Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty

Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. The aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

However, being the slightly passive-aggressive that I am, I am taking a slightly different take on this. Rather than global, where the tendency is for things to be impersonal and unconnected, I want to take aim at the topic on a much smaller scale: our families.

Some will take issue with this, claiming that Americans don’t know what poverty is. On the surface, that would seem correct, but one of the problems with thinking and talking about things on a large global scale: it gets so generalized that actual details get overlooked. What is poverty? According to our government, it most closely follows this definition:
“the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions“.

We are society of consumption. We have been born into, raised in, and inundated with the messages of this society that we must have this, we must want that…when so very little of it is important, but so little of it is even of any consequence whatsoever. Except for image. Or self-esteem. For this country to even talk about combating poverty is laughable until we change our own personal habits.

Stop demanding the government confront poverty…do it yourself. Adopt a child through an agency like World Vision or Compassion International.

Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. The aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion. However, being the slightly passive-aggressive that I am, I am taking a slightly different take on…