reveal the dark underside of this self-proclaimed “kinder and gentler” society that violates the basic human rights proclaimed in the 1948 U.N. Declaration, including those to shelter, food, and health. Each day, in Santa Monica and throughout the world, crimes are committed against the powerless.
During a 1967 speech that addressed poverty, racism and the Vietnam War, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. shared a thought on crimes and causation from the writer Victor Hugo: “Where there is darkness, crimes will be committed; the honest social critic not only condemns the criminal but also those who caused the darkness.”
Letter writers have expressed concern about abuses committed by the poor and homeless, but such critics must take into account Hugo’s insight for radical understanding, i.e., go to the root in order to eradicate the causes.
This radical insight was touched upon in a slightly different manner by Dom Helder Camara, the late Brazilian Catholic Archbishop: “When I give bread to the poor, they call me a saint; when I ask why people are poor, they call me a communist.”
While individuals and organizations address the symptoms of poverty and homelessness, charitable and private efforts cannot solve the massive inequities in our country and world: They have never abolished poverty and homelessness and never will. There are no non-governmental solutions to such community tragedies.
There are reasonable explanations for these outrageous injustices, but one must look outside the mainstream print and television media, e.g., to “Dollars and Sense,” “Extra,” “The Nation,” the “Progressive” and “Z Magazine” and its “ZNET” Web site for such insights. These critical alternative sources offer analyses not found in the major mass media, and they challenge the fairy tale “soundbites” that pretend to serve as explanations.
Our nation and earth are blessed with abundant resources for all to live a decent life; thus, there is no rational defense of poverty and homelessness. But these resources are increasingly owned by a dominant few who follow Adam Smith’s “vile maxim of the rulers of mankind” all for themselves and nothing for anyone else. His observations on the emerging capitalist system in the 18th century, however, will not be critically examined by the CNN evening business report or the Wall Street Journal.
The wealthy and powerful few ravage the earth and exploit the many, and they are served by both major political parties. Apologists in the mass media and universities tell us that this ruling class has our best interests at heart, that we should ally with it rather than with the earth and the many. When it comes to justice, however, these few have proven they are beyond the pale of human values. If we wish to end poverty and homelessness, we need to name them and their crimes, and change the system that produces both. (John Marciano is an emeritus professor at SUNY Cortland and chairman of the New York Human Rights Commission from 1991-96.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 7, 2002. Read the original PDF.