Tad,

Thanks for your poetic gifts on this site. They are always an intense joureny to ponder the stuff you write.

I was thinking about this very issue the other night as I took my six kids out for dinner. We're not affluent, yet feeding my family at the local dollar scoop Chinese spot was about $20. As we were being served and I ordered a brand name soft drink, I thought about how even our family's expenditures are compromised in our affluent culture, and then we're all in a quandry.

For example, when we give the poor money, we hope the little they have will go a long way. The best way for them to do that, is to go to places like Wal-Mart, or other locations with low costs. However, if one were to follow the trail in which goods come from at "low costs" to our public, we might find that we're contributing to global injustices. What then?

Ask the welfare mom to buy products at higher costs at another store where she'll get less than half of what she would have been able to get at Walmart? What is she do about her plight locally as we wrestle with the plight of others in a global society?

There are no easy answers and we're all compromised. The quandry seems to be affecting not only the affluent, but all living in our affluent culture.

Thanks for your poems.

Sam

I heard a report today about an entire caste in India that hand wash clothes for rich travelers. They can get the clothes much cleaner and crisper than any wash machine, and it is sometimes even cheaper too. Their job is so terrible for their body, inhaling the fumes of the soaps, and cracking the skin on their hands open because the soap makes them so dry. My first response was 'we can easily solve their problem with washing machines, if those rich American businessmen and tourists would just sacrifice a little luxury.'

But the man they interviewed says that is the last thing he wants, because their family has no other job skills. His grandfather and father and sons all wash clothes, and if rich people stopped perpetuating the cycle and used washing machines, they would have no income.

So what then? Our societal tiers based on wealth in America can be just as limiting as the caste system in India. Is breaking that down impossible?