Think About It. War on Poverty. You may recall my feelings on the government’s seemingly interminable, inefficient and therefore ineffective battles against various things like guns, terror, drugs, poverty, etc. We spend billions while seeing the perceived problems remain or worsen. There is no doubt the subjects of these wars are, in fact, issues that need, require attention. But government? Are we not yet satisfied that the bureaucracy is designed to fail at its deliberately chosen hopeless task. Better minds than mine have weighed in. Albert Einstein: “Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.” Franz Kafka (The Castle): ” Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.” Richard Nixon added, “Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.”
Have you tried the new game? Everybody stands in a circle. The first person to do anything loses. Former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels famously said while Director of the Office of Management and Budget under George W. Bush, the motto of Congress seemed to be, “Don’t just stand there, spend something!”
Of course we disdain the damage caused by drug abuse and the killings involving humans with fists, knives and guns. The poverty in portions of our United States is appalling. Furthermore, it was shocking before we began proving our concern for the downtrodden around the world by always pitching in when disaster struck or human misery beckoned.
In 1960 while campaigning in Appalachia, John Kennedy saw the poverty problem and vowed to take action if elected. Food stamps (or their modern equivalent) are now a way of life in the rural hills. Now it’s the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s promise to “wage unconditional war on poverty”. This year eminent scholars and earnest students with government grants are spending untold amounts to travel and participate in academic meetings here and there to study the results of this half a century costly failure.
The very real problems will be mitigated only by real people addressing the issues by dedication to understanding and dealing with the underlying causes. There are people of intelligence and substance in the world today spending their personal funds to seek solutions to the problems. We’re seeing the one percenters who made their money inventing new ways to do things, now inventing new ways to help others help themselves.
My dream is that the likes of Bill Gates and the Koch brothers who bring so much to the causes of improving the world could join with the entertainment moguls like Sting, Bono and Barbara with other views of the problems and solutions. Together they would/could stop beseeching the State begging, “alms for the poor”, while coordinating their efforts aimed at really solving the perhaps unsolvable but improvable conditions.
With so much money, combined with immense talent, perhaps we could have Party for People instead of a War on Poverty. Think About It.
You may want to review The Price of War
New York Times looks at the War on Poverty