First Saturday as the World Turns

Education and hunger

By Ed Rogers

I believe, as we look ahead and see the road much shorter than the one behind us, we have moments where we reflect on where things went wrong. Everybody thinks that the movement in the sixties was about the Vietnam War, but that was only a part of it. There was a war on the poor even back then and many a debate centered around what we could do about the poor. While Nixon was bombing the hell out of Vietnam with operation Rolling Thunder, his "Re-elect the President" campaign was blaming those on welfare for pulling the economy down.
    Martin's poor people's march on Washington was in fact the only big thing that took place. Most of us white kids did a lot of talking, but little else. I believe, with time and reflection, I see the problem: Talk got in the way of action. It is easy to debate something to death, and convince yourself you really care about the outcome. The truth is we had no idea where to even start, so we talked about how bad things were and how they were going to get worse, but we did nothing.
    All these years later I see the same thing happening. Educated people with college degrees are not able to stop the pain that is visited on the poor people of this country. If you want to know how a war is going, ask a private. He or she sees it up close and personal and that is where the answer will be found – not in the halls of Congress, but in the trenches where poverty is experienced first-hand every day. The private's voice is missing from the debates.

I have never thought of myself as being overly smart. I would venture to say my educational background is far less than almost everybody’s on this blog. I am truly impressed by the names of the colleges that appear every so often, as though an afterthought.
    I am grateful for those who have gained an education and still think with some logical sense. I would guess there are, maybe, a few in our government who do not have a college degree – I’m not even sure about that. I guess I could do a Google search, but it isn’t important – their voices aren’t heard, if indeed there are any such voices to be heard.

    Some do speak up for the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the sick and dying, but they tend to speak as though it’s a college debate with each side trying to score points and make some kind of Dean’s List. The trouble with the people who run the world – don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful that we have educated people to lead us into the future – is that none of them has known true despair.
    How many of these good-hearted people, upon waking each morning, know that some folks’ greatest achievement is finding enough food for them and maybe their kids to survive on for one more night?

    It is one thing to be hungry; everybody has felt hungry and couldn’t wait to eat. But another hunger – the hunger I speak of – is eating out of garbage cans, being willing to steal, or sell your body to get something to eat. That kind of hunger. The kind that will empty a person’s stomach and soul until at some point the soul is lost and the stomach can never be filled. That is the hunger that needs to be spoken of in the Halls of Congress.
    That would be the voice of truth, the truth that is not taught at the great universities. It’s not something that can be taught, and although there are many who say they know how these people feel – they actually haven’t a clue.
    That is why the Republicans are able to cut every program that could help the poor – no one in Congress has the fire in their gut to fight, and that’s because they have never felt the pain, the hopelessness of knowing that tomorrow will bring only more pain and hopelessness.

    If there was but one voice like that in Congress, the college debate would be over and the war for the soul of this nation would begin. Only a voice that knows that pain would be willing to lay it all on the line and fight the evil that has been allowed to fester by those who feel that their educational background qualifies them to dictate to those who have nothing. There is an old saying: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands.” Even more dangerous is an educated person with no common sense in a place of power.
    A great nation is not judged by how much wealth the rich control but by how we treat the poorest of our people. By that gauge the USA is bankrupt.
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Copyright © 2014 by Ed Rogers

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