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I live in a small house in a wealthy area and it never ceases to amaze
me what people will do to keep up the "status" both parents working 12 hour days, nanny raising the kid and the house is still re-mortaged every year. Money is only one metric to measure wealth. Gustl Steiner-Zehender wrote: Hallo Robert, What really brings it home for me is that I have been on a disability since Viet Nam and my income, down to the penny, is $16,542 per year which leaves us, here in the land of "bend over and let me introduce myself", struggling, and we are not among the abject poor, yet we are still in the top 11.85 percent of the world in wealth.I remember being on R&R in the Phillipines (Ano na Kabayan! Happy Happy ba tayo!) in the late sixties and thought that my 180-odd USD was pretty poor wages but then was told that the average YEARLY wage at that time in the Philippines was $30-something. I'm not much of an economist but it seems to me that even though incomes have raised prices still outstrip wages by far. There are many things for which I owe thanks to the military. One of the foremost things among the many is my having been afforded the chance to see how so much of the world lives in comparison to what those with just a modicum of wealth. The religion I was born into teaches us to do more with less, share the wealth, help where and when we are able, sacrifice our own comfort for those in need, and that no matter who or where or what we are we are all of equal value although our circumstances may differ. Well, we seem to be getting away from that now and our helping and sharing seems to be getting more and more impersonal. A sad situation. I don't believe that there is any more effective way of touching a person's heart than going directly to the source and seeing for oneself. Seeing, tasting and smelling poverty and want. Images on the television screen are all too often soon forgotten but when you combine that image with a smell it doesn't go away quickly if at all. My brother makes over $80,000 a year and his wife "poor mouths" me. She tells me she has to work because they can't afford to live in this economy without her working. Makes me ill. They have it in their heads that those without are lazy or stupid or somehow not worth bothering about. I think even worse is that they profess to care but hold their own confort and welfare to be more important than that of everyone else. I remember taking my brother down to Villa Acuna in Mexico just across the Rio Bravo from Del Rio and he wasn't there 5 minutes and he was afraid and wanted to go back across the border. He figured he would be robbed and killed down there among the poor Mexicans. In a border town where a woman can walk home at 3.00 in the morning without fear of being attacked, robbed or raped. A safe place after dark, at least back in the '70s. Who knows now? They may have picked up our values. So much ignorance and in my own family despite hearing me go on and on for years and years. All too many people just don't hear despite listening. I suppose this is why I say you have to change the heart first and then the mind will follow. The mind is fickle. It wants to move all the time and wants to control, define, explain away, rationalize, marginalize. Beware the mind. It allows us to justify that which is wrong and evil. It places value on pieces of wood (tally sticks) or paper or diamonds and our own comfort all the while telling us that yes, those starving and in need are important but not quite as important as our own comfort and safety and that of our own family, neighborhood, state, nation, religion, political persuasion, whatever. And I sit here writing this in my house which is deteriorating daily knowing that despite my little, 88.5 percent of the rest of the world has less, much less, than me and mine. It is frustrating. How do we touch those hearts of those who have? Personal example certainly, but what more? My wife's nephew, a wealthy businessman, believes me to be a fool. He complains over having to pay $1.25 a year in taxes to support public broadcasting yet he spends much more than that renting one pornographic video. He has graduated from college and is perhaps the brightest bulb in his family yet he lacks a healthy social conscience. How do folks like him have their hearts changed? I just keep praying personally and waiting but not expecting results. How on earth did our species allow its value system to become so skewed? I guess I should stop now. Speaking from frustration accomplishes little if anything. Fight the good fight brother. Happy Happy, Gustl Friday, 07 October, 2005, 22:14:51, you wrote: rlr> Gustl Steiner-Zehender wrote:Hallo Folks, An interesting site: http://www.globalrichlist.com/rlr> Wow! I knew I was comfortable and doing well, but that's a REAL eye rlr> opener! What have I ever done to be in such elite company? |
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