COULD THERE BE BETTER WAY?

Progress On Social Ills Demands Better Thought, Action

I hope we do it better this time than the last few times we declared
"War on _________" (you fill in the blank). There was the War on
Drugs, Crime, Poverty, Corruption, Illiteracy, Welfare as we know it,
whatever.

Each of these declarations of "War" was a political feel-good
campaign to make people feel something was being done and that their
political leaders were looking out for their best interests.

In each case, there was a lot of high visibility action taken against
the symptoms of the problem with little or nothing being done in the
low visibility realm of the root causes of the problems. It is macho
to put more people in jail with longer terms and expand the list of
death sentence offenses (even though we are nearly the only
"civilized" country that still has a death penalty) than to work on
the causes of crime or drug abuse.

It is politically more productive to brag about drugs interdicted
after leaving the substance farmers of Bolivia or Afganistan than to
work on the causes of the demand in our own streets and office
complexes. Drugs will not stop coming in untilthe demand side is
addressed.

It is easier to demand higher scores on student tests, then give away
vouchers, than it is to do the drudgery needed to improve the
environment where the poorly performing schools and students are
located. It is popular to put a 2-year limit on welfare but unpopular
to spend the money on child care, health care and lifestyle training
needed to keep these people off welfare.

It is sexy to limit abortion but not to provide the training to keep
young teens out of the situations that lead to pregnancy, or to work
on the examples set for them by the popular media. Arrest street
corner drug addicts but don't give them any treatment while in jail.
Then point to them as they drift back into the familiar pattern and
say, "See. I told you they were no good."

A prevented crime saves in four ways. First, it keeps the "perp" out
of trouble and perhaps on a contributing path in society. Second, it
saves the law enforcement system the time and cost of watching and
persuing the "perp."

Third, it saves society the cost of incarcerating someone who could
have been paying taxes (or for a lower cost per year, could have been
sent to Harvard).

And fourth, it saves the victims from suffering the crimes the "perp"
perpetrates. Everyone can sleep better and safer for less money. What
ever happened to the old saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure." It might take more than an ounce of prevention to
address the root causes of the things we declare "war" on, but it
would surely be in the long range benefit to everyone concerned, with
the possible exception of the politician who does the declaring to
win the next election.

UNCOMMON SENSE

We might even have to admit that some of our past governmental
policies and programs even causes many of the problems we see today.
If we helped create these problems, we are obligated to help remedy
them, for our own self interest.

Life at home and abroad can never be safe and secure while some of us
use up 100 times the amount of the world's resources that others get
to enjoy. They see what we have and want it. If they can't get it,
they don't want us to have iteither. The wider the gulf between the
"haves" and the "have nots" grows, the louder the bang when someone
tries to even things out.

On our present declaration of war, I hope we go beyond seeking out a
few named individuals hiding behind a weak and unpopular government
of a war-ravaged country. I hope we speak out against the religious
fanatic schools in Pakistan that provide most of the terror recruits.
I hope we speak out that there will be no peace in Isreal while the
powerful government bulldozes the homes of Palestinians while
building new homes for their own armed citizens on the land of some
fourth- generation olive farmer.

THINK GLOBAL, ACT ...

I hope we will look at the hatred preached by extremists of all types
in many countries, including the U.S. I hope we will seek justice for
minorities in all parts of the world. I hope we will stop supporting
dictators in one part of the world because they can help us while
ignoring desperate poverty near our own shores.

I hope we will take the attitude that the future of people should be
determined by their own educated votes, not by our political
preferences or treaties (Taiwan, Cuba, Tibet - to name a few - and
that more weight should be given to minorities with no homeland, like
the Kurds, the Basques or whoever.)

Starving children in the Sudan whould be as much a problem for us as
in Maine. We should not be supporting the clear cutting of the Amazon
rain forest jsut so we could have cheaper burgers at McD's. We should
not turn over the world economy, and thus labor and enviromnent
allows, to a closed door group of business leaders who are answerable
only to their stockholders.

We must work for world justice, not just for ourselves in Maine, but
for the landless peasant in Ethiopia. We must work for resource
conservation on a global basis so that there will be enough for all
before we use it all up. We must feed the hungry, cloth the naked,
free the slave, comfort the sorrowful, train the ignorant. We must do
all this not just because our dominant religion demands it. But
because if we don't, we may be in the next building blown up.