Poverty Archives

December 13, 2010

“Welcome to the Nightmare, Welcome to the Hope” (Cancún # 2)

Posted 9:12am

Traveling through Cancun has been a profound and empowering experience. It was ironic, as I spent more time in Cancun, the reality of the United States became clearer. Here in the states we’re told that consumption and growth are the keys to progress. In the Global South they are told that you must work for a corporation’s workshop, and your land is no longer yours but a tool for exploitation. The chasm between reckless consumption and consumerism, and social and environmental degradation is vast and creates the actual reality in which we all live: the climate is warming at an alarming rate, world food supplies are dwindling, and the natural world is being eroded beyond the possibility of being healed.

September 30, 2010

Soccer fun at the US Social Forum

Posted 4:25pm

At the United States Social Forum in Detroit, members of the Poverty Initiative as well as the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Picture the Homeless, and NESRI rallied for a solidarity soccer game, as a sign of solidarity with the struggles of the South African poor, in particular the Abahlali baseMjondolo, who are fighting displacement caused by the World Cup.

September 20, 2010

Aid for poor = Aid for banks. Would it be too much to ask?

Posted 10:44am

World Communion of Reformed Churches News Release20 September 2010 The same commitment to overcoming global poverty is needed as that which was generated in response to the crisis in the banking sector, a senior church official has told the head…

April 8, 2010

Food Taxes and Faith

Posted 3:39pm

“It’s not fair to take from the rich and give to the poor in a Robin Hood-type way, but it’s certainly not fair to take from the poor to give to the rich… and that’s what we’re doing now. That’s…

March 11, 2010

Hunger and the Promise of Neoliberal Development

Posted 10:02pm

“It’s very simple. The system that we have in place is totally upside down and backwards. We know how to feed the world. We know what the developing world needs to do, and yet we keep hearing more and more…

January 21, 2010

angelic

Posted 1:03pm

Take a drive a little northeast of Rockford, Illinois, along a long, bumpy, straight, and narrow road tracing a section line to Angelic Organics, an idyllic symbol of how important the small farm was to the American economy — and health. It is a beautiful farm with rich and lush fields of vegetables and herbs. But walking past the fields you will see a difference immediately: chickens ranging freely between the rows of vegetables (insect control), and huge boxes of black earthy soil percolating with glossy earthworms (fertilization). Angelic Organics is not just a symbol of a by-gone era.

March 11, 2009

tent cities sprout up

Posted 1:31pm

No, that isn’t Peru or South Africa. It’s Sacramento, California. With America’s economy in freefall and its housing market in crisis, California’s state capital has become home to a tented city for the dispossessed. The prospects for developing countries and the billions of poor around the world are even worse. The United Nations predicts the food crisis will continue. Take Action Now! Tell the EPA to protect honey bees from a toxic pesticide. * Bee deaths linked to Bayer pesticides * Today? A buffet

January 5, 2009

depersonalize “the hungry”

Posted 2:00pm

“It is much more comfortable to depersonalize the poor so we don’t feel responsible for the catastrophic human failure that results in someone sleeping on the street while people have spare bedrooms in their homes. We can volunteer in a social program or distribute excess food and clothing through organizations and never have to open up our homes, our beds our dinner tables. When we get to heaven, we will separated into those sheep and goats Jesus talks about in Matthew 25 based on how we cared for the least among us. I’m just not convinced that Jesus is going to say, “When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me,” or, “When I was naked, you gived clothes to the Salvation Army and they clothed me.” Jesus is not seeking distant acts of charity. He seeks concrete acts of love: “you fed me . . . you visited me in prison . . . you welcomed me into your home . . . you clothed me.” Yes, I spend many hours of each day working “for the hungry.” But I clearly depersonalize them in many ways. Foremost because I am not working with the hungry and dispossessed. Nor have I recently invited a hungry or homeless person to eat at my table or stay the night. And, yes, I just finished writing my end-of-the-year checks to non-profits.

May 25, 2008

the fast that chooses many

Posted 12:53am

I’ve gone without the last six meals as part of a fast that about 40 people we know about are participating in. Many are PC(USA) staff who are trying to discern ways to respond to the Global Food Crisis; others…

February 20, 2008

poisoning children, poisoning the poor

Posted 1:48pm

Today, I just can’t not write about pesticides! Sometimes the world screams at you about something specific. Right now, it is our tendency as a species to poison the very stuff that keeps us alive, the thin layer of nutrients…

Posts Categorized: Poverty