Two weeks ago, I began a journey through the Hunger Games series. I have since spent many hours devouring the first two books and am anxious to read the third book (Cliff hangers make me anxious).
The books are addicting, they draw you in and have kept me in more suspense than the John Grisham novel "the street lawyer, " and "water for elephants" (It's rare that a book will grab my attention as much as these novels have).
Suzanne Collins succeeded in roping in thousands upon thousands into her novels, she also wrote books that are an incredible social commentary for our current times. Basic plot: Post apocalyptic America, now called Panem, is divided into 13 districts, all of which are ruled by the Capitol. At one period in Panem's history, there was a rebellion. The Capitol squashed the rebels and as a result, the Capitol punished the districts every year by forcing them to send 1 male and 1 female teenager into the hunger games (District 13 doesn't send tributes because it's a wasteland). In the hunger games, 24 teens go in and only 1 comes out, leaving the other 23 tributes dead.
Where the real social commentary comes in is not in the games themselves, but in the contrast between the Capitol and the districts. In the Capitol, they lack nothing. There is no hunger, no poverty, and lots of excess (they drink ipecac syrup at parties so they can gorge themselves on delicious foods all evening). In the districts, there is lots of hunger, lots of poverty, and people doing anything they can to survive.
I see some of this happening in real life. In the Capitol, politicians lack very little, if anything. They have outrageous salaries, even more outrageous pensions, and their health care packages are the best in the country. If SNAP funding, the earned income tax credit (EITC), and the child tax credit (CTC) get cut from the federal budget, they are not going to feel it. Meanwhile, in Lawrence, KS, there are families who work for minimum wage, have no pension, who depend on free health care clinics (Major props to Health Care Access for providing such excellent care to these folks)...and have found SNAP, the EITC, and the CTC to be a hand up when faced with the necessity of feeding their children, avoiding eviction from housing, etc. Most do what they can to survive and we have many agencies in this town that do everything they can to help folks out of tough situations and back onto their feet.
We are the richest country on the planet, we can apparently afford to pay congress generous salaries ($174,000 for 'regular' congressmen and women, plus benefits in 2012, according to www.house.gov), we have citizens that can afford to spend millions financing political campaigns, and yet, do not have the financial resources to ensure that every single child in this country goes to bed with a full tummy. Furthermore, we are told by congress that by cutting funding to programs like SNAP, we are helping parents to get out of the situation they are in so they can better care for their children. When I hear the words "cut SNAP funding" the first thing that pops into my mind is that we will have more than 1 in 5 children going to bed hungry, which is the current (and a very unacceptable) statistic.
So I wrote my congressmen about my concerns. Senator Roberts was gracious in his response and addressed my concerns. Senator Yoder, on the other hand, spent two pages bashing the current administration and never once addressed my concerns for the children of this country and our charge as Christians to care for the least of these. I find this unacceptable. I wrote Senator Yoder back to tell him this. Still waiting on a response.
Now, I get that we are in the midst of great federal debt. I also get that it is irresponsible to spend more than we have. But not if it means that more people will live in hunger and poverty when there is obviously enough money in this country to fund adequate governmental programs without the government getting too big. And I'm not advocating socialism...but I am old enough to remember a time in this country where there was no federal deficit at the same time that millions of jobs were created (I'm looking at you Clinton administration). And I don't care if it was President Clinton or the congress that was responsible for this (or maybe they actually worked together on this...what an unique idea!). So see us go from that to such a large federal deficit in less than a decade, befuddles me.
But I still have hope as I imagine what could happen is congress made the same median wage that the rest of us do, what would happen if they had the same health care that we do. How much more they would have their sights set on matters of justice.
These are not purely political issues I speak of, they are justice issues. Children going to bed with full tummies is a justice issue. Helping parents get out of poverty so they can feed their kids without the need for SNAP and the EITC is a justice issue. Doing everything we can to ensure that every citizen of this country gets to fully live out their 14th amendment rights is a justice issue.
These are things that Jesus preached about.
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