Food or fuel? Making the poor pay for climate change

G8 muckety-mucks meeting in Japan to discuss global warming were roundly scolded by Catholic leaders from around the globe this week, including himself Pope Benedict. Bene's dictums were related to the good old preferential option for the poor as G8 talks, apparently for the most part ineffectual, continued around the problem of climate change and whether or not the good folk in the overly developed world planned on doing anything to address the escalating catastrophe. Fighting climate change quite literally by taking food out of the mouths of the poor and converting it into the allegedly more climate friendly ethanol was part of the reason for this green Pope's concern with the high powered discussions.

But pity the poor Western policymakers, who can't win for losing on these complex, concurrent dilemmas. Even as the Pope was chiding them for not doing enough to protect the world's suddenly detonating number of hungry, the good researchers of the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development were handslapping them for once again not doing enough to combat global warming.

Return of the son of Margin Notes

Apologies all around to my fans (fan?), but I have been aways from here a while--somehow American punditry soldiered on without me--first tied up with some special webbie projects at Claretian Pubs and then on paternal leave to handle the arrival of my latest contribution to U.S. Catholic tithe pool. Declan Francis Clarke arrived, in true Irish tenant farmer fashion, at home on May 8, joining his mother, myself, brothers Eoin and Aidan, and sister Ellie. We now have enough for our own punk rock band.

It's back to work for me though, so a quick brief on what may become a Margin Notes column in the near future. Here's Amnesty International detailing a somewhat unremarked upon, ongoing tragedy: the plight of Iraqi refugees and internally displaced people. More than 4 million Iraqis are currently refugees or homeless inside Iraq.

Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Colin Powell told the prez that: "You break it; you buy it." It seems reasonable to assert that the U.S. has a special responsibility to the people--a great many of whom come from Iraq's Christian minority--who have been dislocated by the war and internecine violence in Iraq, yet while each month thousands flee to neighboring countries ill-equipped to receive them, the State Department has allowed fewer than 7000 Iraqi refugees into the United States. This seems a feeble effort in the face of so many traumatized by a war whose origins appear each passing Senate committee report more grounded in cold-blooded calculation and willfully delusional thinking than even the thinnest "just war-ish" argument for self defense.

Slow torch to China

China expected that the 2008 Beijing Olympics was going to bring world attention to the Middle Kingdom. They likely didn't expect so many people to be so interested in carrying a torch for them . . . wait, are they trying to stomp on that thing? In PR lingo there's no such thing as bad press, but as the Olympic Torch gets manhandled around the world, China must be wondering if this kind of publicity is a fair payoff for all the $ they're spending on the 2008 Olympiad. Too bad. Maybe they should of thought of that before Darfur, Tibet, suppression of civil rights and muslim minorities, beijing pollution, inmate organ harvesting, lead-based toys and filler-poisoned food and pharmeceuticals. Am I missing anything? Criminy. Most-favored-nation indeed (Some of us have long memories Bill Clinton).

When you're trying to buy global attention, you shouldn't be surprised when it turns out that the whole world is watching.

Happy anniversary . . .

As a scattered few thousands among us protested in cities around the country, the rest of us seemed to observe the fifth anniversary of our foolish foray into Iraq in a kind of numbed resignation yesterday. Iraq Body Count offered this scathing assessment.

Anyone who's paying attention should note that the invasion has led to the death of approximately 90,000 civilians directly (And a Lancet account of casualties places the figure much higher at 650,000 in 2006); as of March 19, 3,992 Americans have been killed in action and nearly 30,000 wounded, many grievously. The war so far has cost almost $505 billion and it's long-term costs estimates now exceed $2 trillion. And. There. Is. No. End. In. Sight.

Yesterday our President, finding new non-ground in the shifting quicksands of his increasingly demented justifications for this war, simply noted that it would help the economy and contain the hyperacceleration of the price of gasoline. Told that two-thirds of the American public want the war to end, our Vice President, responded, "So?" Bin Laden meanwhile romps freely across the media landscape--and the plains of of Afghanistan? caves of Pakistan? coffee shops of Saudi Arabia?--issuing threats against Europe and the Pope, apparently unconcerned that he will ever be called to account for 9/11. Why should he be, when American forces are bogged down in the war he hoped they'd fight in Iraq, a war BTW, whatever else is said about its specific strategic or moral failures, which will certainly bankrupt our treasury just as it has already bankrupted our standing in the world and whatever remains of our ethical good judgment.

Lucky Lotto winner receives . . . an all-paid trip to the emergency room?

This is a truly sad commentary on the state of health care in America, that a lottery for the uninsured could be perceived as a positive response to the ongoing crisis . . .

"This is such a wonderful opportunity," said Ellen Pinney, director of the Oregon Health Action Campaign. "We've heard absolutely no complaints, just a lot of hope that they are the ones who will be selected."

Yes . . . and here is my hope, that some day we come to our senses and finally admit that the reason our annual health-care costs escalate at triple or more the rate of inflation even as our overall health scores among the lowest among industrialized states and our rate of dissatisfaction among the highest--with 47 million of us are left out of the system altogether (now that's what I call rationing)--has everything to do with profit maximizing and political influence. The most common-sense approach to paying for this public good, via a single payer (not socialized medicine please note) dares not speak its name in our culture. Can we cut off the propaganda IV from for-profit health care lobbyists for a second and take a gander at the astonishing personal enrichment of health care and big pharma middle to upper management and then talk about truly reforming this system?

The true nature even of the debate has been cynically shifted. It's true health insurance is not a human right, who cares? Health care is. Treatment for injury and illness is. No one knows when they will be unlucky enough to be a victim of a crime or a housefire, but no one expects for-profit police or firefighters to respond to those personal crises. We share the risk and the public good by contributing with our tax dollars to a social service which cannot be properly provided by free market forces. Health care should be treated like a public good, at the minimum, like a public utility. Getting the profit vultures out of the system is the most sensible road to achieving equitable care for all. We cannot even discuss that option in this culture.

I guess given the parameters of that "debate," a lottery for health care makes about as much sense as anything else.

In the meantime, here's hoping you never have to actually use your health insurance.

Family feud gets ugly in Scranton; CST the big loser?

Nothing like a little interfamilial throwdown to burn off some of the bad ju-ju that can build up over the years. A doozey appears to be brewing in Scranton, PA where Bishop Joseph Martino is engaged in an apparent effort to bumrush a company union past his diocesan Catholic school teachers.

Though the matter is already closed, at least according to Martino, his teachers beg to differ. As do some of Scranton high school students who engaged in a student protest/walk out in support of the teachers. Their reward for engaging in this timely exercise in civic responsibility and free expression? Detention, natch. Oh, and their diocesan elders apparently have some written assignment in mind for them during their 2.5 hour punishment. I suggest they have the kids visit our Busy Christians Guide to Catholic Social Teaching and then write an essay explaining why their "strike" in support of the teachers stands more firmly within that tradition than Martino's efforts to squash collective bargaining.

Shields' take on 2008

Mark Shields offered some of his typically amusing and on-target observations about American political life during one of today's closing sessions of the Catholic Roundtable Social Ministry Gathering.

Some highlights:

On 2006 elections:
"2006 was not a Democratic victory. It was a stunning Republican defeat."

On covering the Republican primaries:
"I had to remind myself that the guy with three wives was not the Mormon . . . . I guess in this field Bill Clinton could run as the family values candidate."

On Obama:
"He is the most exciting in terms of candidate appeal since Robert Kennedy. He's the rare candidate who goes beyond the red-blue divide, and in 2008 the country desperately wants to break out of the red-blue paralysis."

On Hillary:
"She's been a good candidate in a bad campaign, but every campaign is a reflection of the candidate."

On party enthusiasm:
"One way to tell if a party is growing? Is it spending its time looking for converts or looking for heretics?" According to Shields, this year Republicans have spent most of their time looking for heretics. I think this parallel might also apply to the contemporary Catholic church in America.

On November:
"The question is not am I better off than I was four years ago, and it's not are you better off than you were four years ago, it's are we better off than we were four years ago? Are the strong among us more just; are the weak among us more secure?"

On an exit strategy for Iraq:
"If we leave, Iraq will be overrun by Iraqis and that, of course, would be unacceptable."