Charity Begins at Home

by Errington C. Thompson, MD

Every now and then—it doesn’t happen often—I sit back and simply marvel at what I do on a day-to-day basis. I have the privilege of taking care of some of the sickest and most severely injured patients in the country. I see Americans at their most vulnerable.

I have seen a 21-year-old who fell through a skylight and landed on his head with such force that he ripped his liver in half. It took us three operations to get his liver to stop bleeding. Less than six months later, this young man is back at work.

A couple of years ago, I took care of a young man who developed gas gangrene. Yes, flesh-devouring gas gangrene. This man had to endure over 20 operations. We had to amputate one of his legs, but this gentleman was never bitter. He was always upbeat.

Both of these young men were remarkable individuals. Both went back to work as soon as they were able. They were a joy to take care of. What they needed, when they were at their most vulnerable, was a little help. That was it. Just a little help. A hand up.

And across the globe…

By now, everyone is aware with the chaos and confusion that is going on in Ukraine. “The Ukraine” was a dependency of the Soviet Union and a Soviet stronghold. When the Soviet Union broke up, the independent nation of Ukraine (without “the”) developed its own government.

About six months ago, pro-European forces within Ukraine thought they had a deal to push the country away from Russia and toward the European Union. In a surprise move, the pro-Russian president spurned the European Union and went running to the Kremlin for loan guarantees and other subsidies to prop up Ukraine’s failing (and very corrupt) economy.

Pro-EU factions within Ukraine weren’t happy. Large protests broke out and persisted for months. Then, in what can only be called a coup, the president fled Kiev, leaving the Parliament—including members of his own party—to set up a new government supported by the demonstrators.

Russia, which has a military base in the Ukrainian province of Crimea, wasn’t pleased at the idea of a pro-Western government sitting on its doorstep. Especially after they had given all these loan guarantees. Especially because their only naval access to the Mediterranean is in Crimea. Especially because Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev had “given” Crimea to the Ukraine in 1954—and now President Putin wanted it back.

The Russians decided, not surprisingly, to protect their interests. They basically invaded parts of Ukraine. Suddenly, and extremely loudly, we heard American conservatives call for action, with, naturally, bellicose Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham leading the charge. McCain even tweeted that the “tragedy” is that America doesn’t have any military options for retaliation. As these two war-mongers always do, they are calling for U.S. intervention and loudly criticizing President Obama for “inaction.”

Help abroad, not at home

I really don’t understand how some Americans can stand up and call for intervention in Ukraine just a few months after they decided that investing in Americans wasn’t worth the money. They cut long-term unemployment benefits to Americans. They told America, “Too bad; if you can’t get a job by now, you don’t deserve our money.” They’re still fighting any increase in the minimum wage.

Yet these very same conservatives are asking us to invest an unknown sum of money to support Ukrainians. Oh, and by the way, it wasn’t like they were going to invest this money over a day or two: this is an open-ended commitment. We’d invest billions of dollars for an unknown length of time in order to promote “democracy.”

I’m sorry, I find it hard for me to get excited about Ukrainians. Look, I’m a liberal—I feel badly when anyone is mistreated—but I believe that charity begins at home. In the Bible, in 1 Timothy 5:8, it says, “but if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” To me, this means we need to help those who need help here at home. We need to provide jobs for those Americans who are still looking for jobs. We need to extend unemployment benefits until we can get the unemployment rate down below 5%.

I don’t understand how we can reach out to Ukrainians and talk about freedom and democracy when we aren’t even free to drink clean water. For some reason, we have a lackadaisical attitude toward clean water (and clean air and many other environmental issues). It was in 1969 when the Cuyahoga River in Northeast Ohio sponaneously caught on fire. This event spurned a ton of clean water legislation. Our rivers and streams began to clear up.

But that was decades ago. In West Virginia this winter, the state in which I currently reside, more than 300,000 people were forced to stop drinking the water because of a toxic spill. The truly sad part is, there was no reason for this to happen. It’s simply a lack of government oversight, a deliberate lack of government regulation, a collapse of government responsibility under pressure from big-money corporate interest, regardless of the consequences to citizens.

Then, in North Carolina, there’s been a massive coal ash spill into the Dan River. Again, this was not something that was unforeseeable. We have a 200-year-plus history of capitalism in the United States which has proven, time and time again, that without effective regulations and enforcement, companies will cut costs, ignore or cover up problems, and then something will happen. The companies will apologize—while denying responsibility—and we are left without drinkable water for weeks if not months. We are left with rivers on fire.

America comes first

I’m happy to promote democracy throughout the world as soon as we figure out how to promote democracy here in the United States. Let’s spend money on Americans. I’m happy to support the Ukrainians in their effort to become a freer, fairer nation. I’m not willing to have even one of our soldiers risk his or her life in the Ukraine.

If we would like to isolate Russia by kicking them out of the G8 and the G20, I think that’s fine. But, for my mind, I’d much rather all Americans enjoy the freedom of clean water, clean air, jobs that play a living wage and a government that gives you a hand up, not a handout, when you need it.