April 3, 2006
by Peter Schweitzer,

Dear Plenty Friends,

Politics is not and cannot be a part of Plenty’s mission and the reasons for that are both legal (US non-profit tax law) and practical (politics breeds conflict). For the record, if Plenty has a political bias it is this: It doesn’t matter whether a person says they’re liberal or conservative, red or blue, right wing or left wing. What matters is whether they’re honest or dishonest, compassionate or unfeeling, tolerant or intolerant, generous or greedy, violent or peaceful.

None of us is purely any one of those all the time but the percentages in the mixture make all the difference. Let’s not confuse the real issues with meaningless labels. We’re here to take care of each other, so let’s get on with it. I was a “child of the sixties,” and now that I’m in my sixties it’s hard to believe that people still think war is an acceptable, legitimate means of solving our differences. Down in the Gulf, it’s hard to believe that seven months after the hurricane, in the richest country in the world, so many thousands of people are still suffering, still lacking even the basics while we spend thousands of lives and billions of dollars, destroying another country, that will take billions more and generations to repair.

This is not a political issue. This is a question of our humanity. Shouldn’t the world we leave our children and grandchildren be an improvement over the one we inherited? I don’t know if the world is any better for our efforts but I do know that our children and grandchildren are just as idealistic as we were in our flower child youth, while at the same time being far more advanced in their understanding of the world, their sense of fairness and injustice, the ease with which they navigate cultures different from their own, and their instincts for helping. They’re our strongest allies and recognize that we’re in this together. If you don’t believe me, go down to the Gulf and see for yourself. The sight of hundreds of young people laboring selflessly in very difficult, even dangerous conditions, inspires and ignites hope.

When Plenty landed in Guatemala in 1976 in response to a massive earthquake that had killed more than 23,000 people, we soon realized that the people who had borne the brunt of the disaster, the indigenous Maya, had already been oppressed by the structural poverty they had endured since the conquest. After two years of projects directed at helping the Mayans recover from the earthquake, we began to turn our attention to alleviating the structural poverty by improving self-sufficiency in areas of health care, nutrition, and potable water. Naively we had not taken into account the fact that the entrenched political and economic powers, in both Guatemala and the US, representing a direct line of control from the conquistadors, were not about to allow the yoke to be lifted from the Mayans, not if they could help it.

A similar scenario appeared when we landed in southern Mississippi and southern Louisiana and New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. The poor people of this region, primarily the Indians and African Americans, had borne the worst of the disaster, but had already been struggling with the structural poverty that was their legacy dating back to the founding of America. The poor people of the Gulf aren’t getting much help from their government, a government that seems structurally incapable of doing what needs to be done, which is to help folks out the hole they are in due to accidents of birth and geography, so they can take care of themselves, which is really all anyone is asking for.

Happily, we are today again able to work in Guatemala promoting self-sufficiency (even as we’re momentarily diverted by the country’s latest natural disaster, hurricane Stan). Likewise, in Nicaragua and Belize and in Mexico and at Pine Ridge Reservation, and hopefully again in Liberia, Plenty will support the good efforts of communities to not only take care of themselves but to find sustainable means of transforming structural poverty into structural selfreliance, well-being and economic independence. The same needs to be done for the people of the Gulf. We’re in it for the long haul, for generation after generation, and so we thank you now, and we will thank you again and again and again for your kindness and your humanity. You make it happen. You make all the difference.

Peace and love,
Peter Schweitzer
Executive Director