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Cry of the Poor |
"How can it be that even today there are still people dying of hunger? Condemned to illiteracy? Lacking the most basic medical care? Without a roof over their heads? . . .
"Christians must learn to make their act of faith in Christ by discerning His voice in the cry for help that rises from this world of poverty."
Pope John Paul II
Novo Millennio Ineunte, no. 50
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Queen of Peace |
Pray for Us! |
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Why should a Catholic vote for Dean? |
Core facts:
- 24,000 people died from hunger today, and 1 billion others are on the verge of joining them. We need a government willing to work with the rest of the world to address such global crises.
- The lives of 90,000 unborn children worldwide were ended today, so we need to work as Catholics to dramatically reduce the number of abortions in practical ways first (and focus on theoretical debates later), as Howard Dean did in Vermont.
- Bush raised $130 million last year, mostly in $2000 chunks from special interests. Howard Dean embodied campaign finance reform by raising $40 million in bits averaging only $77 from hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, leaving his campaign completely beholden to them, to us.
Catholic social teaching stresses that God's kingdom of justice, peace, and love will come and replace our current society only when each individual strives for holiness and each heart is converted to Christ's way of forgiveness and self-giving love. No economic system or political saviour is going to solve all our problems.
That said, the President of the United States has tremendous influence in our country and throughout the world--especially in these days of one unequalled superpower. (We should probably allow people throughout the world to vote for the U.S. President, considering how much influence we have over them.) It is of the utmost importance, then, for every Catholic to consider what kind of country and world we are helping to create by casting our votes for a particular candidate.
Our current President has
- deepened divisions in this country after campaigning as a uniter;
- showered advantages on the richest of the rich at the expense of the rest of us after running as compassionate; and
- after expressing disdain for "nation-building" during his campaign, he inspired fear and hate for America throughout the world by attacking Iraq on false premises.
Gov. Howard Dean, M.D., opposed the war in Iraq from the start, citing the utter lack of reliable evidence that Iraq was either itself an imminent threat to us or providing support to terrorists who were. He supports repealing the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy so that we will have a solid financial foundation for
- making healthcare affordable for all,
- actually providing the resources needed to strengthen our nation's schools, and
- supporting small businesses with an economic stimulus package that actually provides new jobs.
Of particular interest to Catholics, Dean exhibits a consistent commitment to justice.
- He will create a National Housing Trust fund to help urban communities address the alarming fact that one in seven households pays more than half its income on housing costs, lives in substandard conditions, or both.
- He supports including conditions in our trade pacts requiring other countries to both recognize the rights of workers to organize and meet minimal environmental standards, which would protect the poor in other countries and help keep American jobs here.
- He will reform farm subsidies so that they go only to the small farmers who need the help, and not to the giant agribusinesses monopolizing the world market and adding to problem of global hunger by putting local farmers out of business.
- He will replace the industry executives Bush has appointed to run the government agencies designed to regulate industries, with true industry watchdogs willing to protect the environment and protect workers from tragedies like Enron.
- Dean is calling for a national discussion about lingering racial divisions and the embarrassing wage gap between men and women performing comparable jobs.
- He was the first governor to sign legislation recognizing same-sex civil unions, ending discrimination against homosexuals and challenging us to end hateful or disparaging attitudes toward Americans with homosexual orientations.
- He has reached out in a special way to Native Americans, whose treatment by our government is perhaps the darkest part of our nation's history.
Unfortunately, Dean is pro-choice. He opposed the partial-birth abortion ban and has even been affiliated with Planned Parenthood (though it is certain he has not performed any abortions himself.) This angers me. I am completely opposed to these positions of Dean's and I have communicated that to his campaign. Abortion is a horrible tragedy involving millions of innocent lives, and Catholics are right to be deeply concerned about it. I speak of this issue last not because it is less important but because it is indeed the most important and I hope you will remember what I have to say about it.
The main point I have to make about this issue is that Catholics have no presidential candidate to turn to who shares their views on abortion. President Bush is unable to convince his own wife of the pro-life position, he is poised to appoint the pro-choice Alberto Gonzales to the Supreme Court as soon as he gets the chance, and he has failed to act in any way to reduce the number of abortions that occur, both while in Texas and as President, except for the few partial-birth abortions that are not done to save the life of the mother (but he passed that bill knowing that it would be immediately suspended by the courts). Bush actually supports the "right" of victims of rape and incest to kill their unborn child. His neglect and even active disenfranchisement of the poor makes it all the more difficult for poor mothers to choose life. His promotion of abstinence-only education is a large step in the wrong direction with respect to reducing the number of abortions. (Abstinence-only is the right policy where AIDS transmission is concerned, and I personally oppose contraception and support greater emphasis of the many benefits of abstinence, but folks who irresponsibly engage in sex outside of a permanent commitment should be taught how to avoid creating a third victim of their harmful act.) Finally, if Bush really shared our view that abortion is the most tragic and pressing problem facing our nation today, why did he altogether decline to even mention abortion in this recent State of the Union Address? Catholics must ask whether they should let Bush's half-hearted claim to be "pro-life" decide their vote for President.
Because no candidate for president appears willing to provide the bold leadership needed to make this country fully pro-life, I believe the first priority of the pro-life movement in the short-term should be to immediately adopt policies aimed at preventing unwanted pregnancies and helping women to choose life. This is the proper response to the fact that 4,000 abortions occur every day -- to act quickly and pragmatically to dramatically reduce that horrendous number and save as many lives as we can. We should also continue the wider debate about outlawing abortion (especially by challenging the Democratic party's obscene zero-tolerance policy toward pro-life politicians on the national level), but we must acknowledge the general legal debate as a longer term project (with a Constitutional ammendment as its goal).
You may be relieved to learn, then, that Gov. Dean worked tirelessly to decrease teen pregnancies (4 in 10 of which end in abortion) in Vermont by 49%. He also started an innovative program to have health professionals visit new parents during the first year after birth to reassure young mothers that they are not alone and help them with anything they need. Dean has already announced his intention to extend these successful initiatives to the whole nation. Dean's other bold programs for addressing the needs of the poor would also do much to both prevent the desperation and ignorance that leads to unwanted pregnancies and help those women who do become pregnant against their wishes to choose life for their child.
You can read more detailed arguments and the thoughts of others like you in the Abortion Forum, and please contribute your own arguments and opinions. Please do give this issue the consideration it deserves, but remember that it is difficult to use it as a crutch to support President Bush at all costs when it is evident that another Bush term will not benefit the unborn in any significant way, and when it is so clear that the costs related to other life issues will be terrible in scope.
Governor Dean demonstrated his willingness and political ability to act on his principles in a variety of ways in Vermont, where he was re-elected decisively five times. He maintained a balanced budget throughout, even while providing universal healthcare to children (in a state with below-national-average per capita personal income).
Since Howard Dean is the only major candidate who opposed the Iraq war from the beginning (as Pope John Paul II did so strenuously), it would seem that only he is fit to make the tough judgments required by national security issues. He would have fostered the good will of the world toward America after Sept. 11 and strengthened diplomatic ties and international law, rather than trampling on them all. He would have relied on unbiased intelligence rather than shaping intelligence to fit ideological needs and then still lying about the results. He would have spent our nation's attention and resources finding and fighting the real threat to our nation -- Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.
Finally, it seems to me that Howard Dean is not only capable of beating Bush, but he may be the only Democratic candidate capable of taking back our country from Bush. Everyone seems to be assuming that Mr. Kerry and the other more typical, establishment candidates have a better chance than Dean of competing with Bush. But the way to beat Bush is not by imitating him -- whether you are talking about his foreign policy "experience" of supporting the Iraq war, his skill at soliciting funds from powerful donors with implicit promises of favoritism, or his "slick" ability to win political support by making promises he will not keep. The way to beat George Bush is by giving people a reason to come out and vote by offering them a real alternative, by energizing them, and by empowering them to change this country forever.
I challenge you to learn more about Howard Dean. Share your findings and your thoughts on this website, designed for you to do just that. If you come to support Dean, tell everyone you know why you do, and let's take our country back!
"The biggest lie spoken by politicians on platforms like this is, 'Elect me, and I'll solve all your problems.' But the truth is, the power to change this country lies in your hands, not mine."
- Gov. Howard Dean, M.D. |
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Theodore Roosevelt |
"To announce that there should be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people."
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