feedback from the community
“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” ~ Albert Einstein
This section includes feedback from members of our community on progressive matters.
Letter to Area Newspapers
Subject: Boccerri: Stand Up And Finish Health Care Reform Or Let Me Die With Dignity
Dear Editor,
My faithful dog of 15 years could no longer move about. Looking in his eyes there was no doubt he was in great physical pain as well as mentally depressed. I, having lost my job and forced into early retirement, had no money for vet fees. I could not continue to watch his suffering and took the only moral action I could. With tears in my eyes I ended his suffering.
In 2008 I was hungry and voted for change, now I am starving for it. The need for real health care reform is greater today then it was Tuesday. An election in Massachusetts didn't change the fact that every day, people are still going bankrupt. Insurance companies are still denying care. We still need health care reform now, and we need it done right.
If, for whatever political reason, you cannot support real and immediate healthcare reform, I ask that you look at the desperation and depression in my eyes and realize your only other moral choice is end the suffering and support legally assisted suicide.
James Wheelis
Letters to The Daily Record
UNFAIR TRADE AND HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT
I believe it was the philosopher Immanuel Kant who said that in transactions, when one party cravenly takes unfair advantage of another, for instance when a seller imposes exorbitant prices, or when a buyer deceptively pays too little for the product of someone’s labor, exploitation replaces capitalism. Does this economic proposition explain the observation that upwards of 75% of manufactured items sold in our stores are made offshore? Kant’s assertion certainly raises the troubling question of a detrimental link between the growing impossibility of buying something made by American workers and America’s stifling >10% unemployment rate.
It’s avoiding the issue to castigate past administrations for failing to consider the connection between American unemployment and ultimately harmful trade agreements. The egregious incompetence of the free-trade Bushes, or the grinning credulity of Clintonites with their disadvantageous trade deals with China are history. And it could take years to entice back the foreign operations of those hundreds of short-sighted domestic corporations which moved elsewhere to augment profits. The best we can hope for in the near term is that, by turning attention to the plight of American workers and the increasing weakness of our industrial underpinnings, the Obama administration will be smart enough and tough enough to reverse those portions of our downward spiral driven by misguided trade policies.
From my perspective, every tool, toy, television, telephone, or whatever dingus made offshore means an American job, and an American worker, has been sacrificed. So I can’t understand, given astronomical trade deficits with China for example, why our congress and administration aren’t actively addressing debilitating trade imbalances. Can’t our government require equitable, mutually beneficial practices? China manipulates its currency to maintain export advantages. It aggressively restricts importation of American manufactured goods. Yet the United States naively tolerates China’s currency predations while blithely allowing vast amounts underpriced Chinese stuff to pour into our country.
How can we tolerate trading partners that expansively enrich themselves while our fellow-countrymen suffer, yet borrow from those same countries to indulge tax reductions for the ultra-wealthy and to fight budget-crippling, obscenely ineffective wars? Right now, in Ohio and all over America, families are becoming destitute because of job loss. In turn they lose their homes, their health and their dignity. In my opinion, it’s time for America to vigorously undertake trade reform, even imposing import duties where necessary, to help bring back manufacturing – and employment to our workers.
Erwin Riedner
Wooster
THREE CHEERS FOR SHEEP
In an October letter to the editor, characterized as vitriolic by some among our local flat-earthers, I directed the pleasingly apt analogy, “dim-witted sheep,” toward the sanctimonious herd that gullibly parrots the rhetoric generated by interests allied with ego, profit and power. In contrast, I attempted to laud the more informed souls of wider and more generous world views (generous to a fault: they too often fail to confront the relentless and parochial right-wing baloney).
Unfortunately and alas, by using the term “dim-witted sheep,” I inflamed the seething passions of regional shepherds and sheep farmers, who charged I had maligned the innocent animals from which they earn their daily bread. So when raucous mobs of sheep folks, brandishing crooks and chanting pro-sheep slogans, began picketing my house, I came to realize that I had grievously offended, and I needed to darn well contritely admit it.
It is thus I herewith ask sheep and sheep farmer alike, indeed all who read this letter, to understand I have absolutely no quarrel with sheep, in any of their several varieties. I respect sheep. Nearly every sheep I’ve met has been gently unassuming. Sheep are useful, contributing creatures here on our green earth. I give three cheers for sheep! I would never intentionally take their name in vain. God love them! Sheep are good. I eat lamb chops, as does my family going back for generations. I wear wool.
Nor would I ever intentionally deprecate those allied with the affectionate, humane husbanding of sheep. I hold in hyperbolic esteem those upright citizens who make their livelihood from the feeding and sale of sheep, or sheep parts. I honor those who shear.
I trust this letter clarifies my previous, in which I was merely referring, figuratively, to the teeming knot-heads among the mammal homo sapiens that credulously follow self-aggrandizing bell weathers, without skeptically assessing the frankness and underlying intentions of said bellowing bell weathers. Of course, as I rest certain that there are docile yet upstanding sheep in every pasture, I remain optimistic that the majority populating our precincts is comprised of unselfish and intelligent persons of good will. Still, just as a shepherd, on a bad day, will confide that his sheep can be recalcitrant pains in the neck, I frequently experience disheartening frustration when struggling to comprehend and cope with the flocks of imbecilic mutton-heads of my own species.
Erwin Riedner
Wooster
Let French system be our guide
With all the misinformation coming from health insurance monopolies and their self-serving politician buddies about the evils of government-managed health care, we need to be brought up to speed about how excellent government-supervised systems can be.
I've had firsthand experience in one such system -- in an efficient, national health delivery system when I lived and worked in France. I participated in the same health provision program French citizens enjoy, a carefully regulated system that makes sure everyone has ready access to quality medical services and treatments, with minimal out-of-pocket fees. If America had such a system, citizens, businesses and our economy would be far better off for it.
The French system is not a communist or fascist setup. It doesn't kill grandmothers or ration needed care. It's simply nonprofit on the health insurance side. Doctors are private, drug companies are private; the French go to any physician they wish. The French even pay insurance premiums. But premiums are substantially smaller than Americans' because, French insurance companies being nonprofit, they cannot thrive off the backs of the sick and unfortunate, nor deny or drop coverage to the vulnerable. No Frenchman or woman goes bankrupt from medical bills.
If a French citizen is unable to pay the modest premium, for example because of job loss, dire family circumstance, catastrophic illness or injury, the government takes on the payments. No matter the disease or when a condition occurred, everyone has the right to good care.
As for the nonsense babbled here in America about long waiting times, French people wait less than we do for a physician, surgeon or therapist. France has far lower infant mortality, much longer life expectancy and significantly higher quality of health-life measures than the U.S.
The result is France provides morally responsible, equitable health care, considered among the best in the world. In point of fact, by all measures, from medical access to treatment outcomes, it's hands down better, fairer, more cost-effective and more straightforward than ours. The World Health Organization, as does every credible health rating organization, considers the French model among the finest.
People who insist government-run systems are bad, while pointing to the French or other systems in advanced countries all over the world, are dismally ignorant of what can and has been achieved with government-supervised systems, or worse, are selfishly and deliberately hiding the truth.
Erwin Riedner
Wooster
Letter sent to Senator George Voinovich,
Dear Senator Voinovich,
First of all, thank you for your years of service to our country and especially to our state of Ohio. I have lived a substantial portion of my life in Northeast Ohio, and I have witnessed your career as Mayor of Cleveland, as Governor and now Senator from Ohio, and although I am a lifelong Democrat, I have a great deal of respect for you as a human being. It is because of my faith in your ability to make “human choices” rather than choices that the Republican Party demands of its members that I am writing to you today.
I am a 52-year old wife, mother, and grandmother who was raised Catholic, has been married to the same man for 30 years. My father (a registered Republican) worked for the City of Dayton, then the City of Akron until retirement. My husband owns a small business that has provided for our family and for many other families over the years. Two of our three daughters will have graduated from college; the third has worked since she was in high school and wants to open her own business one day. By most accounts, we fit all the requirements and demographics to be upstanding Republican citizens!
In 2004, we discovered that my husband has congestive heart failure with only 15% of his heart functioning. He was sent directly to the hospital, where he had a defibrillating pacemaker implanted in his chest the next morning. Thankfully, we were covered by health insurance at that time. Since then, however, finding and being accepted for health care insurance has been a challenge. But you know what? Our story is not nearly as tragic as are so many others’. My husband lived.
Although he had to close all of the auxiliary offices of his company and let many people go, he has managed to continue to work and provide a life for us. However, almost 47 million people right now are at risk for not surviving such a catastrophic discovery, simply because they cannot afford to see a doctor about a nagging cough that they've had for several weeks (my husband’s motivation for his visit to the doctor) or the headaches they've been getting regularly for the past several months.
The arguments I have heard against health care reform are emotional, polarizing, and remarkably diverse. But they all seem to come down to some pretty basic fears: 1) That the government will be involved in decisions about what treatments will be allowed, 2) That insuring everyone somehow makes it less likely that people with coverage now will be able to get the treatment they need, and 3) That working Americans will end up paying for “low-lifers” and drug addicts and other “bad” people to get insured, and that they may actually have to share a hospital room with one of “them” one day.
This last point, (or variations of) unfortunately, has been the one I have heard most often in recent months, and it is the one that not only breaks my heart, but enrages me as well. It’s also the one that your party and its lobbying agents have encouraged by not denouncing the hate-filled tactics and language being used to disrupt and discredit town hall meetings across the country. This from “the party of God”?
There is a sad irony in those claiming the most righteousness coming to meetings waving banners painted with lies and the ugliest of character smears and carrying guns and automatic rifles. It is sad for me personally, because the objects of such hate are people that are important to many of us: they are, among many others, the guys who built my new front steps and deck, and the crew who comes each week to cut our lawn. They are my dear friend, a young woman with two young children who attends the University of Akron full-time and whose partner works in a machine shop while she cleans houses to make ends meet. They are the day care providers for children of working parents, and the sales clerks in nearly every small retail store in the country. They are my daughters. They are the artists, actors, musicians, chefs, hairdressers, widowed women, and single moms, the guys that fix my car when I've had an accident, real estate agents, preschool teachers, and so many others who work every day, who make our lives easier and better. They are the millions who have no chance to receive employer-supplied care, and cannot afford to buy health insurance for themselves. Do we really believe that they are unworthy of health care?
I am what is commonly referred to as a “lapsed Catholic”. However, I remember a lot about what I was taught during the 12 years that I spent in Catholic schools, and have learned a lot more since then. But there were three things that were absolutely expected of us as children of God:
- 'Love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Matthew 22:36-40). The nuns expected that we understood the first commandment about loving God…it was this second commandment that they pressed into our consciousness, and it was this one that directed us to see those less fortunate among us as real people who were all part of our one big family, and for whom we had a collective responsibility. Remember “The Good Samaritan”?
- “For those to whom much is given, much is required”. President Kennedy might have said it, but God thought it first. Do what is right because it is right, not because you expect any kind of reward. Remember the story of the Rich man and the Beggar Lazarus:
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's Side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.' But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.”
- Tell the truth. At all times. (Because even God himself wouldn't help you if you lied. )
“When [the devil] lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:44
Your party, Senator, the party that has claimed ownership of “Christian Values” for itself, that claims to be the party of “real Americans” has made an absolute mockery of the very values it purports to hold dear. Men who hold themselves up as beacons of purity and honesty, who point their wagging fingers at others who are deemed “less” (less worthy, less Christian, less wealthy, less important, less conservative, less honest, less…) and are then found out to be guilty of the very “sins” they are so content to expose when it’s someone else’s.
Yours has become a party that camouflages its defense of corporations instead of the citizens of their neighborhoods as “protecting American jobs” while moving most of them out of the country because those companies provide financial “incentives” to elected officials.
Yours is a party, Senator, that is eager to convince their supporters of the insane notion that corporations are the same as human beings that deserve the same rights and protections as humans. In teaming up with those same corporations and their interested lobby groups, your party is one that provokes workers who make $35,000 a year to stop thinking about what is best for their own families and to fight for what’s best for those at the top who make millions of dollars every year by making sure that those people at the bottom stay right where they are.
Yours is a party, Senator, that sanctions the spread of misinformation, and disinformation, contemptuously propagating fear and mistrust between our citizenry, or toward our government, or for anything that even remotely promises to be a victory for “the other side”, no matter how important or necessary it is for those citizens. It is a party unconcerned with the consequences of lying because there are no consequences. Spreading lies no longer requires a retraction; if a lie is discovered, “spinning” the language and repeated denials (more lies) via willing network shills and complicit colleagues can take care of that, no matter how much audio or video tape there is to prove otherwise.
If a felony is committed, jail time is not a concern, becoming a contestant on a dancing game show or getting busy with the writing of memoirs wipe out those debts.
Senator, let’s face it- you know and I know, as most thinking people know, that the Health Care Reforms that the Democrats are trying to put together are absolutely necessary for the well being of our nation.
- They are necessary financially in order to stop the nearly 1 million families each year who have to declare bankruptcy due to a catastrophic illness or injury and lack of adequate health insurance coverage.
- They are financially necessary because without them, the health care system as we know it in this country will collapse completely within the next 8 to 10 years.
- They are politically necessary because if we want to continue to project to the world the image that we have created as the most advanced, intelligent, and progressive nation in the world, we need an advanced, intelligent, progressive, and HEALTHY population, not one saddled with the worst health care system in the industrialized world.
- Finally, and perhaps most importantly, these changes are morally necessary. Because if we are to be the nation we say we are, and that the rest of the world looks to for answers to the most troubling global questions, we must recognize that the access to affordable, quality health care is a right for all citizens, not a privilege for a select few.
Senator Voinovich, I beg of you to step up and do the right thing. Listen to your heart, think with your own brain, and step away from the Republican blockage of President Obama’s Health Care initiatives and vote FOR passage of a bill with a public option attached.
Respectfully,
Julie