God Mend Thine Every Flaw

it seems that in our country we are punishing those who have the most difficulties in life for having those very difficulties.  as someone wrote recently, "we waged a war on poverty and now we are punishing the poor."  more states are adopting policies that require those who receive government assistance in order to have health care to work, seek work, or take some sort of job training.  yet, we know that most of those who receive government support are already working.  the problem is that the only jobs they can find don't pay enough for them to be able to provide the basic necessities for themselves and their families.  the myth that those who get help from the government are lazy and want to "live on the dole" persists despite all the evidence that contradicts this idea.  demagogues exploit this myth to hold onto the support of their base, and too many of us believe them.

we are doing the same thing to undocumented people in our country.  the president talks about the rapists and murderers who are streaming across our borders, but most of the people being deported are not violent criminals.  often the only crime they've committed is entering the country illegally.  we are returning vulnerable people to countries where they will endure the persecution they fled here to escape.  how can we send those who have served in our armed forces back to countries they left after they have defended our country, as we've done with military veterans?  they were good enough to risk their lives for us, but not good enough to live in our country!  how can we return people who befriended us in vietnam, cambodia, and laos because they committed some petty crime years ago?

our country is blaming the victims, and those of us who see it seem powerless to do anything about it.  once we believed in a "new deal" and "a great society."  now we seem to believe in hate and fear.  our highest elected official calls those who criticize him liars and "slimeballs," demands that his opponents be locked up, pays off those with whom he's had illicit affairs and those who know about them, appoints cabinet members who use their position to take expensive trips, and spends tax dollars on vacations in his own resorts.  is this what we've come to in what used to be "the land of the free and the home of the brave?"  woody guthrie sang "this land is my land, this land is your land" in protest to the greed and shortsightedness that created the great depression, and now we watch as those same policies are taking root in our country again.

may we reverse our course before it is too late.  may we stand up to the corruption, the greed, the lies that pour out of the seats of power.  may those who are in a position to stop this rush to madness stop it rather than sitting on their hands with their mouths closed because they belong to the same party as the would-be dictator who sits in the oval office.  may the underlying goodness of our country bring an end to these policies which punish those who have been left behind in our society and those who have come here to escape tyranny and poverty in other countries.  shalom.