[Vision2020] killer editorial

[Bill London]

I was very impressed (as I often am) by Tom Henderson's editorial this morning in the Tribune -- especially his summary last paragraph ...see below....BL

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T.H. - For too many, America is a Third World country


Tom Henderson
Ever wonder why bleeding hearts carp about the disadvantaged, about the inequities of race and culture? 

After all, America is the land of opportunity. If the so-called "disadvantaged" just pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, they'd have the same chance every upper-middle-class white kid has for a comfortable life. 

Their chances might even be better -- given all those quotas and hiring preferences. 

Sure. 

Then explain why the United States is practically a Third World country when it comes to infant mortality. Nearly five babies per 1,000 in this country never make it past infancy. 

Among industrialized nations, only Latvia has a higher infant mortality rate. 

We may all be equal in this country. But as the saying goes, some of us are more equal than others. Behind America's delusions about upward mobility lies a giant chasm between the haves and have-nots. 

Many of the have-nots have brown skin. Among America's black population, the infant mortality rate is nine deaths per 1,000 -- closer to rates in the Third World than to those among industrialized nations. 

That's not because black people refuse to better themselves. It's because the people holding the purse strings either refuse to acknowledge the continuing inequities of race and class in American life -- or they just plain, flat don't give a damn. 

They would rather imagine a Culture of Victimhood, where the downtrodden have only themselves to blame because they whine too much or have low self-esteem. 

How convenient. 

To acknowledge the problem would mean accepting the responsibility to actually do something about it -- like improving access to health care. 

And that would mean recognizing -- along with practically every other industrialized nation on the planet -- that health care is a right, not a privilege. 

''Our health care system focuses on providing high-tech services for complicated cases. We do this very well," says Kenneth Thorpe, a health policy expert at Emory University. 

''What we do not do is provide basic primary and preventive health care services. We do not pay for these services and do not have a delivery system that is designed to provide primary prevention." 

Do we truly have equal opportunity in this country? Or does it just seem that way when you live too far above the street to hear other people's babies cry? -- T.H. 
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