CAIN AND ABEL

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (8/28/09)


One of the most profound questions ever asked in human history is the question Cain asked the LORD, "Am I my brother's keeper?" The question separates the civilized from the barbaric. Do we care for the least amongst us or do we condemn them with our indifference.

That's the issue in the current health care debate. The Republicans have chosen the barbaric. The voices of their brothers are crying to them from the ground, but with ear-piercing voices they've turned their deafened ears to those beyond the pale of health care.

One sure test in ascertaining the quality of people is the way they treat their dogs. The outcry against Michael Vick is a case in point. And so, a sure test in ascertaining the quality of a culture is the way it treats "the least" amongst them.

The religious conservatives in opposing President Obama's health care initiative have sided with Cain's barbarism. As with the priest and the Levite in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, they've passed "by on the other side." Indifference is the most acute form of hatred.

The issue in the current debate is paying the price of being civilized or barbaric. The Republicans, cheaping out, are choosing the barbaric. They'll cheerfully go to war, sending the young into harm's way, but on binding up the wounded and caring for the dispossessed they're as bitter as gall. They should hang their heads in shame.

SPIRALING INTO EXTINCTION

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (8/9/09)

Frenzy has overtaken the Republican opposition to President Obama as though it's in the final stages of a self-inflicted extermination. The frenzy is exampled by a grasping for life by lies. Whether or not the frenzied believe their own lies, they lie which is a sure sign of impotence. The truth is not making them free but imprisoning them in their own deceits.

The electronically disembodied voice on my telephone said the government would determine how I died if President Obama's health insurance initiative passed, offing me to save money. In addition to lying, it played on a fear rooted in ignorance. Expectedly, it was the work of Washington lobbyists paid by an insurance company.

The Republican Party has long been spiraling into extinction, proofed by its opposition to Sonia Sotomajor becoming a Justice of the Supreme Court. Beginning with their so-called "Southern Strategy," the Republicans decided to woo Southerners in a race-based policy, inevitably becoming a regional party.

Not only has it decided to be "Whites Only" with a few token
Blacks and Hispanics, it's decided to go elderly. With personalities like oysters, they say they want to expand the appeal of the Republican Party and then vote against the confirmation of a female Hispanic. Actually, they want to be an aged, white, male party composed of old geezers like themselves with a female Alaskan cracker for vitality's illusion. With a smile like a grimace, John McCain has become the face of the Republican Party and Rush Limbaugh its brains.

CAPITALISM IN MEDICINE

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (8/5/09)


We socialize services that should be available to everyone. We pay taxes for governments to administer our roads and highways. We've do the same with the Postal Service. Most water systems are owned by some government or agency. With Arizona the sorry exception, many cities and counties own the power systems. If they're owned by corporations, they're closely supervised by the government.

If every citizen merits health care, it should be socialized. It's really a no-brainer unless it's desirable to have the greed inherent in capitalism corrupt our health care as it has done over the years. Physicians' offices, resembling automobile repair garages plastered with Pennzoil, Napa, and Castrol signs, use memo pads advertising drug companies and signs suggesting specific drugs, such as, Lipitor. While the physicians may look like hucksters, the real issue is a corruption both pervasive and malignant.

Ghostwriters employed by drug companies, such as Wyeth, wrote scientific papers in medical journals backing the use of hormone replacement therapy from 1998 to 2005. In 2002 researchers found that menopausal women who took these drugs had increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease, and stroke. A later study found that older women using these drugs were at an increased risk for dementia. These hired gun articles appeared in The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the International Journal of Cardiology.

The capitalists of Wall Street, drug companies, and insurance companies brought us our inefficient health care system. Let's get them out of medicine for our own well-being.