The Ties That Bind: Poverty Racism and Militarism in America (Page 1 of 2)

On the day John Edwards declared himself a candidate for the Oval Office in 2008 he was interviewed on National Public Radio. “Do you really think we can eliminate poverty?” asked the reporter. If it wasn’t a pre-arranged set-up, it was at least a question that a boy as smart as John Edwards had figured he would have to answer one of these days. Since the last presidential election, Edwards has made poverty his “issue.”

I leaned forward, hoping against hope that Edwards would lean into the pitch, powering off his back leg as he brought his hands around and snapped his wrist—YES!—I heard it as sharp as the crack of a bat connecting to drive the ball out of the park. “Yes! Yes, I do. We have the resources in this country, and I intend to build the political will, drawing on the great heart of America, to effectively eliminate poverty in the wealthiest nation on earth.”

But Edwards fell away from the pitch, afraid, I guess, that it would break in on him. He’s handsome, he’s rich, he’s articulate, he’s got charisma, he’s been tempered by tragedy—but at least on this day, when he declared himself, his courage failed.

Yes, I know it is too much to hope for such dramatic leadership from a candidate for political office. Clearly the press wanted nothing so much as to paint the young pretender to Hillary’s throne as a Quixote, jousting at the windmill of poverty. Anyone with any political sense would deliver an answer that was eminently reasonable.

But I had reason to hope for more, because we can eliminate poverty in this country. We have more resources than we have deprivation, and that’s the only equation that counts. The rest of it is a matter of will, compassion, wisdom, and courage. These can all be found in the women and men who populate this country, rich and poor alike.

The embarrassment of poverty in the United States was driven home for me last January when I traveled to India. Poverty exists there on a scale that seems intractable—800 million people live in dire poverty in India, and it is not clear that India possesses the resources to feed and clothe and house them all even if she wanted to.

This past week I re-read some of the writings of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who would have been 77 this Jan. 15. I was trying to track down some specific quotes about what King called the “triple evils”: racism, militarism, and poverty. It was late in his public life that he began to articulate the connections between these three plagues, but throughout his life he had actually been making clear the connections between them.

What King had to say 40 years ago is strikingly appropriate today:

“I want to say one other challenge we face is simply that we must find an alternative to war and bloodshed. Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing humankind is sleeping through a revolution. President Kennedy said on one occasion, “We must put an end to war, or war will put an end to us.” The world must hear this.

I am convinced that this is one of the most unjust wars that has ever been fought in the history of the world. Our involvement in the war in Vietnam has torn up the Geneva accord. It has strengthened the military-industrial complex; it has strengthened the forces of reaction in our nation; it has put against the self-determination of a vast majority of the Vietnamese people, and put us in the position of protecting a corrupt regime that is stacked against the poor.

It has played havoc with our domestic destinies. This day we are spending $500,000 to kill every Vietcong soldier—every time we kill one we spend about $500,000 while we spend only $53 a year for every person characterized as poverty-stricken in the so-called poverty program; which is not even a good skirmish against poverty.”

The math may be different these days, but I suspect if anything, it’s worse. Substitute Iraq for Vietnam and you aren’t far from the reality we know now. In his speech at Riverside Church in April 1967, A Time to Break Silence, King said:

“I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. I am disappointed with our failure to deal positively and deal forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism. We are presently moving down a dead-end road that can lead to national disaster. America has strayed to the far country of racism and militarism. America has strayed away, this unnatural excursion has brought only confusion and bewilderment. It has left hearts aching with guilt and minds distorted with irrationality.It is time for all people of conscience to call upon America to come back home. Come home America.”