War and Poverty

There's an interesting piece in this week's edition of Truthdig!, the online magazine put out by my man Robert Scheer. In "War in Iraq, Poverty in America," Bill Boyarsky connects the dots between the monies being squandered in Iraq while we invest far too little in the people or infrastructure here at home.

They’re closing a hospital in my city, but I’m sure nobody in the rest of the country gives a damn.


If Robert F. Kennedy were alive and running for president, he’d tell America about the demise of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital in South Los Angeles and what it means to America. He’d make Americans give a damn.

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This is the kind of issue that John Edwards is talking about in his presidential campaign, just as Robert Kennedy did in 1968.


Edwards speaks out more strongly than any of the other Democratic presidential candidates on the direct link between the Iraq war and the increasingly desperate plight of the poor, as well as the growing financial troubles of the middle class.

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And national health insurance, with everyone carrying a Medicare card, would permit the poor to get the examinations—breast, colon, prostate, heart and the rest—that help prevent long-term and severe illness. The ill could go to any hospital. Those suffering from cancer, for example, could choose the hospital with the most experienced cancer specialists.

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We can’t do this unless the war ends. There isn’t enough money. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. saw the connection. If they had been around today, their words would have been so powerful that the political journalists couldn’t ignore them. Kennedy and King would have led, and the country would have followed.

In case you were wondering how the money being wasted in Iraq could be put to better use, the National Priorities Project has a few ideas.