So many of our public decision-making processes are broken. And the public knows it. Here’s a recent sampling.
The bad. People in Zambia are on the verge of starvation…in massive numbers. It’s not that there isn’t enough readily available food. There is. It was grown by local farmers and stockpiled. Some countries have sent money to purchase the food so it can avert a humanitarian crisis. Not the U.S. It insists that all food aid be American grown food shipped on American ships. If even a quarter of American dollars were used to buy local food, one million more people could be fed for six months and 50,000 lives could be saved.
According to the New York Times, over the past three years, four companies and their subsidiaries have made sales of more than half the $2.2. billion in food aid. Shipping companies were paid $1.3 billion over the same period to move the food aid overseas.
What do America shippers, agricultural companies and elected officials have to say? Gloria Tosi, a lobbyist and immediate past president of the American Maritime Congress, an association of United States-flag ship owners, says ”There’s no constituency for cash.â€
Not only is the self-interest sickening, this is a dreadful slap in the face to the American people. I do not believe for one second that they would insist that American food aid be home grown and shipped.
The Ugly. A person having a heart attack can avert muscle damage to the heart if he gets the proper care within about an hour or so. The problem is that many—most—hospitals cannot offer the appropriate emergency care such as angioplasty. However, they don’t want to divert their patients to other hospitals because Medicare reimbursement rates depend on the acuity of care a hospital offers. If the hospital stops serving patients with the more grave conditions, its reimbursements for other care will decrease.
The Uglier. A republican controlled committee doctored the report of an investigation into voter fraud, so that the report would suggest that fraud is far more prevalent than it is. This helped support crackdowns on voter registration in numerous states. Upshot? The ONE thing that probably unites us as American…the unimpeded right to vote, has been maliciously stripped away for some voters. And no surprise, it’s the poor and elderly paying the price.
The Good. I’m not going to comment on the Don Imus uproar. What is interesting though (and not at all surprising) is that MSNBC’s decision to pull Imus from their programming was due to NBC employees. NBC took the time to seek out the views of employees, especially women, who felt strongly that Imus is antithetical to their values.
Americans do care. Ask them. They’ll say buy grain from Zambia, redirect the ambulances and allow people to vote. I’m sure of it.
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