The Audacity of Hunger

Voters place a public trust in those they elect that they will work to better the lives of ALL their constituents. How can you know that you’ve backed the right horse if you don’t truly know what your candidates stand for or against? Well, as it turns out, sometimes, when they think no one is listening, they'll come right out and tell you!

We have already heard about those absurd 47% who feel they should be ENTITLED to food, housing and health care; more recently we’ve heard, in essence, that those slackers can simply “get a job”. Why hasn’t every hungry, unsheltered or ill person thought about that option?

This got me to thinking, as an avid fan of Animal Cops, that people are arrested and imprisoned for failure to feed, shelter or provide medical care for their pets. How can we be held to a lesser standard when it comes to the people in our own society! How can we make it policy to neglect these good people? How did it happen that those aspiring to the highest offices in our land can so cavalierly close a blind eye to the harsh realities of multiples of thousands of people less fortunate than they are, and still be considered as viable candidates?

How countless others are willing to follow their lead dismays me, to put it mildly; this includes voters and both current local and aspiring leaders across the land.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, the Statue of Liberty slogan, used to imply that we believed we were our brothers’ keepers; shall we now, instead, simply watch them wither away and die on our streets for lack of food, shelter and medical care? What does this say about us as a culture?

For God's sake, put a human face on this problem! These are our neighbors we are talking about; men, women and children, our elderly and infirm, our veterans and our impoverished; they are the working poor.

Imagine anything as outrageous as thinking that you or your children might be entitled, here in America, to food, shelter and medical care; such audacity!  The only thing more contemptible in my opinion is the unprecedented lack of empathy in anyone, let alone someone from a privileged background, who could express those sentiments in light of the countless in our midst who have been unable to find jobs. Who could actually say those words while the numbers of uninsured and underinsured are rising? 

Who could express such outrage and utter contempt over a government assuring basic needs when, in Connecticut in 2011, over 16,000 people spent time in homeless shelters, over 3,000 of them children, and that 3/4 of them had NEVER BEFORE entered an emergency shelter before last year?  Food bank use is now so high that food shelters can barely keep enough food on their shelves…right here in Connecticut; right here in Greenwich!

It is true that we cannot continue to fund every feel-good social program but we must find a way to fund those essential to life such as food, shelter and medical care, without reducing those who need this help to the ranks of leeches on our society. Many if not most of these people have contributed vastly to our country before falling on hard times, losing their jobs, having been down-sized, or having to live on fixed incomes.  Every funded program should have to  prove its value through evidence-based outcomes that off-set a proven need, but balancing a budget has to take into account both taxes AND program cuts, not merely casting the less fortunate into the abyss.

We have so much poverty right here, that we needn’t look abroad for places to send our money. I applaud those public/private partnerships with a social conscience that stand ready to lend a helping hand. I commend the private citizens that reach into their pockets, even their less deep pockets than just a few years ago, to help the less fortunate amongst us to the extent that they can.

Before voting, know where your candidates stand and have stood on issues impacting our lives and the lives of those around us. What has been their moral compass? Shouldn't that matter to us in a civilized society? What programs and services do they want to cut? What services will that reduce or eliminate and who will that affect? Which jobs will be forfeited and who will that impact? In Connecticut nearly 75% of state workers work in higher education, the judicial system/law enforcement and as health care workers. Which of those are the throw-away jobs? They  have families, too, and they need food, shelter and medical care also.

I AM a candidate and I suggest you hold our feet to the fire. Make us accountable fiscally, socially and morally for the governmental stances we are taking. We owe you no less when we ask for your vote. It's so easy for you to do this. We live in an electronic age. Google us! Check out our websites or profiles. Ask us questions and demand that we answer them. Let us stand or fall on the merit or paucity of our accomplishments, not what we tell you we’ll do now. That's just too easy for us. Words are so cheap! Make us prove it! Make your vote count by knowing for whom you vote and for what they stand. Colors don't change over night. If they weren't in your corner before, they're not likely to be once in office. So much rides for all of us on the local and national elections this year, some a great deal more than for others. Do the right thing when you get in the privacy of the voting booth. You and your children will have to live with what follows this election.

Get to Town Hall and register to vote. Get to the polls on November 6th and vote for the BEST candidates, not just the one's along your Party line. Good and decent people can have accomplished little in the way of public good; perhaps their interests and priorities have rested elsewhere and there is nothing wrong with that, but I urge you to put people in office at every level who will work for YOU and make OUR WORLD a better place for ALL of us. Remember, that is the public trust behind public service.