I do want to point out a fundamental problem that many people who work directly with the poor in different aid groups and charities struggle with.  And when I say this, I'm talking about people in my immediate family, two of whom work for different non-profit groups that provide a variety of services for the urban homeless in a particular city, including food, shelter and medical care.  These are people who spend all day, every day, doing and giving and trying on a personal level.

It's exactly what you're talking about, in part of this diary -- the idea that the system must be forced to change, be forced by the compassionate to show compassion, because it will not do so on its own.

(This column, which was published around the American Thanksgiving holiday, gets at some of the things I'm talking about, which I may not be describing very well....)

In the here-and-now, charities meet a very real need, and fill the gaps (or, in the case of the US, the gaping chasms) in our social safety nets that allow people in modern, cosmopolitan and "advanced" cities to continue to go hungry, to continue to go without adequate shelter.  Many of them rely on donations and volunteers to meet those needs -- and those individual efforts, those not-so-random acts of kindness, are not only important, but central and necessary to meet those very real needs.

The problem arises when people think that by volunteering, or by donating, or by giving food or money to individual people, that's enough.  It's not.  While yes, that helps with the short-term problem, and that's necessary because of the systemic problems, there is still a need to do something about the systemic problems of hunger and homelessness and poverty.  The state needs to be goaded into action to address the root causes, and volunteering in a homeless shelter or feeding someone who's hungry today is admirable and humane, it doesn't go far toward seeing that that person won't be hungry tomorrow.  And we need both.

One of my siblings works for a charity that is overwhelmed with visitors during the holiday season.  That's good, people want to give something back, and remember at a time of celebration that there are people with little reason or means to celebrate.  That's nice, they want to do something to help.  That's nice, they want to assuage their consciences a bit... but how many of them go home and vote Republican?  How many of them, even ones who don't vote Republican, write to their political representatives and demand more action to stop the scourge of poverty and homelessness and hunger?  How many of them are going to translate their desire to "do good" on a personal level into a desire to "do good" on a macro level and actually change the system so that charity becomes less necessary?  If volunteering or donating makes us feel more humane, then great, but there has to be movement on both fronts -- yes, address the need now, but also do something to change the system.

Too many people are lulled into complacency by the belief that they are "doing something" when they give to charity, or to an individual -- and they are doing something, but only half of what's needed.  And if the other half of what's needed -- they systemic problems -- are being neglected, then the emphasis on the short-term solution becomes even more self-reinforcing.

Sorry for the diatribe, this is just something I talk about a lot with my relatives, and your diary just sort of pushed me back into it....  Thanks again for writing it.