nbcrusader said:
When a man came to Jesus and asked “what shall I do?” Jesus replied “sell your possessions and give to the poor.” Not write a letter to Caesar and ask that the Romans change their policies.
Right (he would´ve written it to Tiberius, but nevermind). And what Jesus meant was "sell all your posessions" - not 1% of them.
That said, it is better to give away what you can - be it 1%, 5% or 10% of your income - then to do nothing. It would be hard for us to follow Christ´s example, I know. We´re too effete to do that.
Jesus and his disciples were able to create their own, new movement. Jesus and his disciples were revolutionaries. Their agenda was directly opposed to the power agenda of the Romans, opposed to the rich and the powerful.
We are living in a society that wastes food, energy, water and other natural resources. To maximise your profit stands above everything else. We love to consume luxury goods. We educate our children in the ways of prestige, pride and vanity. We admonish them never to do anything that might endanger the prestige of the house, of the family, of the name or of the country. How pleased you are when your son comes first in his class! You teach him not to love, not to forgive, not to share, but when he comes first at school you receive him with kindness. Do you know what we are doing? We tell our children to try always to be first, to compete, to fight, to be ambitious, always to be the first no matter what the cost. We are teaching our kids politics, not what Jesus said.
We need to change our standards, I think.
That does not mean that political campaigning is useless. I´m all for it, go ahead! I´m skeptical that politicians will listen to the cries of the poor, because they never did. They don´t care if half a million of people is out on the streets protesting for a day. It is not dangerous enough to scare them.
And while we write letters, another 6500 people die per day.
That´s why society has to change as a whole. 1% of the American budget does not reduce poverty if the terms of trade aren´t revised, if multinationals are allowed to make people work like slaves in free trade zones all over the world, and the list goes on and on.
Political pressure can only be effective if it makes the politicians feel uneasy. Ask yourself what makes them feel uneasy. 500 letters? Probably not. 500.000 people on the street for a day? Not really. Violent force? Sure, but we don´t want to resort to violence.
Then what about one, two, three millions of poor people in Washnigton? Poor people that just stay on Pennsylvania Av. and block it forever until the meager 1% are guaranteed and poor Americans get healthcare and education for free. The police will remove them, arrest them, but they can return - we got so many poor people we never run out of them!
See, I want you to organise something effective. Like SD stated, (also) legislative advocacy is personal action. It is important and I´m all for it. But if you hope to reduce poverty alone by writing letters or schmoozing around with politicians, you´ll not succeed.
You need to do all three things: 1. write letters etc. 2. donate 1% of your income and/or save for a travel to a third world country (where your kids can see the real world with their own eyes) and 3. do your part to change society from waste and possession to frugality and sharing.