War on Poverty

Woody Allen once wrote that having been moved by the stirring words of a politician declaring "war on poverty", he threw a had grenade at a homeless person. He is a comic genius and his sense of humanity perhaps let slip a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness in ever being able to do anything about poverty aside from killing poor people in one big explosion That was a few decades ago and the absurdity of it all still causes me to smile confusedly. A few months ago. I saw Bono on television with President Clinton and it appeared to me that they were spearheadin the United Nations drive to eradicate poverty by the year 2012. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines has made a big fuss about poverty. So what is all the big buzz about poverty?

Didn't Jesus himself considered the hopelessness of the question when He said "the poor you have with you always" when He was in the last hours of his life. One reads of bountiful harvest in the United States being plowed under in order to protect market prices while in many parts of the globe have nothing to eat. One sees the faces of emaciated children in Somalia tugging at the heartstrings of Audrey Hepburn. It is a profoundly powerful image that caused President Clinton to send humanitarian aid which eventually led to the massacre of American troops in the hands of Somali gunmen at the instigation of warlords.

So what is the war on poverty really all about? I see beggars on thte streets eveyday and I remember what my classmate said to me once, echoing the wisdom that a Jesuit education gave us: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. I was pitching to him my program of feeding some children that day. He said that I was merely just gratifying myself emotionally and that I wasn't really doing anything to make a dent in the situation.

I remember telling him that I was not really interested in the big, deep questions but rather I was more interested in seeing children smile. I called it "manufacturing happiness". He was right in describing the exercise as merely emotional gratification. Anyway, I did not accept his money. The feeding program didn't really cost that much and I was kind of pissed at his reaction. He he he.