by B. R. GOWANI
Stephen Fincher, member of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee. PHOTO/Wikipedia/Forbes
In his article, “The Silent Death of the American Left“, Jeffery St. Clair questioned whether there is a Left in The United States or not. He accepts: “There is, of course, a Left ideology, a Left of the mind, a Left of theory and critique.” Then he raises an important point: “But is there a Left movement?” And his answer is no. He’s right. Because if there was an active opposition from the Left, the constant cruel onslaught by the corporate controlled establishment wouldn’t have continued or, at least, would have slowed down.
Recently, the Congress voted to cut money from SNAP or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, that is the Food Stamps. Altogether, 47 million people are SNAP beneficiaries. The cuts would affect 2 million people.
Representative Juan Vargas (Democrat from California) opposed it. He said: “[Jesus] says how you treat the least among us, the least of our brothers, that’s how you treat him.”
(Here is the actual quote: “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” Matthew 25:45)
Representative Steve Fincher (Republican, of the Tea Party branch, Tennessee) countered Vargas with a different quote from Bible. “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” (2 Thessalonians 3:10)
The above Biblical command was not actually addressed to people not wanting to work but to those people who were waiting for Jesus’s return to the earth or the second coming.
Then Fincher says:
“The role of citizens, of Christians, of humanity is to take care of each other, but not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country.”
In simple language: The government shouldn’t take from people like Fincher and hand it to the poor. There is one problem in Fincher’s argument. He receives a plenty of money from Washington. He, along with his brother and father, farm over 2500 acres for cotton in five counties. For doing this great job, over a period of ten years, they received a free subsidy of $8.9 million from Washington D.C. That makes it $24,666 free money for each of them every month!
“Not only did he receive that large amount of money from federal farm subsidies, but a majority of his initial contributors have received millions as well.”
Now how much does an average person in the state of Tennessee under the SNAP receives each month? A meager amount of $132.20. The yearly allowance comes to mere $1,586.40.
Then Fincher quotes Bible once more: “Poor will always be with us.” (Matthew 26:11)
No doubt about it. Till the time, there are greedy people like Fincher, poor will always be there. And the poor people’s only solace is the following dream of entering heaven after death,
“But Jesus said again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.'”
while rotting, their entire life, in a hell called earth.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com