One out of every four children in America experienced food insecurity and hunger during 2008. Around the world, 25,000 children will die each day from preventable causes (malaria, diarrhea, dirty water).

There are hundreds of men, women and children living on the streets, in the backs of cars, under bridges and in the woods of our city each and every night.

There is no government-run shelter in this town.

The fastest growing segment of the homeless population are families with children.

Forty percent of homeless men in the United States are veterans. The United States government spends $800 billion each year on its military and weapons. This is more than all over countries on earth combined. One fraction – about $10 billion – would be enough to provide clean water to most of the world.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to write these sentences. We don’t have to live in a world where so many people suffer.

So many of you in Chattanooga agree. Believing that another world is possible, many organizations and individuals in our city are actively devoted to ending poverty and alleviating the suffering of homeless and poor folks.

On Saturday at Lindsay Street Hall, there is a fundraiser and awareness raiser for one of these anti-poverty groups: CHANGERS – Chattanoogans and north Georgians for Economic Human Rights.

The End Poverty Now benefit party begins at 7:30 and includes some of the finest musicians on the stage today: Eddies of the Wind, Arthur Godfrey and Ericson Holt. A cash bar will be accompanied by dogs from the delicious and local Frazier Avenue restaurant Good Dogs.

Arthur Godfrey – who plays in the populist spirit of Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen – was hailed by Shake Magazine as a musician with a “quintessentially American point of view. (He) sings of the characters founds in real, non-glossed over life. There’s the homeless singer, the challenged participants in Special Olympics, the poets, the painters, the pickers, family, love, the war, racism, death and personal revelations are all here in one musical artists’ sincere vision of the world.’’ Similar rave reviews exist for Holt and Eddies of the Wind.

CHANGERS (www.chattanoogachanger.org) is hosting this event in order to organize more around issues of poverty in our community. This fun evening is also accompanied by our earnest invitation to you to join this work and vision.

“We believe that poverty is a crime, a form of violence that does not have to exist. Basing our work on the economic human rights contained within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, CHANGERS works to educate and empower our neighbors by claiming their right to a living wage, shelter, housing, health care and healthy food,’’ a spokesperson for the group said. “These aspects of our lives are human rights, not privileges. Therefore, we seek to alleviate the suffering of those under the heel of poverty, while also changing the structures of society that cause poverty to exist in the first place.’’

“Our fundraiser is designed as a fun event to bring more people together under this work.’’

The ghost of Tom Joad will be there. We hope you will too.

(David Cook is a member of CHANGERS and can be reached at dcook7@gmail.com)

* * *

While I applaud Mr. Cook for keeping the issue of poverty in front of us I have to notice the difference between what motivates him and what motivates me. One of the telling sentences in his article was, “There is no government run shelter in this city.” I assume he finds that a tragedy. I find that to be wonderful.

Now my view on this is based on my outlook, my worldview, my ideology. As a conservative I care about the homeless. I care about poverty as do so many of those who share my ideology. I hold dear to the great history of our country where individuals, organizations or churches saw needs in our community, and they stood up to fix those problems. That has been the history of our nation until about the 1890’s.

During the 1890’s a political philosophy called Progressivism started, which is alive and well today, that took away from private hands the work with the poor. Churches in the history of this country have been the ones on the front line dealing out aid, ministering to the physical and spiritual needs of people. Progressives believed and still do today that the government can do a better job.

Notice three frightening statements in Mr. Cook’s article. First, “We believe poverty is a crime, a form of violence.” That means that those who are poor are victims and that someone else has committed this crime on them, meaning society and usually capitalism. Second, “basing our work on the economic human rights,” means that people have a right to earn more money and rights can be enforced by the government by punishing those who they feel have perpetuated the crime of poverty. Lastly, “We seek to alleviate the suffering of those under the heel of poverty, while also changing the structures of society that cause poverty.” This Progressive idea means that government uses its power to change society. It means that we socialize medicine, work, salaries, wages, access, etc. to mandate that everyone receive equal shares.

That is not what America has been about. I am not sure if that is what America will be about, but make no mistake these people are more interested in changing America by using the issue poverty and poor people. Poverty is not a crime. Poor people are not victims. Poverty is bad, but jobs and opportunities can change that. Opportunities and education can overcome poverty. Millions of immigrants came to American because it was the land of opportunity not the land of handout. Personal responsibility meant changing your life and the life of your family through hard work not government programs.

There is a war being waged in America. It is not a war on poverty but a war of ideas. You will decide if we give people a handout or hand up. America is about opportunity, pulling oneself up by their bootstraps and making something of themselves. The poor are best helped when they become productive members of society and build and pass along self respect, hard work, value for education and a fear of the Lord.

Conservatives want to teach someone to fish and then let them earn a living fishing. Progressives want to give the man your fish and punish you by continuing to give the man one of your fishes each day all the while never helping the man learn to fish for himself. That is the true war of ideas.

Johnny Franks

* * *

"CHANGERS works to educate and empower our neighbors by claiming their right to a living wage, shelter, housing, health care and healthy food."

It is the use of the word right in this sentence that makes CHANGERS wrong. A right is something that is inherent, God-given, unalienable. One can have the right to earn a living wage, seek shelter, and pursue health care, but it is not possible to have a right to these things. All of these things must be pursued and obtained; we are not born to them. For example, Thomas Jefferson noted in the Declaration of Independence that we have a right to the pursuit of happiness not happiness itself.

The dogma espoused by Mr. Cook and his organization CHANGERS desires to equalize society in the manner of Karl Marx making the government the provider and the people peasants. On the other hand, as Mr. Franks previously pointed out, the heart of conservatism is empowering individuals to pursue opportunity by protecting individual liberty.

Ted Jameson
Chattanooga

* * *

Homelessness wasn't a problem until the progressives ruined everything? And since you're against all forms of government assistance who exactly is going to teach these men, women, and children to fish? Who will give the destitute a place to sleep when it's freezing at night? The church? We're a town full of mega churches that sit empty while families who are bankrupted by medical bills, predatory loans, and a job market that rewards companies that steal jobs from Americans to send over seas by giving them tax breaks sleep on the street. Thank you for showing your true spirit by finding a way to spit on someone who is actually doing something for their community as opposed to screaming at clouds. I hope you are church goers so you can get your congregations started on helping the overwhelming number of families hurting right now. But conservatives don't believe in helping people when it comes to putting food in their belly or giving them a place to sleep. They just talk about how the church used to take care of it. Sadly those same conservatives don't ever remember that their own politicization of our church is why the supposed "body of Christ" spends millions on fighting abortion and gay marriage as opposed to helping those people Christ actually commanded us to go to.

Focus on the Family fired several thousand people in December after spending millions fighting prop 8, but those families now without a paycheck can rest easily knowing that while God's people are firing Christians to pay to fight against the civil rights of other Americans the government will be there to catch them. Jesus must weep when he sees this country.

We're richer than anyone else, yet our poorest have to fight to get even basic medical care. We're fatter than everyone else, yet we cry out about how unfair it is when a fraction of our prosperity goes to help people with nothing. And we talk about how Christian we are, but really we only want our government to do the work of Christ when it means it backs up our own prejudices and never when it means doing as Christ told us and actually helping the poor. I'm sick of people who have never actually read Marx, or for that matter a real history book that explains what fascism or socialism really is, pretending they know what they're talking about. I agree there is a war of ideas in this country, but it's one that I found myself dealing with in grade school as well. There will always be children who think sharing is punishment. They are more often than not the children who come from means and have never had to worry about where the next meal will come from. Likewise there will always be grown ups who would rather let a family and its children starve or freeze to death because it isn't their problem.

Edmund Burke said "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." What are you doing to teach these men how to fish, and where exactly could they fish to feed their family? Our waters are poison, because keeping them clean is considered an evil overreach by government as well. Are you teaching these people skills to get a job? Or do you just rest easy in your false knowledge that the government has no place in helping people because someone else would do it anyway?

The world if full of pauper graves of the homeless that prove your point wrong. Until the church starts acting on Christ's message to take care of the poor, sick, and elderly (oh my, socialism) someone is going to have to pick up the slack.

Oh by the way, Marx had a better grasp on the bible than you. That "each according to their own ability" thing? That was lifted from the bible.

Acts 4:32-35 And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.

The good book is closer to Marx than it is your movement's heart. How profoundly sad is that?

John-Michael Bond
Chattanooga
lokithelion@gmail.com