I was listening today to a broadcast out of Haiti. Seems in many areas there, the bloody violence that sickened anyone with a heart not so long ago, has abated but the poverty remains.
We can do so many things, we human beings. Why can't we find a solution to this ancient misery? Why must the 200o year-old words from the Bible be so sadly prophetic: The poor ye have always with you."
Why is there poverty in Citie de Sol, Haiti? Because there are no jobs, the residents say.
No jobs. Why are there no jobs there? How can jobs be brought there?
The 21st Century is supposed to see a majority of humankind living for the first time in cities, and the phrase will be heard like a miserable mantra: no jobs, no jobs.
And as long as there are poor people, dictators and demagogues -- whether Latin American "caudillos" or insane fundamentalists -- will continue to thrive and survive.
You can't take from the rich to give to the poor. That ultimately renders everyone poor. But if the rich don't give to the poor, the poor will take from the rich, and it won't be pretty, as Steinbeck warned in Grapes of Wrath.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Poverty
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4 comments:
I love your last paragraph.
Thank you, sweet Trisia! I was thinking, in fact, of countries such as yours which went through the communist nightmare of just such a scenario.
how does one listen to broadcasts out of haiti? you have shortwave? or has haiti joined the internet broadcasting phenomenon>?
I should clarify, Lance. It was an NPR program which included a correspondent in Haiti. Nothing spectacular.
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