{"id":103,"date":"2012-03-12T00:04:30","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T00:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fatherlarry.wordpress.com\/?p=103"},"modified":"2020-02-19T01:43:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T01:43:00","slug":"the-deficit-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/?p=103","title":{"rendered":"The Deficit Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Father Larry<\/span><\/p>\n

This country does in fact have a serious deficit problem. But the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars \u2013 unpaid for. It was caused by the tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country. It was caused by a recession as a result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior of Wall Street. And if those are the cause of the deficit, I will be damned if we\u2019re going to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor. That\u2019s wrong.<\/p>\n

Sen. Bernie Sanders (l-VT),
\nSenate Budget Committee, 11-18-2011.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

What wonderful passionate principled language, and if Senator Sanders is damned it will probably only be temporarily by Corporate American and not for all time \u2013 hell, the real hell, hosts no compassionate residents, that\u2019s one reason it is hell. Balancing the budget on the backs of the elderly, the sick, the children and the poor is, as Sanders declares, \u201cwrong.\u201d It is wrong and devilish and \u2013 well, deserving of damnation. Please forgive me for sounding like a preacher. It is a sort of madness that seizes me at times like the spell on the Ancient Mariner which allowed him no peace until he accosted some stranger with his rhyme:<\/p>\n

They prayeth best, who loveth best
\nAll things both great and small;
\nFor the dear God who loveth us,
\nMade and loveth all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lacking Coleridge\u2019s poetic skill I have no rhyme of my own to add, but hopefully this little essay will not be without reason, or just plain old common sense.<\/p>\n

More than forty-nine million, or sixteen percent of all Americans live in poverty. \u00a0The poverty line for a family of four is $24, 343. Where I live, near San Diego, a two-bedroom apartment rents for at least $1,550 a month. That would leave a family of four, in a two bedroom apartment, with an income of $24,343 only $4,743 for the year, or just under $400 a month, to live in the high style of the welfare queen that never existed other than in Ronald Regan\u2019s cruel imagination.<\/p>\n

While certainly not the only factor cuts in Medicaid, especially in the area of mental health services, have intensified the problem. In 2011 the cost of employer-sponsored health insurance surged by 9%. The Heritage Institute, meantime, tells us that the poor are really not that bad off \u2013 did you know that most of the poor have refrigerators, microwave ovens, televisions, and cell phones at their disposal? Actually I know someone, I count him as a friend, who falls within the sociological and governmental definitions of \u201cpoor.\u201d He says he is not homeless \u2013 he just doesn\u2019t have a house. He considers his little camp in an urban canyon as his home. But here\u2019s the thing. He does indeed own a cell phone, and what\u2019s worse he has a microwave oven \u2013 he just doesn\u2019t have an electrical outlet in which to plug it.<\/p>\n

A new report tells how big business is pouring money into state judicial elections to make sure it gets its own way. In 2007 the West Virginia Supreme Court voted two to three to throw out a $50,000,000 damage award against the owner of a coal company. The owner of the coal company had spent three million dollars to elect the judge who cast the deciding vote. The humorist Will Rogers once quipped: \u201cWe have the best politicians money can buy.\u201d He was partially correct. We have the best government the rich can buy for themselves. For the wealthy it all works out rather well, but for those who have a hard time paying for food, shelter, clothing medical care or even renting, much less owning, a member of congress or the judiciary \u2013 not so much. And the number of those for whom it is not working out is growing. The latest numbers show that one of every two Americans can now be categorized as poor.<\/p>\n

Until I read Paulo Freire\u2019s Pedagogy of the Oppressed<\/em> I was perplexed by how often the poor collude with the rich in creating and maintaining their own misery. Freire was born in 1921 in Recife Brazil, a port city noted for its poverty. In teaching literacy Freire discovered that the peasants had internalized the world of their oppressor \u2013 the elite\u2019s social construction of reality.\u00a0 Educational programs, and even adult literacy classes, contribute to the state of consciousness characteristic of the poor, the oppressed and dominated in that it is the words and language of the elite that the poor and the oppressed are taught; that is, they learn to explain the world in terms of the elite.<\/p>\n

The working class, and especially the poor in the U.S., like the more severely oppressed peoples of Latin America, internalize the world of the American domination system. The values expressed in our language, the very words we use, justify the status quo<\/em> \u2013 the established distribution of wealth, power and privilege. Indeed, the educational system itself conditions each generation to accept the way things are not only as reality, but also as the only desirable state. Don\u2019t interfere with the established domination system because then you might not attain the American dream. This image of the American dream, of possibly attaining enormous wealth, is itself the model, not for what it means to realize the reality of full and genuine humanity, but the delusion of significance conveyed by money and power. In the end the American dream is the dream of the poor that they might be able to one day join the establishment — it is the hope of the oppressed of becoming the oppressor. Even the word \u201centitlements\u201d referring to badly needed social programs has taken on negative connotations. It now has the connotation that the poor and the desperate shamelessly feel they have a right to be taken care of by the rest of society rather than assuming responsibility for themselves. In short, it is the use of language in a way that has the effect of further dehumanization.<\/p>\n

The accusation that some liberal democrat, because he or she advocates in some minimalist way for the poor, is engaging in class warfare shakes the confidence of the sturdiest advocates for justice, and suggests to the economically oppressed that their legitimate aspirations are monstrous \u2013 like communism under the murderous Stalin. I recently had a woman who was decidedly middle class and doing well tell me, \u201cI feel like Obama has a boot on my neck. We need to cut entitlements,\u201d she said. When I pointed out to her that severe cuts have in fact been made she replied, \u201cWell they need to be cut more.\u201d She did not, of course, suggest cuts in the military budget. She had changed the parish church she attends because she was tired of hearing her priest talk so much about social justice. My point is not that she is a bad person, but that her thinking is, predictably, in the bondage of the elite establishment.<\/p>\n

Mitt Romney argued in New Hampshire that the number of government regulations have quadrupled during President Obama\u2019s first term in office. I heard people argue over whether that was true; in fact, Romney\u2019s campaign admitted it was false but Romney continued to say it anyways, but I heard no one questioning whether more regulations, if they protected ordinary people from Wall Street predators, might not actually be a good idea. One lie that middle class, working class, and destitute persons in this country believe, or internalize, is that all regulations represent a loss of personal freedom \u2013 the beginning of the slide into the abyss of totalitarianism. Words and phrases like \u201cfreedom,\u201d \u201cfree enterprise,\u201d \u00a0\u201cgovernment interference,\u201d and \u201cthe American dream,\u201d are all used to justify greed and economic violence. So, the recent settlement with Wall Street, as one might expect, is good for bankers, but not so good for distressed homeowners. That\u2019s what freedom means? Dying on the emergency room floor of a hospital that refuses to treat you because you have no insurance is the way of liberty and democracy!?<\/p>\n

Consequently, Romney, who purchased a $13,000,000.00 home overlooking the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla, California in order to tear it down to build something more to his liking, frightens people with his claims that President Obama is leading us into European style socialism; whereas, he is determined that America will remain \u201cfree, democratic, and prosperous.\u201d He has to be referring, of course, to countries like England, France and Germany \u2013 are they not free, are they not democratic, are they not prosperous? Just compare this with a bumper sticker I saw on an old pickup truck the other day: \u201cI\u2019ll keep my freedom, guns and money. You can have the change.\u201d<\/p>\n

A clever play on the word \u201cchange.\u201d But it works both ways. \u201cChange\u201d is what Romney and his ilk are willing to spare the most vulnerable in society. \u201cI like to fire people that work for me,\u201d says the superrich Romney with his hidden assets in the Cayman Islands. And, \u201cI\u2019m not concerned about the poor.\u201d Now it is true that both these sentences are out of context. The statement about liking to fire people was within the context that it is good to be able to fire a health care provider that is not offering good care \u2013 something Romney can easily do with his two hundred seventy million dollars, that we know of, but that most of us can\u2019t.\u00a0 And he did say that he wasn\u2019t concerned about the poor because they have a \u201csafety net,\u201d and if it needs some repairs he would do that as president. \u201cIf\u201d Mr. Romney? \u201cIF\u201d!? I suspect the same thing will happen to Romney\u2019s \u201cif\u201d that happened to George Bush\u2019s \u201ccompassionate conservatism.\u201d It\u2019s all PR \u2013 pure BS. And while those statements do technically have a larger context, I suspect that they are also rather Freudian. \u201cI\u2019ll keep my money, you keep the \u2018change\u2019.\u201d And, sadly, the poor and economically oppressed all say, \u201cAmen!\u201d After all, in their good hearts they are for freedom, for democracy, for prosperity.<\/p>\n

The poor value freedom and fear socialism. They have a difficult time escaping the constraints of the self-serving vocabulary of the elite. But do I personally at all care if universal medical care is labeled as \u201csocialism,\u201d or as \u201cdictatorial\u201d if I cannot choose my own doctor? Not one whit! I don\u2019t get much choice regarding my own medical treatment right now, but at least I do receive health care, such as it is, when I need it. And that\u2019s what I want for everyone from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich. There are simply too many of us in a complex modern world to behave as if we lived in the nineteenth century. Our hope for progress lies in the poor themselves refusing to live as serfs or to be frightened by the \u201cboogey man\u201d words of the elite.<\/p>\n

It is to the advantage of the rich who profit enormously from war to create a mind-set among the poor that makes maiming and killing, and being killed or maimed, seem honorable and righteous. After all, don\u2019t we want everyone to be free \u2013 don\u2019t we want everyone to live in a \u201cdemocracy\u201d? Isn\u2019t that what it means to be a good person? So, all the children, and their innocent parents, we have killed are \u201ccollateral damage\u201d meaning, I suppose, that it is okay because we didn\u2019t really mean to exterminate them \u2013 they just happened to be standing where our radioactive explosives hit. Our own children killed in shameful wars of aggression, many of them in the armed services in an attempt to escape poverty, are cast as \u201cheroes\u201d who have died so that \u201cwe might be free,\u201d rather than as tragic victims of the U.S. military\/industrial complex. I think it was Voltaire who said, \u201cAs long as people believe in absurdities they will commit atrocities.\u201d And, \u201cAnyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.\u201d Romney and Newt Gingrich also said the other day, echoing the first George Bush right after he blew up an Iranian airliner full of innocent people by \u201cmistake,\u201c \u2013\u201cI will never apologize for America.\u201d Really? The United States of America is never wrong \u2013 never has anything of which, to use a religious term, it needs to \u201crepent?\u201d Those who can make us believe that absurdity have the power to make us commit injustices and atrocities. The tyranny of the elite can only be overcome by recognizing how the domination system\u2019s values are internalized by the poor.<\/p>\n

The oppressor consciousness views everything, including people, as objects of commerce — as abstractions. The elite are blind to innate human dignity and fail to see how the poor, not as abstractions, but as real persons, are unfairly cheated and deprived and trafficked in. All domination systems are therefore toxic. They are toxic for both the poor and the elite establishment. All domination systems represent a dehumanizing consciousness for both the oppressor and the oppressed. However, what we must seek is not the replacement of the old domination of the elite with the new domination of the poor and oppressed \u2013 to turn the tables so to speak; but rather to work for the genuine humanization of every man, woman and child on this planet. I quote Freire at length:<\/p>\n

This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressor as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong for both, Any attempt to \u201csoften\u201d the power of the oppressor in defense of the weakness of the oppressed almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity; indeed the attempt never goes beyond this. In order to have the continued opportunity to express their \u201cgenerosity,\u201d the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this \u201cgenerosity,\u201d which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. That is why the dispensers of false generosity become desperate at the slightest threat to its source. True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the \u201crejects of life,\u201d to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so these hands \u2013 whether of individuals or entire peoples \u2013 need to be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work, and working, transform the world. This lesson and this apprenticeship must come, however, from the oppressed themselves and from those who are in true solidarity with them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Our real deficit, then, is a deficit of humanity, of genuine religious values, of the will to work for true generosity, and of the courage to embrace the unknown good in favor of known misery. The good fight we are called to wage is against both physical and economic violence and injustice \u2013 against the lovelessness of false generosity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Father Larry This country does in fact have a serious deficit problem. But the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars \u2013 unpaid for. It was caused by the tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country. It was caused by a recession as a result of the greed, recklessness and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1081,"href":"https:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/1081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}