{"id":1269,"date":"2014-01-09T12:04:12","date_gmt":"2014-01-09T17:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=1269"},"modified":"2014-01-09T12:06:59","modified_gmt":"2014-01-09T17:06:59","slug":"poem-war-on-poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/09\/poem-war-on-poverty\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: War on Poverty"},"content":{"rendered":"

War on Poverty<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In our nation’s capital<\/span>
\nWe are drowning in think tanks<\/span>
\nOur chief armament<\/span>
\nIn the war on poverty<\/span>
\nAnd for all of their business<\/span>
\nThey have made up their mine<\/span>
\nPoverty is not the problem<\/span>
\nPoverty is the solution<\/span>
\nYet the war ever undertaking<\/span>
\nCongress versus progress<\/span>
\nCommander-in-chief of CEOs<\/span>
\nBacked by supreme courts and county jailers<\/span>
\nTriune bosses super intending won<\/span>
\nUntil six feet under<\/span>
\nWith nary a heart<\/span>
\nThe only pauper resting spot<\/span>
\nFrom their holey canons<\/span>
\nGranting fiats where one can scarcely ford<\/span>
\nPronouncing victory<\/span>
\nIn their own dialectical weigh<\/span>
\nEmptying their echo chambers<\/span>
\nBuy and buy<\/span>
\nOnly saying<\/span>
\nLet them eat ordnances<\/span><\/p>\n

This poem is in honor of the 50th anniversary of the “War on poverty” declared by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964.\u00a0 Of course, there is war and poverty aplenty still.\u00a0 Sometime in the 1980s, during the inglorious Reagan regime, I heard a phrase which has stuck with me ever since: Poverty is not the problem; poverty is the solution<\/em>.\u00a0 Fortunately, this phrase was uttered as a biting critique of the implicit assumptions of a capitalistic plutocracy.\u00a0 The war on poverty is about the same age as me. The material wealth in the United States of America has more than tripled during this time.\u00a0 Further, for at least centuries, there have been enough material resources to meet the basic needs of every human being on this planet.\u00a0 Answering the question of why there is widespread poverty worldwide and within the fabulously wealthy U.S. is perhaps the most important inquiry humans on this planet can address.\u00a0 The only real scarcity on this planet is within the human heart.\u00a0 Talk is cheap, and rhetoric is not very nutritious.\u00a0 Surely, Man does not live by bread alone.\u00a0 As surely, Man does not live by focaccia alone.\u00a0 Mother Theresa perhaps said it best: “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

War on Poverty In our nation’s capital We are drowning in think tanks Our chief armament In the war on poverty And for all of their business They have made up their mine Poverty is not the problem Poverty is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[563,512,196,431,522,658,94,112,530,585,245,375,186,244,529,203,111],"class_list":["post-1269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-america","tag-business","tag-congress","tag-heart","tag-plutocracy","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-poverty","tag-president","tag-progress","tag-rhetoric","tag-scarcity","tag-state","tag-supreme-court","tag-time","tag-war","tag-wealth"],"yoast_head":"\nPOEM: War on Poverty | Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Top Pun's Poetry, Funny Puns, Free Posters, Public Health Radio Show! 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