Beyond Charity - Call For Justice

Beyond charity

Your (The Kansas City Star) call for the community to donate canned goods to charitable organizations to offset the dilemma caused by rising food prices on poor families is a commendable (8/18 editorial, “Essentials out of reach”).

There is another call just as noble: the call for justice in these matters. While charity alleviates the effects of poverty, justice seeks to eliminate the causes of it.

It would be great if public good automatically followed from private virtue. We know that it does not. If we never go beyond charitable works, we are accepting the ways things are, inequitable and shameful. Justice is needed on these issues. The status quo must be challenged, and the injustices must be brought to light.

The rising costs of food, inadequate health care, the lack of affordable goods and services illustrate that it is our economy that consigns people to the ranks of the underclass — to homelessness, hunger, poor nutrition and education, and the cycle of poverty.

Poverty is a communal failure. It has been said, “In a free society, some are guilty but all are responsible.” Our Congress will not reorder its priorities unless it consistently hears from us — the people with the power.

Delores R. Linn
Kansas City

http://blogs.kansascity.com/unfettered_letters/2007/08/beyond-charity.html

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Just another example of compassionate conservativism (code for CHRISTIANS for those of you not in the know).

The Surge Schizophrenia

First, there were reports of a humanitarian crisis, a threat of a “real civil war” from a Kurdish leader and a report that it is the Shiite militias, not al-Qaida in Iraq, who are causing all of the bloodshed and chaos.

Then, there was a column by two hawkish Democrats at the Brookings Institute saying we have a chance to win this war. Now, it is Bush himself telling the VFW that as long as he is president, we will be fighting in Iraq.

George Will put it this way, “The rapturous reception of that column by one faction was evidence of the one thing both factions share -- a powerful will to believe, or disbelieve, as their serenity requires.”

Somewhere along the way there was the report of the possibility of a Shiite-on-Shiite civil war in the south where the British are holed up in Basra, surrounded, like cowboys and Indians – “Three major Shiite political groups are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets. The city is plagued by ‘the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors,’ according to a recent report by the International Crisis Group.”

Pardon me, I am just a military family member, not a part of any faction. And I would like to know why, if it is so important to keep fighting this war and if the surge is making such a difference, why doesn’t Bush, the commander, the decider guy, make the necessary moves to get more troops in Iraq, to sustain the surge, why doesn’t he call for a draft if necessary?

President Bush is a fraud. The right-wing Kulturkampf on the Internet is an embarrassing joke - they won’t even read the newspaper - and the future of this country and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be decided by sound bites and the thoughtful, deliberate and educated pronouncements of ignorant hicks like John Hawkins and Ann Coulter. These fools might be able to fool themselves all of the time, but I don’t think the rest of the world is buying it. This is a total disgrace.