Summer and the Poor

Happy Summer everyone!

I hope everyone has been having a marvelous Summer, doing whatever your heart desires. I have been having quite a good one myself, although more and more I am wishing there were more time in a day. A few parties, tennis matches, and nights out to eat and... Wow, it is still June! Weeeeee!

I'm assuming that most of the people here are not like the many who shut down intellectually over the Summer, or my sister, who says she doesn't have to think when it is Summer, Saturday, Sunday, Friday, a holiday, mornings, and nights.

I thought I'd share with you my thoughts on a particular topic, and see what all of you thought about it as well.

I was recently thinking about the poor. There is a quote that goes "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist."(Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop) So, from this quote, I am gathering that it is a good thing to give to the poor, but it is a bad thing to ask why people are poor. Why he picked Communist in particular, for those unfamiliar with the concept, is because under Communism there would be no poor people.

From this question stems some of the questions I'd like to impose:

1. Is capitalism really the way to go? Is Communism a possible solution to the poor?

2. We give food and money via charity to poor people all the time. How should one determine what poor people get what kind of food or money, and how much? How does one pick the poor who have to starve while picking others that live by the donation? Is it better to give to some poor or no poor? Is one poor person to be more privileged than another?

3. And finally, let's help the good archbishop with his question by getting to the root of the problem. Why are there poor people?


Here are my thoughts.

1. Communism is a possible solution that has yet to be tried in its fullest. Anarcho-communism would be the ultimate communism and it would eliminate poor people. As a reference, let me point out that there are no poor bees. They all work together to achieve group sustenance. Perhaps if it were tried in small steps, like having a colony practice Communism for a while. Capitalism works well, but it is only the dominant economic system on the premise that humans can not work together or efficiently with no incentive to climb higher in the bureaucracy and earn more money. Perhaps this is true, but that can be fixed.

2. This is the main question I had been pondering. As a throwback to OAFK (sorry) and Lionel, why did Sir Colgreivance and the hermit have to die while he lived? Why should some poor people die while others survive? By giving food to the poor, we are Gods. We are controlling the fates of people. We pick who lives, who dies. Personally, that makes me feel sick and powerful at the same time. The earth seems to have been a free for all, where countries competed for power and now the richest most powerful countries have prosperous citizens and the other countries have people who are dieing of starvation. If no one was poor, this problem would not exist. I honestly have no answer for this question. If only there were no poor... Which brings me to my next answer.

3. Why are people poor? Well, people are starving because of unequal food distribution. Food is thrown away in the US and Europe while Africans are dieing of starvation. Perhaps a thousand extra helicopters to make trips to Africa... Oh wait, oil is limited. Well maybe we can just go to war for more... Wait a minute, that would also be against what clearly more than half the country wants... Well maybe if we paid more for oil and gas... Wait, we're already complaining about the prices. Gosh darnit, sorry poor people. In any case, there are poor people for a much simpler reason than what this paragraph has amounted to. There are poor people because there are rich people. There has to be a certain medium of wealth per person. If certain people horde massive amounts of money, others will have to suffer for it. So equality, such as under Communism, would be the way to get rid of the poor because everyone becomes equal. Part of Communism involves a classless society, mainly economically classless. So perhaps Communism is the solution

Anyway, these are just some of my thoughts I've been having. I thought I'd share and see what everyone else thought about the poor. Maybe someone has better solutions to the problem than I do (probably).

~Tyler

Great Job!

Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for a great year to the whole Undefined team. Although, we only got one issue out; we still got an issue out! And, a good issue at that. Anyway, thanks again, and I can't wait to see your future issues! Have a good summer.

Peace,

Stephen Roff

P.S. - Has anyone read their copy of the Poetry magazine? I'm reading it right now, and there are some really good stuff in there, especially Yves Bonnefoy's San Biagio, at Montepulciano. I would love to discuss some of these poems; keep in touch.

Time to Copy & Print!!!!

Hey guys,

Thanks to all who could make flat night last Friday; we've successfully put together the first undefined manuscript for this year (and although it will most likely be our only), it is now time to send them to print make our voices heard! Mrs. Gaboury is swamped with copying this 30-some-odd manuscript to make official copies. Thus, if you have ANY free time to help her out, please do so. A lunch, afterschool, a study-hall; whatever, we can't get our issue out there until we have copies to give out. So time to copy!

-Stephen Roff