Hunger, Freedom, and Tragedy

Pond in front of the Irish Hunger Memorial, 3/24/24

Sunday, March 24th I was at the Irish Hunger Memorial in New York City. Tuesday, March 26th the Francis Scott Key bridge collapsed. Tragically, lives were lost. Tragic because the deaths were preventable. Recent analysis indicates that there were some relatively simple safety measures that the bridge did not have in place. Nobel prize winning economist Amartya Sen's research indicated that most famines were preventable: there was plenty of food. It was a relatively simple distribution problem. Hundreds of pertinent quotes adorn the Irish Hunger Memorial. For instance:

We have come to the clear realization of the fact that true
individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men. People who are hungry and out of jobs are the stuff of which dictatorships are made. --Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1944

That six lives were lost unnecessarily on the bridge was tragic. Poverty is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. In the first stanza of "The Star-Spangled Banner," Francis Scott Key asks, "⁠O! say does that star-spangled Banner yet wave, O'er the Land of the free and the home of the brave?"

Only if we're brave enough to ensure that all our citizens have their basic human needs and rights.

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