The Tides

Dear You,

I'm staying in a rented house on Cape Cod, and Sunday's sermon at Our Lady of the Cape was a troubling one. The readings concerned a rich man, who had the best of everything all his life, and on whose doorstep was a poor man with sores all over his body. Ultimately they died, and the rich man saw from his place of eternal torment that the poor man was at the side of Abraham. The Bible is full of related lessons about the rich and the poor.

A couple of days later I took the ferry to Nantucket, seated in the first class cabin where I enjoyed coffee on the way out and wine on the way back. And in both directions my eye fell on hundreds of luxury boats -- at this season sitting at anchor where they probably won't be moved for weeks at a time. And I thought about the poor who were, as usual, invisible in my range of vision, but who must have been nearby somewhere -- there are so very, very many.

Some economist -- a Presidential advisor, I seem to remember -- justified the programs that benefited the rich by saying that a rising tide lifts all boats. And as I looked at the vessels around the ferry, I knew that to be so. The problem is that not everyone has a boat, and far too many will never have the means to get one.

For richer, for poorer

Dear You,

On a radio call-in program yesterday, a teacher was decrying the No Child Left Behind legislation that she -- and many, many others! -- claim has taken away nearly everything that was good about school. It is a favorite topic of mine, even nine years after I left the classroom. Indeed, when I first heard it called the No Teacher Left Standing act, I felt its truth.

In all the protests, what I rarely hear is the core of the legislation : NCLB is designed to cripple public schools and advance the cause of vouchers for private schools. In essence, it is merely another case of rich vs. poor.

In recent years a variety of the government's policies have widened the gap between those who have much and those without. Bankruptcy regulations favor lawyers and credit companies; tax cuts gave additional millions to millionaires, but virtually nothing to the poor; bail-outs for the banking industry encouraged the issuing of "sub-prime" mortgages at interest rates far exceeding rates offered to wealthy people; tarrif changes cost the working poor their jobs, and those who held on to them are forced to work fewer than 36 hours a week so the companies won't have to pay their health benefits. Dozens of other examples present themselves. Even the fact that the ruinous war against Iraq does not require sacrifice (no draft; no increase in taxation) -- except, of course, for the blood of the children of the poor! -- further diminishes our faith in government.

A democracy is nourished by citizens who honor and trust their leaders. Thoreau observed that while thousands hack at the branches of a problem, few know to dig at the roots. The roots are too often hidden, and our current crop of leaders thrive on the walls of secrecy they have thrown up.