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Indeed yes, but which kind of poverty are we speaking of? Economic poverty? The poverty of the slums and ghetto? The unsightly trash on the streets?

Or the more insidious spiritual poverty of corporate America that pollutes our rivers, our streams, our groundwater with manufactured pesticides; billion dollar businesses that destroy large bodies of water with their oil spills, killing and poisoning scores of wildlife and fish; that through their high-tech manufacturing whether from computer parts to chemicals, pollute waters that the poor use to wash their clothes and bathe in.

Who is the worst polluter? Obviously, the ones with the most resources at their disposal but who care the least. The worst polluters are the educated lot who have no excuse because they know better. Those who have been educated at prestigious schools and now work for corporate titans, defending their carefully crafted assaults and insensitivities against the environment and against the poor. These people have been taught morality and who know the difference between right and wrong, but use only their knowledge to lie, steal cheat and deprive others because they are on a quest for money, power - or what is called "winning" and "success!"

The worst polluter is SPIRITUAL poverty. The worst pollution is by those who create products, policies, practices that abuse the land, destroy nature and its people and are so spiritually bereft that they don't believe in God, in karma or whatever you want to call it, whereupon there will be a judgment day - a day when the playing field is leveled and spiritual payback is in order.

Whatever damage out of ignorance that may have been done by the poor in countries throughout the world over the aeons of time from unsustainable farming or building practices in which too many trees were used for wood at a faster rate that they could re-grow, or from lack of bio-diversity in agricultural practices; or from simple warfare - cannot in any way match the same amount (or even come close to) of the destruction brought upon this earth by bombs, missiles and from poison and toxic "medicines" that have killed modern-day people in the millions.

The difference between the poor polluting and a giant corporation is that the poor only hurt themselves. For example, they use cow dung in India to make their fires to cook their food indoors and end up breathing in this toxic smoke. But if someone cares about these people, they can be taught how harmful this is and shown other methods of cooking their food with resources given to them, on loan if need be - such as tinfoil or mirrors so that they can create outdoor solar cookers.

Conversely, multi-national polluters are more generous in their pollution. They hurt everyone and everything. Their toxins and chemicals cover a large swathe, their effects are longer lasting and deeply penetrate the earth hurting plant life, animal life and humans. Then they get off scot-free. Their "accidents" are excused, overlooked or tied up in litigation, so that they never must be accountable for their Bhopals, Three-Mile Islands; and more recently, the San Francisco Bay oil spill, to name but a few transgressions with deadly consequences that are a result of spiritual poverty polluting our world.

Learn more about this author, Gloria Allen.
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