Labor Day and Sacrificing Our Souls to Save Souls

Many of my friends, (indeed much of America), obtain their news and views of the world solely from sources that do not offer much in the way of real perspective. Yet without a doubt, these are good and decent people, trying to live good, decent and righteous lives. If one filters all the issues that divide right and left in this country through increasingly fine filters, one will end up with one issue that has enabled so many who are good in this country to be hijacked into supporting so much that is ill in this country. That one issue is abortion; the termination of a human pregnancy by choice.

There is a fine Labor Day article here by Juan Cole, of Informed Comment. It is a long involved article and there is little need to further expound upon what he so eloquently writes. For those who do not know, anyone reading Informed Comment prior to this latest Iraq war would have been aware that there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Moreover, Informed Comment readers were also aware of the almost non-existent evidence of WMD remaining in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Mentioning this is not an attempt to further beat a dead horse, but only illustrate that Informed Comment has valuable information not to be found on the Fox Network or its ilk. Today, Mr. Cole turned his attentions not on "Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion", but on Labor Day in America and the state of our "Grand Experiment".

Upon reading Mr. Cole's post, I was vividly reminded that we can not support "family values" while we export good paying working class jobs overseas. We can not support "family values" while we hamstring the labor movement in our country. While the labor movement has certainly been fraught with its share of corruption, any measure of justice for the working class in America was born from the efforts of organized labor. It is the height of hypocrisy to decry the breakdown in family values while at the same time supporting politicians who have done the most to increase the proportion of the wealth held the top 1% of our population. For it is this inequitable sharing of the wealth in America that leads to an exacerbation of all the social ills that any good and decent citizen decries. For ultimately, any action that adds to the deterioration of the economic status of most Americans, adds to the deterioration of the social fabric that binds our communities and in turn ensures there is even MORE need for women to choose the abortion option.

Politicians can continue to support tax cuts for the super-rich, bailouts of the super-rich, bail-outs and wrist slapping punishments of corporate executives who steal millions (and even billions) as long as they can count on the support of those Americans who will ultimately rely on only one benchmark to decide their support of a politician..., whether or not they are anti-abortion.

Christopher Dinnes
S/S Cape May
Norfolk, VA

Profiting From Illness and Injury

For most of my adult life I have felt there was something intrinsically wrong with the health care "industry" in America, despite always having had virtually unlimited access to the very best health care this country has to offer. The whole idea of a profit driven health care "industry" I find morally offensive. Certainly health care workers deserve to earn a very good living. Certainly hospitals must be able to provide for their staff, equipment, mortgage payments, capital improvements, lights, water, landscaping, etc., etc., etc. But when hospitals, HMO's, and insurance companies are beholden to stockholders to show a profit, when investors buy shares of a hospital corporation or medical insurance provider hoping for a return on their investment, essentially this means investors are hoping to profit from illness and injury.

Profiting from illness and injury? Profiting from the crisis, struggles and even deaths of real people? To be very clear, this is not commentary regarding earning a living helping people through their challenges, but rather commentary on the concept of investing in the health challenges of human beings. The immorality of THAT type of investment is of epic proportions.

Christopher Dinnes
S/S Cape May
Norfolk, VA