Observing the barrage of anger, resentment and hate now being hurled against people on welfare, I'm reminded o the old African proverb: "As the waterhole gets samller, the animal get meaner."

As the basic reources dimish in other words, so does our willingness to share. So do the qualities of tolerance and neighbourliness. The sense of community is replaced by an ugly survial of the fittest mentality.

There is, however, a big difference between what happens at a shrinking waterhole in Africa and what happens in US when jobs disappear, incomes stagnate, and governmennt services are cut back. The waterhole gets samller because there's a drought. It is a natural and unavoidable phenomenon. However, the necessities of life for the weakest among us are being deliberatley and needlessly with-drawn.

Our welfare "water hole" is being siphoned away, its content diverted from the pockets of the poor into the stock portfolios of the rich. There is no shortage of money. Business and bank profits soar to dizzying heights. Corporate executives and speculators wallow in wealth. But they will not be satisfied as long as a cent remains to be squeezed out of their lowest income victims. A mere one and a half million children going to bed hungry every night? Not nearly enough. Not nearly enough the sights are set  on even higher numbers.

In the past, picking on the weak and the poor was not normally something that the business elite and their political flunkeys could do with impunity. Prior to the Nasty Nineties, most people would be shocked by all the welfare mom bashing. Even the most hardened right wingers would at least raise their eyebrows. Today, however, as food is snatched out of  mouths of  hungry kids, the writers of letter to the editor and the hot-line radio show callers enthusiastically applaud.

The media, instead of describing thr plight of the thousands doomed to destitution, maliciously search for and expose the few people on welfare who are abusing the system. Although they are the exceptions, they are decpicted as typical welfare bums, too lazy to work and living comfortably and parasitically off the hard work of others.

It is surprisingly easy to stir up this kind of hatred of the underprivileged. The human animals indeed get meaner as their economic whaterhole gets smaller. They don;t blame the bloated plutocrats who are greedily sucking up most of the country's fluid assests. They turn their fury on the most wretched and disadvantaged members of society-those at the very bottom of the income ladder.

It is eerily reminiscent of a laboratory experiment in which sadistic scientists provoke naturally peaceful mice or guinea pigs to fight among themselves. This is done with an extended family or colony of mice that coexist in harmony as long as they have enough to ear and drink. Gradually the scientists start reducing the supply of food and water. They want to find out at what reduced level of sustenace the mice can be induced to compete for their dwindling rations.

Eventually hunger turns the bigger and stronger mice against the weaker ones. At first they simply nip at them and drive them from the food containers. Then if the food is drastically curtailed, the attack become fiercer. Carried to its extreme it results in the death of the weakest mice.

We are not mice we should be smart enough to respond in a more humane manner.