lettin' ya'll sit in around the infamous Holcomb dinner table

What's with this recurring theme that because we in America have it good someone else has to be getting the short end of the stick? I never understood that thought process and still don't.

Also I think getting into situations in other countries militarily, providing the situation isn't really effecting the US, is getting into a fight that was never ours in the first place. Personally going and trying to help solve the problems that these troubled peoples have is the best way to show compassion in my book.

It's just too easy to sit back and say, "that's too bad, we should send the government in to fix it . . ." Especially when there is plenty of junk going on here at home that needs fixing.

Anyway, my two bits.

David


Dear David,

excellent questions. Here are my responses:

i) people around the world are obviously and continually getting the short end of the stick. Americans are obviously, in a material and political sense, ridiculously and incomparably wealthy, with only Europe for comparison. You are arguing from a standpoint where the two can be separated. I, along with good Marxists everywhere, argue that they cannot, especially when you consider how interconnected the world economy is.

Almost everything you wear today is made somewhere else. Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, just read the tags. Taiwan, economically and politically, is doing all right. Indonesia and Malaysia...not so much. The reason the American clothing market can function with the opulence that it does is sheerly because children under the age of twelve work in sweatshops for a pittance This is the ugly truth about the world economy: people with power can exploit people without power in order to make more money for themselves. During my research on agricultural subsidies, I discovered that American cotton growers were being paid to the tune of billions of dollars by the federal government to grow cotton. This allowed them to charge ridiculously low prices, driving North African cotton growers into poverty and bankruptcy--wreaking havoc on their already fragile economies. All so that Americans could have the most prosperous and successful economy in the world.

If you ever want an interesting conversation, I will give you my friend Tegan's phone number; ask her why she does not wear a diamond engagement ring. She is rather passionate about the awful and quite hazardous conditions that exist in diamond mines in Africa, the disproportionally ridiculously low wages the workers are paid, and the integral role diamonds play in the illegal arms trade--a trade which results in massive amounts of AK-47s and bullets which end up in places like Rwanda and the Sudan. Which brings me, after a short digression, to your second question.

--short digression--As I hope I made clear, you cannot separate our prosperous economy here from suffering and misery over there. It does not aid matters that our political power is brought to bear on foreign economies in order to gain preferential and often unfair advantages for our economy. American's are demanding "fair prices at the pumps" when in reality, we enjoy some of the lowest gas prices in the world, due to effective diplomacy and interference in the affairs of foreign powers. Also consider South America, where the United States felt free to meddle in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, assisting in the toppling of governments and tinkering with their economies. If their problems can not be justly laid at our doorstep, we can at least admit to playing a significant role in their creation. We are inextricably linked to the rest of the world, and while our prosperity and wealth and peace are good things, they are not good things if they exist because of unjust relationships with other nations and the abuse of power and position. A great South American painter once portrayed a successful executive in his well-panelled office, behind the stereotypical massive desk. But his desk was not held up by wooden drawers and legs--it rested on the backs of shackled and crippled poor people. Does our prosperity rest on the back of shackled and crippled poor people? You as a Christian should be immediately concerned at this prospect, for whether across the street or over the sea, the poor are your neighbors--this Jesus was adamant about.

But that is digression. What is point nubmer ii? It had to do with AK-47's, I believe.

ii) Once more we arrive at the issue of power. People with guns have power that people without them do not have. People with governments have power that people alone do not have. With that power comes an ability that transcends the power of the individual. I, as an individual, am powerless to stop a bullet or a bomb or a torch from setting fire to a hut. As an individual with a gun, I can perhaps kill a few people, but I cannot prevent the government of the Sudan from funding these janjaweed militias and I will not last long against any concerted group. And as an individual, I cannot stop the illegal international arms trade, that puts guns and machetes into the hands of mobs everywhere. And I, as an individual, cannot set up a hospital or a safe zone or a refugee camp--I have no power to do so.

But governments do. Governments exist because there are things that established authority can do that individuals cannot: regulate competing interest, protect the weak from the strong, provide education and healthcare to those who cannot afford it. Governments can also protect "public goods" (things like clean air and water, public safety, national forests) that can be destroyed or taken from everyone by individuals or small groups.

Individuals in destabilized countries such as Somalia and certain regions of the Sudan, as well as in Rwanda during the genocide, have no choices--they cannot choose to live in peace or choose to not pollute their wells or choose to live healthy lifestyles with good medical care. Those things are taken from them by individuals and small groups of people with power--economic power, and the power that comes from wielding armed force. They can chose to take up arms--if they are available--and fight with one group or another, but they cannot choose to live in peace unless they live under a stable government who has an interest in their peace.

I cannot as an individual do anything about that. I cannot even feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the lonely and imprisoned, give the thirsty clean water, or care for those in need of medical attention--because governments and gangs and ideologues will kill and/or rob both me and the people I would try to help.

But governments--and leagues of governments--can stop the illegal arms trade, denying militias like the janjaweed access to the basic element of their power: bullets. They can pressure corrupt indifferent governments to become governments interested in the welfare of their people. They can provide safe-zones for refugees and protect aid convoys and delivery zones. They can not only pray for the peace of the proverbial Jerusalem, but actually do something about it.

I am intentionally adopting the language and imagery of the Christian Scriptures because I am trying to remind you of the Christian imperative to love, and serve, our neighbors; to champion the cause of the helpless and the poor. Christ is not a capitalist; he is not an American; and most importantly, he does not believe in leaving people to their own devices or their own messes. Rather, in the midst of our mess, he left Heaven to come help us reconcile to each other and God and heal this wounded world. For his pains he was ignored, villified, and painfully put to death--yet He came with aid anyway, and continues to this day working to usher in a Kingdom of Heaven, a place without injustice, hatred, war, death, plague, inequality or famine. It was the hope of this kingdom that propelled him during his earthly ministry, and it was the proclamation of that kingdom that he made the focal point of that ministry. He described his mission as bringing healing to the sick, freedom to the captives, good news to the poor people, and wholeness to the brokenhearted, all wrapped up in the favorable year of the Lord. And he left hanging unsaid the next verse which rang in the memory of his audience: ...and the day of the vengeance of our God.

The vengeance is easy to find in the works of the prophets, from Amos to Isaiah. It is vengeance upon the wealthy and powerful who exploit and abuse the helpless. Read the prophets and see how often the welfare of the helpless--"the widows and fatherless"--is God's cetral, sorrowful, angry theme. The rich rarely do well in the prophets, and we are the richest in the world today. Even we, little brother, of modest and unostentatious means among our fellow Americans, are wealthy beyond compare in the eyes of two-thirds of the world's six billion people. We ought to bear our wealth carefully, as those who will give an account of our actions as stewards to a master with a fondness for charity and involvement in the cause of the helpless.

Sincerely,
Dan