Jackson Free Press

During the winter holiday season, our thoughts frequently turn to those in need: the homeless, the poor, the sick and other needy souls. Folks put their change into Salvation Army buckets, and send their end-of-year contributions to non-profit organizations. They volunteer at shelters and buy gifts for orphans and foster children.

All of this holiday goodness makes us wonder where some people's priorities hide when they aren't filled with the spirit of giving and compassion.

What is it that makes a person send a check to a group like "Save the Children" to get an anonymous photo from a child in a developing country, or donate to a ministry, yet then support denying Mississippi's children the chance for decent—or any—medical care through the Health-Care Reform Act?

What kind of rationalization process justifies extending Bush-era tax cuts to the ultra rich while holding hostage millions of unemployed Americans who have been unable to find a job in the worst economy since the Great Depression? Or to sacrifice the needs of the majority of Americans while handing out corporate welfare to the companies donating millions to our elected officials?

What kind of political sausage-making goes into a decision to cut budgets for education in a state that already boasts a dropout rate of nearly 40 percent (45 percent for African Americans), yet continues steady funding for the Department of Corrections and its numerous prisons? And that continues to push children into an adult correctional system that enriches private prison companies?

These are questions that the least among us are asking during this season of blessings. They are questions that those who have watched the disparity between the poor and the wealthy grow ever wider over the past decades are asking.

Perhaps they are rhetorical questions to political apparatchiks who will follow their ideological positions without ever stopping to understand what the outcome will be regardless of its cost in human capital. It's the kind of blind allegiance that has an entire party become obstructionist to its opposition, simply because it can. And it's not like the other party is responding in an effective way.

It is time to stop tiptoeing around the fact that our nation is increasingly waging a war on the poor and jobless. The divisiveness of our current political system, fueled by the partisan infotainment industry that has, for many, replaced legitimate investigative journalism, is tearing out our national soul in an effort to gain our votes. And getting back a soul is a long and laborious process.

"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself," Joseph Pulitzer said around the turn of the 20th century. His words are as true today as they were 100 years ago.

So are these words: "Be in solidarity with the poor." (Proverbs 14:31)

What would Jesus do, indeed.