Thank you for inviting me to join the distinguished experts who are gathering here this week in Athens to discuss the future of the Appalachian region. I am sure that your extensive program of meetings and work over the next few days will enlighten your minds, embolden your hearts, and clarify your plans for fighting poverty in the future. I wish you all possible success in your efforts.
But, -- why am I here?
I am not an economist, or educator, social worker, elected or governmental official. Nor am I an authority on Appalachia. Some critics might even describe me as just an old warrior, a gray-haired veteran of previous campaigns against poverty trying to relive “old times” and claim success for old programs.
Sure, I will claim success for “Headstart”, the program we originated in 1965. Headstart changed early childhood education in this country; it has lifted thousands out of ignorance and frustration and hopelessness. Even Ronald Reagan lauds it and puts it in his famous “safety net”!
Sure, I will claim that “Foster Grandparents” has succeeded. Nancy Reagan calls it her favorite program.
Sure, I will claim that “Job Corps” has succeeded. Why shouldn’t I? Orrin Hatch, the right-wing Republican Senator from Utah, says that “Job Corps” has been a huge success. He describes it as a “venture capital” enterprise which is returning the taxpayers four to one on our investment. Sure, I will say that “VISTA” has succeeded. Even David Stockman now approves $20 million a year for VISTA -- quite an improvement over his zero budget proposals of the last five years.
Sure, I will say that “Upward Bound”, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have succeeded. If life-time government-paid-for, medical care is ok for the President, the Senators and Congressman, if the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines can get health care free, it must be ok for our elderly and poor. Sure! I’ll claim success for these programs. Sure, I’ll claim that Federal aid to education has helped the poor, and the middle class, -- although it has not yet reached our new Secretary of Education. He is now being educated, at public expense, by Senator Weicker and other government officials. I don’t think he’ll be proposing many more Heritage Foundation employees who believe that handicapped Americans got their disabilities through their own fault and should not impose on the rest of us to help them.
Neighborhood Health Centers -- 800 of them -- continue to serve our poor.
The American Bar Association and thousands of individual [...]
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Why? Why has this five-year war against the poor been taking place?
First of all most people don’t know about it. And many won’t believe it even if you tell them. A nice, friendly man like our President wouldn’t do such a thing, we all say to ourselves. Then, there are others like Charles Murray who say these reductions are good for the poor. They need the spur of poverty to make them work harder.
Let’s face it. For four years we have been living in a land where the President of our Government has been saying that Government itself is not part of the solution; it is itself the problem. That’s like electing someone Commissioner of Baseball who hates baseball.
Let’s be clear about this. No one in the USA has ever said that Government is the only solution to our problems. No one ever maintained that Government could do everything. Not even LBJ thought that! And when JFK said -- ..."Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country”... he did not say we should dismantle the New Deal and the Fair Deal and the New Frontier.
He did not say we stop our efforts to reduce racism, hunger, or ignorance. Quite the contrary. He was suggesting we could achieve our objectives, more quickly and efficiently, working together with the help of Government rather than working individualistically without the Government.
That’s why he started the Peace Corps. Men and women have to volunteer for work in the Peace Corps. Then with the help of our Government they achieve miracles.
That’s why he did not hesitate to declare that “we will put a man on the moon in this decade”...He did not say that General Motors or even Lee Iacocca would put a man on the moon. He said “we” will do it.
Today we are enjoying a high tech revolution in the U.S.A.. Millions of jobs are being created. Millions of dollars in profits are being made. Unprecedented advances are taking place in medicine and health technology, and millions of dollars in profits are being earned by doctors and companies in health services. Did all these things just happen to take place now? Not a bit of it.
Since 1945 90% of all basic medical and scientific research in America has been financed by the U.S. Government, your Government using your tax dollars for the benefit of us all. Without our great tax-supported, and publicly created Universities like Cal Tech, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Illinois Tech, Georgia Tech, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, California, West Virginia, North Carolina where would we find, teach, and develop the great scientists. True, private universities led the way in America. But none of them could have financed their research without hundreds of millions in tax dollars from Uncle Sam.
It is naive, untrue, and simple-minded to say or believe that any one of us, or our nation, has achieved greatness without the help of our families, our friends, our neighbors, our political system, and our Government, all of these elements are parts of the solution, not parts of the problem.
The rampant individualism we are now experiencing is doomed to failure. It’s “Fantasy Island”. Like Jean Jacques Rousseau’s myth of “the noble savage”. Neither Government or civilization was produced by individualists or “noble savages”. Our country and our Government came from people working together. Jefferson believed in Civic Responsibility -- in citizens working together for the common good. That’s why Virginia and Massachusetts still use the titles “Commonwealth of Massachusetts”, “Commonwealth of Virginia”.
Jefferson did not write the Declaration nor Madison the Constitution to give the world unrestrained economic competition or tax-free corporate enterprise or social Darwinism. The U.S.A. was established to create a more perfect union, to provide for the common defense, and to promote the general welfare. The greatest achievement was the creation of a Federal Government through which we all could work together for the common good.
If all this is true, if we should be using Government to help one another including the poor, if we should be trying to preserve the Appalachian Regional Commission not wreck it, if we should be striving for more equity in opportunity, not glorifying waste and conspicuous consumption, why is Ronald Reagan so popular?
I think the answer is fairly simple. He’s not only an amiable person, easy to get along with, comfortable, non-threatening, and optimistic,--he’s smart enough to see that in America there are many more rich people than poor people. If 20-25% of all Americans are poor, 75-80% are well-to-do or rich. And the well-to-do vote!
Poor people don’t vote! So if you want to win elections, go where the votes are. Moreover, rich people want to stay rich. They like things the way they are. Why change anything if 75-80% of us are doing well? That’s the essence of Conservatism. Keep things as they are. I’m ok. You’re ok. Of course they got rich under Democratic policies and Presidents. Many of them, like Ronald Reagan and Donald Regan, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick used to be registered Democrats. Now they’ve got money and power, they’re conservatives. So what’s new!
Ironically this is exactly the way Communists act in the Soviet Union. I’ve been there many, many times, and over there the Conservative are the ones at the top. And they don’t like change. “Russia” -- they say -- “love it or leave it”. That’s why they throw people like Solzhenitsyn into exile. Here in America we don’t exile our poor, physically. We just permit them to exist outside the mainstream.
We should not forget, however, that Ronald Reagan is not the first President to achieve popularity this way, that is, by appealing to the majority even at the expense of a minority. Take Franklin D. Roosevelt. When he came into power, unemployment was 25% of all Americans. Middle-class white Americans were jobless, not just poor whites, blacks, or Spanish-speaking Americans. The jobless bonus marchers who picketed in Washington were white people. In 1932-1933 the majority of white Americans were in poverty or threatened by it So were the blacks. So FDR appealed to the majority -- the people who wanted changes because economic times were bad for them. He got elected and re-elected by taxing, and taxing and spending and spending and changing for the benefit of the majority.
That’s what Reagan has been doing. Borrowing and borrowing, spending and spending for the benefit of the majority. Reagan’s incredible deficits don’t bother him. His successor will have to deal with the costs of Reagan’s extravagance.
Faced with these realities what can people do today if they still want to achieve social progress in America? How can programs which help minorities -- blacks; poor women with children; refugees; Spanish-speaking citizens -- be maintained or even enlarged?
The answer is: --some of them can be maintained; but many of them cannot.
Many of our fellow citizens who are now well-to-do are themselves now fearful. They are worried they will lose what they have struggled and saved to obtain. They don’t want any changes. Changes are always threatening. People want to conserve what they’ve got.
That’s the very definition of a conservative. So I think we will have to expect very little governmental activity by the majority who are well-to-do, or even rich, to help the minority who are poor.
Does that mean nothing can be done? No: Programs like “HeadStart” which do not empower poor people but just help them, those programs will probably continue. But they need support. Programs which give rights and power to poor people will be continually attacked, cut back, or eliminated. Thus Community Action by the poor for the poor and for the community will have severe difficulty. “Legal Services” for the poor will continue to encounter serious trouble because “Legal Services” enforces the economic and legal rights of poor people over against the majority -- over against those who already have riches and power.
But: despite these realities much can be done. Let me give just one or two examples.
In Massachusetts a Civic Education Program for young Americans is trying to get underway. Its sponsors call it the Kennedy Corps and its primary goal is to give high school students a chance to develop neighborhood improvement programs on their own, plan the implementation of their own ideas, and bring them to fruition through their own efforts. The goal is to develop young people’s interest in their own community, nurture leadership through experience, and teach students that working together can produce results. The students will also be involved in seminars and discussions about policy issues and programs at the local, state, and federal levels of Government.
They will learn about voting; they will participate in mock elections, learn how to use voting machines, and tabulate results. Boston banks and businesses are taking an interest in financing programs of this type because they represent citizenship and community improvement training at the most basic level.
I like projects like this one. First it involves young people who are our best hope of overturning the self-centered greed of the current generation of Yuppies. Second, this program is local, grassroots, action. Third, it’s the beginning of basic community action -- by the people, for the people, of the people.
Like Basic Christian Communities in Latin America, an action and improvement program for community purposes could begin to involve young people in changing their own lives and community values. The young are the first ingredient for a successful overthrow of the reigning ethic of selfishness.
The second promising area for action is with women. Much can be done to empower women. Now is the time for Women to assert themselves and their values , -- not becoming more like men than men -- but by forcing their own values into the political arena.
Women started the nuclear freeze movement. But they can do much more, provided they build on their own values: -- the value of caring for others exemplified by their nurturing of their own children. Their almost universal tendency to protect, assist, and sympathize must be put into action. Women must lead a revolt against violence, especially male violence, within homes and families, within sports, within society, and between nations. Women should be leaders in the Peace Movement at the scholarly and diplomatic levels. And Women should lead a revolt against excessive consumerism.
Women buy most of the food and furnishings sold in America. Women can influence profoundly the consumption of alcohol and tobacco.
Women can lead the movement toward sensible health standards.
Nurses could be much more important than doctors in this effort.
And women could explode the male myth of the conquering man on horseback - the myth of John Wayne.
The third crucial element for the reawakening of the American spirit is religion.
It was religion that brought the Puritans, the Quakers, the Huguenots, the Catholics, the Amish, the Mormons, and many others to this country, or, across this land. It was not only robber barons and American cavalrymen who opened up America. It was Governor John Winthrop, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Carroll of. Carrolton and a host of Protestant clergymen and Catholic priests and nuns who brought religious values to every area of America and into every aspect of American life.
Religion can do it again. It can overcome economic determinism and militarism, personal pride, and national arrogance. Basic Christian communities are changing Latin-America. They can change North America, too.
I’m not talking about TV preachers, money-raisers, or Bible Belt millionaires. I am talking about religious leaders who live in the slums, who work for peace based on the putting into practice the directions and ethics of the Sermon on the Mount, men and women who pray and work and live the Good News of the gospels,...in poverty, with humility and mercy for all.
Communities composed of such people are growing. They are underfoot everywhere, unrecognized nearly everywhere, but destined, I believe, to change America from the ground-up, not from the top down.
Religious groups, women, and the young, -- working at the grassroots and in the centers of our cities -- working with money and love for all -- these can bring about the remaking of America.
One final word. Don’t worry about Charles Murray and his new book, “Losing Ground”. Murray may be the George Gilder of Ronald Reagan’s second term, but he will be forgotten almost as quickly.
Christopher Jencks dissects Murray into small pieces and leaves him dead on the operating table in this week’s edition of the New York Review of Books.
Don’t worry that our work for the poor and against poverty is temporarily side-tracked by an Administration which praises the rich and only prays for the poor. They are having their day; but 200 million rich Americans cannot long endure in a world with 3 billion poor people!!
Recently I read a superb statement by an American religious leader. I’d like to read it. I hope it inspires you to continue your noble work.
The title of this message is...."Lord, Don’t Let Me Escape”!
Let Me Escape
By Rembert G. Weakland
Dear Lord, As I pass through the waiting room at the rectory where I liveI observe the lineup of furrow-filled faces, see the outstretched, dirty-nailed hands and pick up the odor of smelly clothes. Then I go to table and eat like a kingMy conscience bothers me but don’t take that string awayfrom me Lord; let it gnaw Behind that small line to be fed at our rectory door, Lord, I see a hundred, thousand, a million more with no line to stand in, with no hope of receiving shared food. Imbed their faces in my conscience too, Lordfor their face is yours. Don’t let me escape, Lord, As I try to do so often.
But, Lord, what should I do?
Do I just feel guilty and helpless?
Do I just eat less and say more?
Do I just continue to cringe
and shake my head
as I see so much wasted food
in this land of plenty of ours?
I sound like a scriptural pharisee
as I say I lend my support(more moral than real)
to the soup-kitchens
and in the food-pantries
and I applaud the churches
who are involved.
but that is not enough
What about the others whom
I don’t see
What about the starving
in Bangladesh
or the Sudan?
Can I tell them they have no right to be born
because it might take away my food?
Can I go on forever just shrugging my shoulders
when some say that if those
poor really wanted to work they could?
Where is the work, they ask.
Show me.
Lord, how intelligent we humans
you created have become.
We have made and paid for explosives so grand
that they exceed even our own destructive imaginations.
We even landed on your moon,
Lord
We are truly smart
But don’t ask us to solve
the problem, Lord,of food for your hungry
on this globe
It is too complicated — we say.
Blot out, Lord, all such
whitewashing
Leave my conscience searing.
don’t let it become callous.
Don let me escape-
Let those hollow eyes of your eyes
hungry haunt me.
Let the rattle of their-empty bellies
ring in my ears.
Don’t let me escape.
until we all rise up in solidarity
and see you in all those faces.
Or are we all me in particular —
just afraid. Lord,
that by looking at those faces
and taking your presence in
them seriously
we might have to do more than
give of our excess?
We may even be forced to give
of our substance,
to change even our very way of life.,
Lord, do not let me escape
Rembert G. Weakland a Benedictine is arch- bishop of Milwaukee. He chaired the bishops committee that prepared the Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the US Economy.
This prayer is reprinted with permission from The Catholic Herald, the newspaper of the diocese of Milwaukee. Praying No. 7 Page 21
