News Flash: False Statements Preceded War

I guess I understand the reasons why the corporate media has avoided using the word "lie" to describe numerous and various statements by our president, but it's hard not to use that word in analyzing the leadup to the Iraq war.

But two organizations recently released a study that stops just short of using that term, after doing exhaustive research of what was said by administration officials in comparison to the information that was available at the time.

The study, which got a surprising amount of media coverage, identified 935 false statements regarding Iraq over the two-year period following September 11, 2001.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

...

It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

The full study can be found on the Center for Public Integrity's web site, which also contains a graphic that would be humorous if so many human lives had not been lost. Titled "False Statements by Month," it shows the number of lies growing steadily throughout 2002, peaking in February 2003 at 140, and then gradually declining after that.

I'm not sure that most Americans needed such a detailed study to realize that the administration is morally and spiritually bankrupt, but it's nice to see someone willing to call a spade a spade, backed up by irrefutable research, and get some media coverage for doing so.

Worst Healthcare in the Industrialized World

Well, it was already obvious to me that health care stinks in the U.S., and now even the corporate media is reporting this fact. A recent article (as well as a report I heard on NPR) describes the latest analysis by the Commonwealth Fund that ranks our country dead last in timely and effective healthcare delivery among 19 industrialized countries studied.

[The study] looked at death rates in subjects younger than 75 that could have been prevented by timely and effective medical care.

The researchers found that while most countries surveyed saw preventable deaths decline by an average of 16 percent, the United States saw only a four percent dip.

The result of this slower improvement is that the U.S. moved from 15th to 19th since 1997-98. Interestingly, the number one country was France, a country derided by conservatives for its socialist leanings. That nation's healthcare system, fully funded by the government and serving citizens and visitors alike, is often noted for its quality of care, efficient administration, and effective public health strategies.

Some might say that as long as we're improving here in the U.S., what's the problem? The problem is that we're improving from a pretty dismal low point. The fact that hundreds of thousands of people die unnecessarily in our health care system is inexcusable. Yet this is a little-reported aspect of our healthcare crisis. Journalists, polititians, and even educated liberal activists typically have the financial resources to avoid situations of marginal care, and family and friends with the ability to advocate for them if they do wind up in such a situation.

But there are many without those resources, and it's this demographic that fuels our high mortality statistics. Our two-tier system--good insurance for some, little or no coverage for others--creates the situation of uneven care that we see today. It also increases costs for everyone.

"It is notable that all countries have improved substantially except the US," said Ellen Nolte, lead author of the study.

Had the United States performed as well as any of the top three industrialized countries, there would have been 101,000 fewer deaths per year, the researchers said.

Our country needs universal care. The most efficient and effective delivery system for such care is a single-payer government system, which is politically untenable. The major Democratic presidential candidates have decent proposals--not as good as single payer, but better than nothing.

And one more thing--don't let the AMA get too involved in writing the rules. Alternative care must be a big part of improved health in this country. The M.D. no longer has the godlike status of a generation ago. The best care is a balanced approach--compassionate, spiritual, scientific, and holistic.

Alternative Giving

This year, almost all of our Christmas gifts for family members were made through the alternative giving program at our church. We're a liberal church, and many of us have families that are mostly conservative, theologically and politically. We're also a mostly middle class church, and most of our families don't have material needs.

As a result, our missions and outreach ministry saw an opportunity to provide an alternative to the traffic jams around the malls, the dilemma of trying to buy gifts that avoid offending the values of either the giver or the recipient, and the perceived obligation to buy someone another trinket that doesn't have lasting value. It also signaled the end of most of my own efforts to convince my family that my faith and my politics are better than theirs, mostly by giving liberal books as Christmas gifts.

Our alternative giving program enabled people to give donations in honor of friends of family members to any of a couple dozen charities that were pre-screened by the committee. Those who wanted could write a single, tax-deductible check to the church, from which the money is dispersed to the charities. I paid the charities directly to enable employer matching of the gift.

Our committee selected 20 or so charities, all of which reflect our church's values, and some of which reflect values of more conservative people. My family members did not receive donations to the charities on our list that advocate a response to global warming, equal rights for sexual minorities, universal health care, civil rights for oppressed people, and so forth, because those would have made them feel uncomfortable politically. Instead, we gave to Habitat for Humanity, Care, Medical Teams International, and Save the Children--charities that are consistent with the values of just about everyone. Yet across our church, almost all of the charities on our list received a donation.

The program was a tremendous success in our church, and the committee found in its research that a number of families in the church have practiced alternative giving for many years. One family described the family Thanksgiving celebration, which includes a time when everyone goes through the Heifer Project catalog and requests alternative gifts--a cow or a dozen chicks for a poor farming family, a well for a village without clean drinking water, etc.

Alternative giving has become something of a fad within progressive circles, with many web sites offering resources and ideas, and even radio commercials on our progressive talk station. It's even becoming more common in evangelical churches, something that offers me additional hope that Rick Warren's generation of evangelical leaders will have more balanced priorities than the generation of Jerry Falwall, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson.