Day 349 walked privately
When I was a kid I went to Catholic schools.
Every year a missionary from Africa would come and tell us why he was collecting money to build wells and hospitals for the poor kids of Africa.
I was a kid 40 years ago and poverty in Africa has been increasing no matter how many have preached and pledged to help the poor and to help end poverty, we have a staggering number close to 1 billion people starving in the world.
There is a world full of reason to Why Poverty exist, few are willing to look at the point that Poverty is in fact man-made and not a natural phenomenon or a disease -well at least not in the traditional sense of the word disease although it is a dis-ease for those who experience it, for those who are born on the wrong side of this Capitalistic system, where the Capital of this world is clearly Money and Profit and not Life.
So, what makes us want to believe in Charity as a solution and not see it for what it is, as part of the problem of accepting this unequal world as a system that can't be changed for which we have to come up with ever cleverer ideas about how to cure what is in fact absolutely preventable and correctable if we only set our minds right to what are the real important things in this world that need to be prioritized.
We have lost the plot, we have lost the power to stand for what Matters, while we were busy claiming that we are not responsible for this world, we lost our ability to Respond, our Self Response-Ability to say that we don't give a flying frack about spending money in 'defense efforts' which are ill disguised neo-colonialism operations through which we create further poverty for the unlucky ones, we have lost the power to say that public money must be spent for the public good and not to embellish buildings like the MoD in England, so other unwilling fighters can be attracted into war games, we have lost our way from what matters into delusions like ideas and ideals about profiting from everything and everyone to cater for My Wishes vs Everyone's Needs.
The point though to consider is that we lost our power only because we abdicated it to institutions that kept promising to do what would be best for all even in the face of the physical evidence that this is not so, but every abdication can be revoked, we can return to ourselves our self-response-ability and stand for a world that is not driven by profit and greed, but by the understanding that unless all have a dignified life, unless I grant to All their Right to Life, I have No Right to Life and my Life is as uncertain as the ones of those who are either born at rock bottom or who have been driven to rock bottom by a system that caters only for those on top.
So, let's see Charity for what it is, Imagine that someone is tortured daily and instead to stop the torture, we invent post traumatic stress disorders props, that would be INSANE, but this is in fact what we do everyday with the Poverty point, no one seems interested in asking the real questions about poverty, like 'Why Poverty', we just accept it, we accept the Missionary and the Missionary Position in which we screw ourselves into acceptance vs standing as a point that says 'enough' and remolds itself into a point of Support, into a brick of the Solution that we can bring to this world.
Give as you would like to receive could NEVER mean Charity, Charity is demeaning, it is degrading, it is the acceptance that some lives are worth less and worthless and that The Poor need to be happy with what we give, the crumbs from our banquets tables, we have never understood the point of 'Giving as we would like to receive', it meant to give to others the Life we would be willing to live and not to patch up with a few pennies the unliveable lives of those that have no choice but to survive within this cruel system and try to make it through another day.
Another world is possible, if we consider all lives Equally valuable, Charity will no longer exist in a Just world, nor will exist any of the institutions that live on it from the churches, to Temples, to Foundations (that secretly get tax returns way bigger than what they publicly devote into apparent charitable activities) and imagine what a wonderful world that would be. A world that works for All, would work for You too.
Equal Life Foundation promotes a Living Income Guaranteed - because Life is the First Basic Inalienable Human Right
First, you have the wrong definition of charity. Or, at least you are using the lowest level of it.
ReplyDeleteCharity is teaching someone a skill, one that can provide sustenance for that person and their family. It's making it possible for that person to have their own business, so they can provide for others,as well.
So, no, I don't wish for the end of charity. I wish that folks would stop stooping to its lowest level and begrudge the pennies they gave and those that receive same feeling obliged to say thanks.
Charity is a Business at the top level and its a way to feel good about not addressing the real problem in the world which is Poverty. Without Poverty there is no need for Charity, without Inequality there is no need for Charity because those skills you talk about would be taught to everyone equally, not as Charity but as a Right and everyone would be in the position to contribute something of value to this world. Semantic will never hide the point that behind Charity hides Self Interest of the worst sort, either the one of Not wanting to address the real problems because they seem too big or the one that this world works for some and they try to even out their privileged position with Charity instead of contributing to a world that works for all, so what's your case?
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