Christmas musings: morality and the distribution of income, wealth and opportunity

This morning on CNN (yes, I watch the news even on Christmas), there was a story about Sesame Street’s “Food for Thought” initiative, segments in which the Sesame Street characters explore healthy food choices and learn to love broccoli and whole grains.  The mastermind behind this laudable effort identified the target audience as economically disadvantaged families who suffer the “stigma of nutritional insufficiency” – aka, poor people who are blamed and shamed because they don’t have enough to eat.

Shame implies a moral failing.  In 21^st century America, poverty has become a moral failing:  it is now shameful not to be able to afford to buy enough food to feed your family.  This is just a smug, self-serving  rationalization foisted upon us by wealthy Americans and their political handmaidens, the GOP.    Republican tax and economic policies exacerbate inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth in America the likes of which we have not seen since the days of the original Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Mellons and Morgans.  Meanwhile, the GOP’s base, the wealthy, the neo-cons, and the Christian right, are happy to believe that they are prospering because of their moral superiority, and, conversely, that everyone else – including the sick or disabled, the unemployed, and the working poor – are doing badly because of some moral failing (e.g., they’re lazy, they’re stupid, God doesn’t love them).  Not only does this belief make the wealthy feel better, but it apparently absolves many of them of any sense of obligation to contribute to the common good by paying their fair share of taxes. 

So I’m wondering, which is the bigger moral failure?  To cry on national TV about making sure our children achieve the American dream, while voting consistently against programs that make that dream achievable?  Or to work 2 or 3 jobs and still not have enough to feed your kids?  To get paid 20 or 30 times as much as your employees for maximizing profits by cutting employee health, disability and retirement plans?  Or to declare bankruptcy and lose your house because one of your children has a rare form of cancer and you have no health insurance?  To make tens of millions of dollars buying and selling the companies other people have built?  Or to depend on extended unemployment benefits because your company was sold and your job was moved to Bangalore?  To wear your mink coat, your Rolex and your Christian Laboutins to church to worship the Christian God, while exploiting a rigged financial system the other 6 days of the week?  Or to buy your clothes at the Salvation Army store so your children can attend a public college or university?  

It seems clear to me that the moral failure here is that of a socio-economic system that has grown fat and happy exploiting -- and then blaming – its victims.