How Sick Are We?

A. Unabashed Pacifist:

Vengeance cannot bring peace.

B. Unabashed Christian:

Holy One,
You have entered our spirit lives without fanfare.
You enter our wounded, vulnerable spirits as a healing, soothing presence.
You minimize, even sacrifice, your presence so that our spirit might thrive.
But you return again and again to bring our spirits into the eternal sphere.
Amen

C. Unquoting Jesus:

“I don’t want anybody putting words in my mouth.”

[Yeah, like it would have made any difference.]


D. Blog: SICKO

What does it profit a nation to dominate the whole world, if it loses its soul?

Michael Moore’s latest movie does a great service to the US public by portraying, in a relatively calm, personal, reasonable and largely unemotional way, the serious problems with the US healthcare “system.” I want to say “industry” or “business” rather than “system,” because it seems to me those words more accurately reflect what we deal with when we need healthcare.

Too much of the “system” focuses on profit, not caring for people’s health needs. In a capitalist economy, profit matters above all else. We want to believe that other values impinge upon and limit the profit motive, but in a corporate setting, ultimately too often they do not. Profit matters more than peace. Profit matters more than truth. Profit matters more than justice. Profit matters more than children. Profit matters more than democracy or freedom - except freedom to do business. Profit matters more than human rights. Profit matters more than families, even employee families. Profit matters more than people. Period. Corporations have to create profit and then more profit, and then more profit - or else they will disappoint their shareholders and “the market.”

I understand that corporations do many positive things. I also understand that preserving a positive public image influences profitability. Profit is their supreme value.

I wonder whether part of the U.S. image problem in the world doesn’t relate to the perception that as a nation we have made profit our primary goal, to the degree that SICKO illustrates in just the one area of healthcare?

The corporate economy going global, naturally, also seems to value profit above all else. Profit appears to be the god worshipped in the “new world order,” the “global economy” that seeks to control our lives.

I can understand why people the world over rebel against this false god that demands human sacrifice to satisfy its ravenous appetite. I understand that someone like Michael Moore had to make a movie like SICKO to reveal the very bad wizard who appears too frequently when people seek help for their healthcare needs.