The Gil Smart column excerpt was on the beautiful idea of “Freedom from Want”, one of the four freedoms enunciated by FDR and celebrated in the famous Thanksgiving Day family dinner painting of Norman Rockwell. Is there anyone, conservative or Liberal who openly disagrees with the vision of a world that is free from, at least, terrible want? Two years ago there was a story and a picture from Haiti of mud cakes “baking” in the sun. Cakes made from dirt and a little oil. Actual food that destitute people eat to sustain life.Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to consider how the world might respond to this kind of terrible “want” that exists in thousands of other places across the globe.
I do agree with the writer who says this is not a government problem nor does it have a government solution. Amen. But it is a human problem and begs a human solution, a compassionate solution, a decent solution. Does anyone disagree that if the system we call Capitalism really wanted to feed the world it would not be able to?
The great wealth of all the Capitalistic countries together with the enormous resources of science and technology could certainly feed the entire world. Why has it not been done already? Why not even on the agenda today?
Ask those questions this Thanksgiving, then listen to the replies, but listen, I would suggest, with your heart, your human heart that is much, much deeper than Conservative or Liberal.. I think you may hear some really heartbreaking answers.
