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About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (May 21, 1987)
PAGE 5 — The Georgia Bulletin, May 21, 1987 Father Gerald Peterson Solving World Hunger As a child, did you ever hear at the supper table: “Eat your beans; it will help a hungry child in India?” And you either felt like it, or dared to respond: “It would help more if that hungry Indian could eat the beans!” Global hunger seams such an overwhelming problem, you feel helpless in trying to solve it. Today I’d like to bring to your attention a project that is solving the problem of hunger one farmer at a time. I’m referring to Heifer Project Interna tional. (HPI). Have you ever heard of the Heifer Project? Although the organization is over 40 years old, I heard little or nothing about it until five years ago through the National Catholic Rural Life Conference. A recent phone call from the director of the new office in the Southeast, James Schwarzlose, refreshed my memory of Heifer Project. From literature received, I learned that Heifer Project began when Dan West, an Indiana farmer and church worker, volunteered to distribute relief supplies to hungry families in Spain during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930’s. The futility and degradation of handouts led him to ask, "Instead of endlessly giving powdered milk, why not give a cow?” A cow would provide an ongoing source of milk and also pro duce a calf every year. Everyone receiving a cow would be asked to give the first offspring to a needy neighbor. In this way, Dan saw the helpless would become helpers; receivers would become givers, thereby enhancing their self-esteem and sense of dignity. The first shipment of heifers was sent in 1944. Since then, planeloads and truckloads of heifers, bulls, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry, honeybees, rabbits and draft animals have gone to people in 107 countries and 33 states in the U.S. Why livestock? Farm animals provide a sustainable form of agriculture that continuously multiplies. In our vast, urban ized world, it is sometimes difficult to remember that the ma jority of needy families through the world still live a simple agrarian life in rural areas. A single cow can provide up to five gallons of milk daily for a needy family. A trio of breeding rabbits can produce 150 pounds of inexpensive meat each year. HPI provides animals appropriate to the requests, needs and environment of the recipients. Livestock are able to feed on native vegetation grown on land too dry, rocky or mountainous for cultivation, thereby putting to use otherwise wasted natural resources. Did you know that five times as much of the earth's land is suitable for grazing as can be cultivated for food crops? Rais ing livestock is the only way to achieve an economic and Rural Reflections nutritional return from this land. In many places, this is the only land to which poor people have access. The Heifer Project is a concept which is working to solve the problem of world hunger in a very practical way, and it is doing it one farmer at a time. An office to serve the Southeastern states was opened in January 1987 in Atlanta. On July 1 Heifer Project will be mov ing to Calvin Center, south of Atlanta. On May 24 you are in vited to preview the exciting developments of Heifer Project in two locations. At 2 p.m. at Calvin Center, HPI supporters will be gathering to celebrate Rural Life Sunday in the "offices-to-be.” A start has been made. You’ll enjoy a netfv slide show and refreshments. At 6:30 p.m., also on May 24, at the Marist School, the same program will be held with pictures and some “hands-on" materials. For further information call 659-0002. Heifer Project International is supported by Catholic Relief Services and highly endorsed by the National Catholic Rural Life Conference. I encourage you as a part of the Catholic Church of Atlanta Archdiocese to lend interest and support to this project, which is a vital link in the solution of the problem of world hunger. Msgr. George G. Higgins Worker Rights And The Deficit The Yardstick The U.S. trade deficit is perhaps the most vexing and perplexing problem facing the United States. Its effects touch every facet of our lives, and its implications include a moral dimension usually not considered — worker rights. Yet worker rights — the ability of workers to freely join together, to form unions and to act together to obtain decent working conditions and a living wage — are not separate and apart. They are intertwined with the trade problem as surely as are the problems of technological change and world markets. The purpose of trade is to raise the living standards of all countries. But what of the reality? Over the last several years, the United States has suffered huge trade deficits, leading to such a rapid shift of employment and loss of jobs that many have rightly described it as a process of "de-industrial ization,” The current trading system recognizes and tries to prevent practices which give countries an unfair advantage at the ex pense of their trading partners, for example dumping goods at below market price. However, low wages, oppressive work ing conditions and the denial of worker rights can also pro vide unfair competitive advantage, although these factors are often not considered relevant. In countries where these practices abound, they depress the growth of domestic markets, making economies more dependent on what they export, which in turn undercuts American living standards by eliminating jobs. For the long haul, that’s disastrous for both countries — destroying the American market without replacing it. These conditions are not morally neutral. They are sometimes wrong and unjust to workers trying to earn a de cent living. The absence of one particular right — forming labor unions — was singled out in the recent U.S. bishops' pastoral message on the economy as a factor leading directly to the loss of jobs here. "The restrictions on the right to organize in many countries abroad," said the bishops, "make labor costs lower there, threaten American workers and their jobs, and lead to the ex ploitation of workers in these countries." The bishops are keenly aware that trade policy illustrates the "conflicting pressures” that interdependence can generate: Claims of injustice from developing countries denied market access are countered by claims of injustice in the domestic economies of industrialized countries when jobs are threatened and incomes fall. It is no surprise that workers and governments have become more aware that the denial of worker rights has some role in the trade deficit. Also, in recent years there has been interest in using the privilege of trade with the United States as a lever to assure at least minimal worker rights in other countries. Indeed, one might ask, doesn't the United States — the biggest, most in fluential actor on the world stage — have a responsibility to do so? But. where to start? Historically the International Labor Organization has pro mulgated labor conventions which serve as a benchmark for labor rights. The ILO has a unique tripartite membership con sisting of employer, worker and government delegates. The existence of worker rights is formally recognized in the ILO conventions, which offer labor unions worldwide some standards against which to measure their own advances. ILO standards say, for example, that workers have the right to create and join unions, draw up union rules and elect leaders. These standards call for a 40-hour workweek, generaily set the age limits of child labor at 15 and provide for recommen dations on mechanisms for preventing workplace accidents and work-related illnesses. These rules serve as the basis of the debate on guarantee ing worker rights. They also embody the idea that respect for the dignity of work and workers is the only way to produce a level playing field in international trade relations. (Copyright (c) 1987 by NT News Service) Ivan J. Kauffman At The Vietnam Memorial “Attention must be given to the effects on military personnel themselves of the use of even legitimate means of conducting war...Are they treated merely as instruments of war. insensitive as the weapons they use?" - The Bishops Pastoral Letter “The Challenge of Peace" It’s not yet Memorial Day at the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, but in a real sense it’s always Memorial Day here. All.year hundreds of thousands of Americans and foreign visitors come to this simple wall which bears the names of those from the United States who died in the Vietnam War. Although many here are sightseers the mood is somber, like you might find at a wake. It is impossible to come to this place, unique among war memorials in recognizing the deaths of individual soldiers, without somehow being moved. At first you are a spectator. The wall is low, at your feet. There are only a few names on it. But as you walk the wall becomes higher, with hundreds of names engraved on each panel — and then at some point you realize you are a part of the wall, that its polished black surface has caught your reflection, that your face is on it together with the names of those who have died. Along the base are flowers, wreaths, a hand written poem, two crucifixes brought here by those who still grieve. The names on this wall belong to members of our families. They are our sons, a few of them ourdaughters; our grandsons, our nephews, our brothers, our husbands, some of them our fathers. They have left an empty spot in the lives of those who remain which will never be filled. When I came to the wall this morning I began reading the names panel by panel as they are listed, in the order in which they died. After more than 45 minutes I had only begun. Reading all the 58,132 names would take at least a day. But even after this short time the mind grows numb. How can we comprehend so many deaths? And yet these names are only a fraction of those who died. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and Cambodians and Laotians also died — both soldiers and innocent civilians, including many children, caught in the middle. Many of those who died, both Asians and Americans, were fellow Christians, fellow Catholics. What does it mean to remember these people on Memorial Day? A majority of the visitors this Friday morning are junior high and high school students, brought here in school groups. As one such group was leaving I overheard a young girl say, "There'll never be another Vietnam.” The tone of her voice seemed to indicate she really believes that is true. Making Peace But if it is true then we’re going to have to find a new way to conduct the political business of the world. The Vietnam War was not fought accidentally. It was fought because there is a very real difference between democracy and dictatorships. The young men whose names are on this wall were sent to war, and willingly went to war, because they believed they were fighting for freedom — that they were defending the cause of democracy as their fathers had before them. Does the slogan “No more Vietnams,” now so deeply woven into our political fabric, mean there will never again be an effort to resist dictatorships when they arise — as surely they will? As I stood reading the names on the wall it became very clear that what I or anyone else has to say here is not very im portant. If there is a message here it is their message — the message of those who gave their lives — the words they would speak if they could. But they cannot speak, and we can only imagine what they would say — and perhaps ask those who did return to us what they believe their fallen comrades wouid say if they could speak. ft is not for us to put words in the mouths of those who have sacrificed their lives. It is for us to listen. And to ask, "What do these deaths mean?”
