The Enemy's Real Goal

The below was taken directly from Sojourners: Faith, Politics, Culture and was posted in facebook by Linda Hope from the church. I believe it states not only my viewpoint perfectly, but others in the church as well.

There are two predominant voices on the Right who shout out socialism whenever universal health care is mentioned: the misinformed and the miscreants. Both are injurious to our nation. The former because they simply lack the facts to form a truly cogent opinion; the latter because they have deliberately misrepresented the facts to suit their own agenda.

The Right's opposition to universal health care is based on one fundamental and overriding premise: to protect an industry which has made billions of dollars treating its customers - us - as nothing more than numbers on a profit and loss statement. I rarely invoke Satan directly - frankly I think we as Christians sometimes give him a bit too much credit - but in this case he is behind this and has been for quite some time. All of us need to rise up and do what we can to spread the truth to those who don't know and to shout down the liers who do.

As Linda said, making sure every human being in America has health care may cost all of us a little bit more, but in the long run we will be richer for it by decreasing overall costs, living healthier lives, and simply knowing that we have done the right thing by our fellow man. The only question we need ask as Christians is this: What would Jesus want us to do here?

Thank you Linda for the post.

http://blog.sojo.net/2009/07/22/is-nationalized-health-care-hazardous-to-your-health-check-the-facts/


Is National Health Care Hazardous to Your Health?



Check the Facts

by LaVonne Neff 07-22-2009

Various Web sites and e-mails are reporting that cancer survival rates are much higher in the U.S. than in various European countries. Some quote Mark Tapscott in the Washington Examiner, who quotes Jim Hoft in the American Issue Project, who quotes Michael D. Tanner of the Cato Institute, who quotes … well, quite a group of conservative pundits and politicians are involved. They appear to be using the same set of statistics to argue that national health care results in dramatically increased mortality rates from breast, prostate, and other cancers.

To check the facts, I went to the World Health Organization and made myself a chart.

Using the most recent statistics available, I compared the health outcomes of six Western nations. No nation’s health-care program is totally private, and no program is totally nationalized. Government funds pay for a percentage of health-care expenses in all six countries: the United States (45.8 percent), Germany (76.6 percent), Italy (77.1 percent), France (79.7 percent), the Netherlands (81.8 percent), and the United Kingdom (87.4 percent).

Do mortality rates increase with a higher percentage of government funding? Here’s what I found:

The United States ties with Italy for the lowest cancer mortality rate of all six countries. Interestingly, the U.S. and Italy also have the lowest smoking rates. The Netherlands and the U.K. have the highest smoking rates and also the highest death rates from cancer. The cancer mortality rate in the Netherlands is 15 percent higher than that of the United States and Italy.

However, cancer accounts for fewer than a quarter of all deaths in the United States. Heart disease is an even bigger killer, and statistics on cardiovascular mortality are not so good in America. Of the six countries, the U.S. has the second highest mortality rate, with 59 percent more heart-related deaths than France.

The U.S. also has the second highest death rate from injuries. American mortality in this category is more than 100 percent higher than that of the Netherlands.

In the largest category, non-communicable diseases, the United States has the highest mortality rate of all six countries, with 25% more deaths than France.

The adult mortality rate — that is, the probability of dying between the ages of 15 and 60 — is highest in the United States. The next runner-up, France, is 20 percent lower, and Italy is 70 percent lower.

Personally, I don’t want to die from cancer. I don’t want to die from heart disease or other non-communicable diseases either, and I’d rather not be smashed to death in an accident. In fact, I’d just as soon stay healthy as long as possible, so I’d be very happy if the United States had the best health care in the world. Alas, we have a long way to go.

Of the six countries I compared, the United States is at the bottom in terms of healthy life expectancy: 69 years here compared to 71 in the Netherlands and the U.K., 72 in France and Germany, and 73 in Italy.

The U.S. is also at the bottom in terms of total life expectancy: 78 years here compared to 79 in the U.K., 80 in Germany and the Netherlands, and 81 in France and Italy.

Please, when you get an e-mail or see a Web page giving statistics to argue that the United States already has excellent health care and doesn’t need to revamp the system, stop and ponder. We currently spend roughly twice as much per capita on health care (counting both public and private sources) as these European countries.

What lots of Americans don’t realize is this: The U.S. government already spends more per capita on health care than do the governments of these other countries — over 50 percent more than the Italian government spends, for example. And yet the Italians manage cancer just as well as we do, and their health-care outcomes are better than ours in every other category.

LaVonne Neff is an editor, writer, and publishing consultant in Wheaton, Illinois, who blogs on book, bodies, and belief at livelydust.blogspot.com

Mr. President, Have Pity on the Poor White Man!

Original lyrics by Randy Newman
Alterations and additions made by Peter Fegan

The events of the last few days involving Henry Louis Gates’ arrest in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the comments made by the President have prompted this blog. I hope some of you enjoy the pun. But in all seriousness, though, no one who is white can ever know the humiliation and fear that a black man or Latino man feels when confronted by a cop, especially in his own home. You may say that Gates overreacted and Obama mis-spoke, but that doesn't hide the fact that this nation has had a terrible stain on it that is 300 years old and still has not been fully removed.

Here's a question for every white man out there. Would any of you right now trade places with an African American or Hispanic? You needn't bother replying. You and I already know the answer. Face it, no matter how you spin it, being a white man in America is still the best gig in town.

Here's another question. How did we get to be such an endangered species anyway?

And now for our song of the day...


We've taken all you've given
But it's gettin' hard to make a livin'
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

We ain’t askin’ for you to love us
You may place yourself high above us
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

I know it may sound funny
But white brothers ev'ry where are runnin' out of money
We just can't make it by ourselves

It is cold and the wind is blowing
We need something to keep us going
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

Don’t you know how great we’ve been
We’re the best race that you’ve ever seen
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

Maybe you're cheatin’
Maybe you're lyin'
Maybe you have lost your mind
Maybe you're only thinking 'bout yourself

No reverse discrimination against our kin
Don’t hold it against us because of our skin
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

We made all them laws and all them rights
Now you say we need to call it a night
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

I know it may sound funny
But white brothers ev'ry where are runnin' out of money
We just can't make it by ourselves

Too late to run. Too late to cry now
The time has come for us white boys to say good-bye now
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

Unity Does Not Mean Silence or Complicity

This has been on my heart now for quite some time and I believe it is long overdue. A number of years ago I had been receiving, unsolicited mind you, a plethora of emails from fellow Christians on various issues of the day: the war in Iraq, patriotism, gay marriage, prayer in public schools. The theme was decidedly conservative and very presumptuous. The conservative part I could forgive – everyone is entitled to their opinion, regardless of what I may think of it. But what really burned me up was the arrogant assumption that just because I attended the same church as they did, that meant I would automatically subscribe to the same line of reasoning

After several heated exchanges with a few “brothers” and “sisters” all of which involved replying to all in the email so that everyone had a chance to hear my heart, I received, shall we say, a very pointed and admonishing reply from a church leader – his name will not be posted here – who basically said that what I was doing was creating disharmony and disunity within the Body of Christ and that I should stop it. In other words, even if I didn’t agree with what the others were saying I should zip it as it were rather than cause dissention. Getting called out like that was one thing, but what I protested most was that this particular member held most of the same opinions that the others had. In other words, I was being reprimanded by an individual who already had made up his mind about where he stood on these issues and was not interested in hearing a differing opinion. How convenient.

Now to put it in context, this was the period of time between 2004 and 2005, just as the nation was beginning to ask some profound questions about the direction the country was headed. In other words we were beginning to emerge out of the ether of the post 9/11 haze. Many conscientious Americans were challenging the Administration’s take on the build up to the War and what it was continuing to cost us as a country to continue fighting. Some of those Americans were Christians. I had hoped I could find some within my church. Not only did my search prove fruitless, but now one of the leaders of the church, who has hardly hid his own personal bias mind you, blasted me for standing up to the consensus under the banner “United we stand, divided we fall.” It was a great song in 1970, but I felt slighted and betrayed because his words were far more self-serving than they were biblical.

Disconsolate, I contemplated leaving the church altogether. Not leaving Jesus, mind you, but simply finding a place where my own personal beliefs and convictions were not subject to biblical hostage taking simply for expedience sake. I decided to seek out some advice, so I went to see Steve at the church. I had called this church my home since, well, Christmas of 1991, and now I was planning on leaving it. Steve listened to my concerns and encouraged me not to leave; he said the people I was looking for were here, maybe not in the majority, but definitely here. They were worth seeking out. He introduced me to something he had been doing for quite some time: blogging. He said it was a great way of expressing yourself and that it was a great outlet. It could also be an opportunity to reach out and have dialogue with fellow Christians who shared my views and concerns.

His words sounded intriguing. I had no place else to go, and I did want to see if I could somehow salvage this thing. After all what if I left and found out that there were people who felt as I did? Not only that, but what if the next church I landed in ended up being worse? Also, though I disagreed with their opinions, I actually liked many people in the church. Maria and I both had friendships within the church that we would be leaving behind if we left. I decided to give it one more shot.

My first blog hit the blogosphere on Friday, September 2, 2005 under the banner Christians Against Hypocrisy and was well received by a handful of people, including Steve. Thank you, kind sir. Since then I have continued to speak out against what I perceive as hypocrisies within the Church and to call out certain belief systems that the conservative factions within the Church have embraced that are I believe at their core hypocritical. In this I have been undaunted and while I may not have found the audience I was looking for, the exercise proved extremely satisfying and therapeutic. Cathartic would be a better word.

I have also come to a realization that unity means different things to different people. For some it means that they are free to spew and defame the very faith they so fervently claim to defend, but the moment someone attempts to challenge them they are called out and made to feel like an outcast that is causing dissention and allowing “the enemy” to build momentum. Bull.

I have a differing opinion of unity. It goes something like this. We are all Christians who believe that Jesus is our Lord and savior, that he died on the cross for our sins, and that his resurrection gives us eternal life in heaven. After that we are free to hold any belief we deem important to us. Here are some of mine.

1. I believe that God gave us not only free will, but also the intelligence to reason things out and discover certain truths about the universe and how we came to be. Hence I do not think it is heresy to believe that the universe and all we can see is billions of years old, anymore that I think that interpreting certain chapters of the book Genesis as parables and not necessarily as historical references (see my blog on Genesis) is biblically wrong. If Jesus taught in parables why not us?

2. I believe that the government is NOT the antichrist and that this incessant mindset among conservative Christians that good old-fashioned self-reliance and profit motive alone can cure all that ails us financially is not only historically inaccurate, but biblically untrue. Will someone please find me the scripture that reads: “God helps those who help themselves.” Whether you are a fiscal conservative or liberal, the truth is that the government has played a crucial role with respect to dealing with poverty in this country that quite frankly, Adam Smith notwithstanding, the private sector is simply ill equipped to deal with, and that includes, gulp, getting involved in health care! BTW, the Bible does speak to this, if we’re willing to look for it (Hint, Matthew 25:31-46).

3. I am adverse to stances within the Church that oversimplify and misrepresent what the Church’s real calling ought to be. You are against abortion, gay marriage, the teaching of evolution in public schools, global warming, fine, that is your opinion. But must you narrowly define for millions of people what an entire faith represents? Of course not. So how about aid for pregnant mothers to carry their babies to term so that the number of abortions is reduced? Or how about teaching teenagers about the changes in their bodies and what that can mean to them, instead of just telling them to abstain from sex? Or how about not referring to doctors who perform abortions as mass murderers, thus inciting unstable people to commit murder in the name of a God they will never understand? How about not demonizing homosexuals, thus driving them away from the so-called salvation you wish for them? My own opinion on this has changed over the years. While I do agree that some men and women who engage in an alternative lifestyle do so because of some sexual abuse issues they suffered when they were younger; there are way too many of them to suggest that all of this can be simply explained as a form of deviant behavior, and until we know their hearts, or walk in their shoes, we should, none of us, be judging or condemning them. How do we know what happens in the birth canal? What if we discover that gender orientation is as genetic as hair color or pigmentation? What then? And while we’re at it, let’s stop the “God doesn’t make mistakes” line. People are born with birth defects all the time. Did God blink? As for evolution and global warming, here’s a suggestion: if it offends you to hear something that contradicts your interpretation of Genesis take your kid out of public school and place him in a religious school, instead of insisting that the science text books be rewritten to accommodate your narrow viewpoints; then buy some beach-front property and live there for the next twenty or thirty years. Send me a postcard when the water is knee deep in your living room. What I’m saying is this: instead of shouting out to the world what we’re against, let’s state what we’re for. Let’s start with love and compassion and then build from there. There is no room within our ranks for religious zealots with closed minds and closed hearts.

4. Stop the countdown to Armageddon! If Jesus didn’t know when He was returning, why are you so preoccupied with it? Put away your stopwatch and get a life! Waiting around for the Tribulation while there are starving children to feed, the homeless to shelter, and the sick to be cured not only goes against the teachings of Christ, it is perverse. We should be pro-active, not reactive. The book of James carefully outlines what our correct actions should be. Our faith needs to be lived out, not spoken out. We will be judged by what we did not what we said we’d do. You want to save someone’s soul, don’t preach about when you think Jesus is coming back, buy them lunch and pay their electric bill first. As a wise man once told me, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” There are plenty of preachers who shout down fire and brimstone from the pulpit; what we need more of are true Disciples of Christ.

5. Call it as we see it, or more appropriately, speak the truth in love. I am doing my part, such as it is, but we all have a responsibility to call out injustice, not only in other countries, but here at home as well. When we hear anti-Christian statements coming out of the mouths of supposedly Christian leaders, we must challenge and refute them. Paul did this consistently throughout his letters and the Church was better for it. Whether it is on facebook or Myspace, or other chat rooms or venues, stop being the silent, innocent bystander. Stand up and raise your voice when you see something that you know in your heart is wrong. Another old saying goes like this, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll go for anything.” Too many of our flock have been reluctant to speak out for fear they will not be liked. Get over it. When it was his time Jesus was not captured by the Romans, he delivered himself into their hands willingly and thwarted attempts by Peter to resist arrest. Speaking out against the intolerance of some of our leaders – even those in our own church - will be costly, but it pails in comparison to what Jesus suffered in our name.

6. We are all, each and every one of us, hypocrites in our own hearts. Left to our devices none of us can walk this walk. Only through the mercy of Christ and the conviction that is brought about by the Holy Spirit can we live out the promise that we see in the Gospels. By being the humble servant that Christ was during his time on Earth, we might just win over the hearts and minds of those who don’t have what we have, and in the process shame those who should know better into changing their ways.

Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?!

As the manager of the 1962 New York Mets, Casey Stengel was never at a loss for words whenever he found himself near a club reporter. After one particularly hideous loss – one of the 120 the team would endure that season – Stengel cut loose and blasted his team in the above, now infamous, quote, which was posed as a question, but which really was more a rhetorical indictment. Stengel knew the answer, as did anyone with half a brain. The Mets were dreadful and most of their roster was comprised of over the hill, washed up veterans and over rated rookies, most of whom would mercifully have a very short career in the major leagues, which reminds me of another of Stengel’s more endearing quotes. "See that fella over there? He's 20 years old. In 10 years, he's got a chance to be a star. Now that fella over there, he's 20 years old, too. In 10 years he's got a chance to be 30."

Watching broadcast journalism these days is sort of like watching that 1962 Mets team. You can’t help but ask yourself that same rhetorical question, “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?” The game back then was baseball and the very best were hall of famers; the game today for our purposes is being a journalist and not simply a stenographer. Sadly most of the best are dead. Murrow, Sevareid, Cronkite, are all gone, but in reality what they brought to their industry died a long time ago. The courage and relentlessness that these legendary pioneers possessed must have been something to behold to anyone with a TV back then. With the scarcest of resources at their disposal, they probed, prodded, refuted, rebuked and challenged their sources and the powers that be until they got at what they fervently believed was the truth, caring not what others thought of them; their only concern being the integrity of the story. Television may have been in its infancy, but broadcast journalism was in its heyday. Those were the days.

Since then we have witnessed a steady and consistent collapse of this once venerable profession. Despite a plethora of technology at their disposal and the emergence of 24-hour news channels, today’s news journalists – and I use the term loosely – barely scratch the surface when they report on a story. More often than not they look more like hosts of an infomercial than investigative reporters. The last ten years have been particularly distressing to watch. The conduct of the industry during the weeks and months after 9/11 was beneath contempt as it did a complete lay down to the Bush Administration’s policy machinations. Even when it realized its complicity rather than look in the mirror and admit their wrong, they blamed it on the “mood of the country” and the “patriotic wave” that swept the nation. Five years after the United States was hoodwinked into an unjust war, MSNBC’s David Gregory still didn’t get it. "I think there are a lot of critics who think that in the run-up to the Iraq War if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role"

Then whose role is it, David? Perhaps it is the role of the multitude of twitter users who now share their deepest thoughts and concerns with Rick Sanchez of CNN so that Rick can include them in his “news” segment. That’s it! That’s the ticket. The answer was there right in front of us all along. We no longer need news professionals schooled in asking the tough questions; we now have news by committee. What’s your opinion? We’d like to know. Twitter us now and you too can have your 15 seconds of fame. The ghosts of Murrow, Sevareid and now Cronkite have been supplanted by the likes of oxfordgirl, claritybleeds and whisper1111.

Incredible, but regrettably true. The news media has now co-opted the general public to do the job it was hired to do. No need to have an informed opinion based on evidence corroborated by trustworthy sources when you can ask your viewers to chime in with their own “informed” opinions. What do you think of the recession? What’s your take on Sotomayor? How do you feel about your health care coverage?

Now there’s nothing wrong with an opinion, and everyone is entitled to voice it, but allowing it to be substituted for actual news is an affront to all that the news industry is supposed to stand for. To put it in perspective imagine for a moment the next time you went for a physical your doctor asked you for a diagnosis of your problem, or if the next time you brought your car in for an overhaul the mechanic handed you his tools and told you to get to work, what would you think? I know what I’d think. What am I paying you for?

But that is exactly what appears to be happening in the media today. Whether it’s the fact that these “news” organizations simply have too much time during the day to kill or that the people they have in their employ are not up to the challenge of being worthy news journalists, the simple and painful truth is that more and more the guy or gal in the street has more to say on the day’s relevant issues than the guardians of the microphone in the studio.

So the next time you go to Citifield or Yankee Stadium, just help yourself to a bat in the bat rack, step up to the plate and take a swing or two or three. If the umpire objects just tell him Rick Sanchez sent you; it should be OK? Who knows you might be just as good, if not better, than the “professional” on the home team. Just make sure the public address announcer gets your name right. “Now batting for the Mets, Oxfordgirl.” Certainly can’t be any worse than Marv Throneberry. After all a little viewer participation is good isn’t it? And what harm can it do?

A Brave New Venture!

Over the next few weeks I will be sharing with you the writing of a new book, titled:

"Sketch: An Insider's View of Retail. What you don't know is hurting you."

I will devote an entirely new blog to this venture, and hopefully someone who knows a publisher - hint, hint - will alert such a person and I will get published.

Over the last few weeks I have been bothered by what I have witnessed at my job, and I feel a strong calling to shed light on it.

My hope is that God will bless it, and use it to help others.

What Would Jesus Do?

Those Who Live in Glass Houses, Usually Throw the Largest Stones!

I recently had a chance to hear Congressman Peter King’s comments about Michael Jackson on youtube and quite frankly was deeply disturbed by them. While it is true that the media has bored us to tears with the over the top coverage of his death, referring to him as a low life is beneath contempt. Those who applaud such comments should examine their own hearts, or perhaps their closets. Sitting in judgment on someone is easy, but is that really what Jesus would’ve done? I doubt it. Jackson had personal problems and what he allowed to happen to himself was a tragedy. He was an incredibly talented individual who was doubtless deeply troubled, as anyone who saw the movie about his life would've known had they bothered to watch it.

Jackson grew up with an overbearing father who never praised his sons and often manipulated them to meet his ends. He had no childhood worth a damn and didn’t even have much of a teenage existence. By the time he was 20, just as “Off the Wall” was hitting the charts, the pattern of abuse that defined his entire life had already taken hold of his soul. All you have to do is look at what he did to his face and skin over the next twenty years to realize that he hated who he was and was desperately trying to run from it at all costs. Like most mega stars he found drugs a convenient way out, and he took them right up until the time his body couldn’t take anymore.

All that wealth and he could not buy happiness. He entered this world a child prodigy, and he left it a caricature of himself. His critics, many of them “God-fearing” people, will no doubt feel justified in their condemnation of who he was and what he was alleged to have done – let’s not forget he was NEVER convicted of the charges against him – but none of us, fans or otherwise, could ever have traded places with him, nor would we have wanted to. Imagine living that life; imagine hating yourself so much that you will stop at nothing to destroy your face and live in virtual seclusion.

No, what Michael Jackson needs from us is not our judgment or our snide remarks about pedophilia; if we are in deed the Christians we claim to be, what we should be hoping and praying for is that in death, Jackson somehow found the peace that alluded him most if not all of his life. A peace we would wish on any fellow brother or sister at an alter call. It is no less deserving of a man, who more than most, probably could’ve used it.

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up, Continues

I have been holding back with this topic, primarily due to two factors: 1. I was hoping to be more optimistic and this stuff just burns me up; 2. I was a bit lazy! Probably more the latter. But this time, I just couldn’t resist.

Glenn Beck is At It Again; or should I say more accurately, he never stopped. On his July 1st show he had on a guy named Michael Scheuer, a former CIA operative, who said the following:

“The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and to detonate a major weapon in the United States, because it’s going to take a grass roots, bottom up pressure, because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. It’s an absurd situation again, only Osama can execute an attack, which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence that is necessary.”

Throughout this whole diatribe, not once did Beck interrupt or correct Scheuer; in fact near the end, Beck can be seen nodding in agreement. I have attached the link to this show for your review, assuming of course that you have the stomach to watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auQJVhNH99c

The Right has certainly gone out its way to blast the current administration for its stance on the economy – going so far as to call Obama a socialist – but when one of your guests actually comes right out and says that an attack upon the United States by a terrorist is “the only chance” the nation has, and you sit there nodding like some moron, you have crossed whatever line there is not just for decency, but for treason.

I have heard enough stupidity from these bozos to last a lifetime. When their man was in power, they went out of their way to praise him and ridicule anybody who would even dare intimate some of the suggestions that have surfaced over the last few months, like secession. Now that they are out of power, the lunatics have truly taken over the asylum. Tea parties sponsored by corporations, neo-cons suggesting attacks on our own country, and polls taken to decide which form of insurrection would be desirable to rescue the nation from the socialists hordes are now becoming all too common with this lot.

I am growing more and more nervous with each passing day. The only thing scarier than having to listen to such fools spew would be if they actually got what they were wishing for. That is my ultimate fear. The simple truth is that the United States will probably be attacked in the future. What 9/11 should have taught us is that we are not nearly as untouchable as we thought we were. An attack on our soil, I’m afraid, could push the nation backwards into a myopic, nationalistic mode that would rival even what we witnessed in the months after the initial attack in 2001. That is the last thing the United States needs. With all that is at stake in the world, let’s pray that Glenn Beck and his ilk are not right. Let’s hope that America is made of better stuff than what Fox News believes about it.