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Hoping for a leader with a vision

By John Hatcher
Contributing Writer

Somehow and somewhere amid the campaign crowds that swarmed the presidential hopefuls, there’s got to be an astute idealist who has a burning vision for the United States — a vision that’s not rooted in the politics of yesteryear, but a vision that will inspire and motivate millions of Americans to a higher sense of responsibility and calling.

John Hatcher is pastor of Outreach International Center, 1091 South Jeff Davis Drive, Fayetteville, Georgia 30215. 770-719-0303

Of course, you and I know that the middle class feeds the economic engine of America and many countries around the world. How many pieces of clothes or things in your home were made in China? The middle class is the “garage sale” hawkers of America — selling old stuff to make room for the new stuff. The truth is that most of us in the middle class have about all we need.

The demographic that distinguishes America from the rest of the world is our middle class. Our middle class lives like the kings and queens in most countries. People from Africa, South America, Asia, and Western Europe wonder at all we have. An exchange student from Belarus wistfully pondered out loud how in the world his country would ever get some of what America has in abundance.

America’s middle class is heavier than ever before. Airlines say one reason fuel costs are higher is that passengers are heavier than ever before. However, it’s among the heavy, self-indulged middle class where all the votes are because that’s the target of most of the rhetoric.

No one talks about the poor anymore. Yet, according to federal standards, a good 13 percent of the population falls in the classification of poverty. For a four-person family unit with two children, the 2003 poverty threshold is $18,660, according to the Census Department. Neither candidate has addressed this class.

Yet they have tirelessly given their energies to garnering the votes of the middle class. In Fayette County a conservative guess, based on the 2003 census estimate, gives the average middle class household a yearly income of nearly $80,000. Compare $18,000 with $80,000. What disparity and yet no one seems to include the disparity in their campaign.

Although President Lyndon Johnson was no “Jack Kennedy” in terms of eloquence or oratory, President Johnson pressed Congress for the needs of the poor and forgotten. The Great Society program was President Johnson’s agenda for Congress. It included aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare, urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of crime and delinquency, removal of obstacles to the right to vote. Congress, at times augmenting or amending, rapidly enacted Johnson’s recommendations. Millions of elderly people found succor through the 1965 Medicare amendment to the Social Security Act.

Without President Johnson’s victory in the Medicare Amendment, I don’t know what my family would have done for adequate health care for my father.

No one campaigns any longer in the slums of Chicago or New York or the hillside shacks of Appalachia. Americans have capitulated. We no longer want a leader who will care for the forgotten and downtrodden. Liberty’s repetition of Emma Lazarus’ words is silenced:

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

No one seems to care for the thousands of refuges who come to our shores every year. In a nation proud at one time to be called a melting pot, we look with suspicion and disdain on the new refuges.

Is there only compassion for the middle class who, in the words of a very perceptive prophet, “buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like”?

I pray that among the thousands of young men and women of this great nation, one will remain untainted by scandal and rise to the desperate need for this great country to reclaim our very soul and integrity before a very observing God.

God bless that young man or that young woman.