THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

Many years ago I heard a television preacher defending his lavish lifestyle – expensive cars, mansion home, extravagant vacations, expensive suits and haircuts – denying scripture’s claim that money is the root of all evil, by asserting that the lack of money is. He was right back then and he would be right today, perhaps even more so today. Money is not the root of all evil. Poverty is.

Poverty is the reason why people resort to crime, to revolt, to all sorts of evil. When you have nothing else left to lose, you strike out to get something that those in power have, that those who have have and you do not have. And you do not have even the basics of life because those in power either do not care that you do not or have obtained what they have at your expense.

Why is there so much poverty all around the world and even in this country? It’s not because those in poverty do not want to work. It is because there are no jobs for them to have and because those in power do not care to provide those jobs. Even worse, they do not seem to care that they do not care. They allow themselves to be oblivious to the needs of others so that they can accumulate more of their wants.

What is even worse is that those who make the laws exempt themselves from the burdens they pass on to their constituents. A double standard here? Of course. Ask them to defend their position and they blame those who had been in power for what has taken place. Ask them to right those wrongs and they say that they are working on it. But we all know they will do nothing. And the haves will continue to have and the have nots will continue to struggle and struggle and struggle. Until.

Until, as that famous line in the movie Network has it, they shout “I’m mad as hell and I won’t take it anymore!” That is when marches and revolutions and uprising start to take place. Marches and protests are only the tip of the iceberg. People in poverty, people who feel left out, stay calm only for a while until they finally “won’t take it anymore.” Then look out! It won’t be a pretty sight.

But why do we as a society allow poverty to even exist when we have all the resources to eliminate it? Why do people and leaders all around the world who have more than enough not do all we and they can do to help those who do not even have enough to meet their daily needs? Why do we have to wait until uprisings take place before we start to do something to right the wrongs, the injustices being done?

To say that there are no easy answers is simply to make excuses for not doing anything. Those in power are the reason why those who are in need are in need. But unless those in power hear the voices of those of us who care about taking care of the needs of the needy, they will continue to make excuses for doing little or nothing, and ignore the problem.

The question is: what can I do? What will I do? Or will I continue to sit on my hands, bemoan the issue and wait until the uprising because it will come?