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The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

Fasting for those without a choice

I stopped eating on Monday, April 4, and joined around 4,000 other people in a fast to call attention to Congressional budget proposals that would make huge cuts in programs for the poor and hungry.

By doing so, I surprised myself. After all, I love to eat (my belly is evidence to that). But the decision was easy after I began seriously diving into the budget battles all over the country. I realized some poor folks were in real trouble.

The poor, among others, are once again under attack—this time in the House budget bill, H.R. 1. The budget proposes cuts in the WIC program (which supports women, infants and children), in international food and health aid (18 million people would be immediately cut off from a much-needed food stream, and four million would lose access to malaria medicine) and in programs that aid farmers in underdeveloped countries. Food stamps are also being attacked in the twisted “Welfare Reform 2011” bill. (There are other terrible maneuvers in H.R. 1, but I’m sticking to those related to food.)

These supposedly deficit-reducing cuts—which would barely make a dent—will literally cause more people to starve to death, go to bed hungry or live more miserably than are doing so now. But the real kicker? The bill would increase defense spending.

I looked for ways I could help and received an email from MoveOn.org. They explained how I could sign a petition to fast, as well as inform as many people as possible. For me, the fast is a way to demonstrate my interest in this fight, as well as a way to remind myself and others there are bigger things in life than dinner (shocking, I know).

I expect I’ll learn something about patience and fortitude while I’m at it. Thirty-six hours into the fast, my senses are heightened and everything feels a bit strange. Odors from food often always seem to find me wherever I am. In the elevator, I can smell a muffin; on the street, I can smell everything—good and bad. But as hungry as I may get, we know I’ll eat well soon.

Many poor people don’t have that option, and MoveOn.org and their co-organizers are calling for God to create a “circle of protection” around them. Some are fasting for a day, many for longer. I’m fasting until Friday, and no, it’s not too late to join us.

Others often ask why I should do anything at all. I tell them poor people’s hunger is hardly a new phenomenon and that God hasn’t made a confirmed appearance recently—at least that I know of.

My girlfriend (a much more religious person than me) suggested I read Isaiah 58, in which God says that if we were more generous while we fasted, he’d treat us better. Maybe, but a billion people are just as hungry, human and as deserving now as the Israelites were when they were fleeing Egypt, and I don’t see any manna.

This isn’t about skepticism, however; it’s about ironies and outrages. According to MoveOn.org, corporate profits in 2010 grew at their fastest rate since 1950, and we set records in the number of Americans on food stamps. The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all U.S. households combined, the effective tax rate on the nation’s richest people has fallen by about half in the last 20 years and General Electric paid zero dollars in U.S. taxes on profits of more than $14 billion.

Meanwhile, roughly 45 million Americans spend a third of their post-tax income on food—and still run out monthly—and one in four kids goes to bed hungry at least some of the time.

It’s those people whom MoveOn.org and their allies (more than 30 organizations are on board) are trying to protect. The coalition may be a bit too quick to support deficit reduction, and I understand the need for fiscal responsibility, but should we want to sacrifice the powerless, nearly voiceless poor in its name?

What most people do not know is that deficit reduction isn’t as important as keeping people from starving. As a nation, we shouldn’t be reducing our meager efforts for poor people in order to reduce the deficit. They didn’t get us into this, and starving them isn’t going to get us out of it.

This is a moral issue; the budget is a moral document. We can take care of the deficit and rebuild our infrastructure and strengthen our safety net by reducing military spending and eliminating corporate subsidies and tax loopholes for the rich. Or we can sink further into debt and amoral individualism by demonizing and starving the poor. Which side are you on?

If faith increases your motivation, that’s great, but I doubt God will intervene here. Instead, we need to gather and insist our collective resources be used for our collective welfare, not for the wealthiest thousand or even million Americans, but for a vast majority of us in the U.S. and, indeed, for citizens of the world who have difficulty making ends meet—or feeding their kids.

Though many religious people may be too kind to say it, true worship can’t take place without joining this struggle. You can’t have real religion unless you work for justice, for hungry and poor people.

I don’t think you can have much humanity, either.

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