HRC: Real Change for a Change
Payday lending company fined for fraud. When folks in need of money---working people who were feeling the pinch of the recession---logged onto a website that promised to match them with banks that would give them loans, their financial information was sold to the payday lenders. Without signing an agreement, the financially strapped citizens suddenly found themselves with $300 more in their accounts---and then, at regular intervals, $90 was deducted from their accounts, for "administrative" fees. And then, their "debts" were sold to debt collectors who hounded them. These folks who were too poor to pay their bills, much less afford an attorney. Can you imagine how it must have felt, especially when they were told that by doing the query, they were actually agreeing to a "loan" with usurious interest payments? Yes, it is great that a court finally slapped the wrists of the Americans who thought it was just fine to rip off their fellow Americans---
But where is the politician who can change the mindset which says 1) a sucker is born everyday and 2) everything is ok if it makes a profit? This double fallacy has deep roots in our country. Our puritan ancestors claimed that material wealth in this lifetime was proof that one was among the elect. And so, we worship at the altar of money---no matter how that money is made. Donald Trump becomes a realistic presidential candidate because he (sometimes) is rich.
Physician going to jail for giving folks (dangerous) chemotherapy that they did not need, because some of them had cancer that was too progressed to benefit, meaning that he probably shortened their lives and increased their suffering. Others did not even have cancer, and yet he exposed them to carcinogens. "First do no harm?" Nope, in this country, it's "Every man for himself." He was caught and charged---with defrauding Medicare. Yeah! A victory for the common man! But what about the little old man in the nursing home who could not get out of bed, his dementia was so bad, the little old man who got a bright and shiny new hip---and then promptly died from post operative complications? He was never going to walk again, and yet, some doctor saw a hip that could be replaced, and he jumped right in and did the surgery. And billed Medicare. What does it say about our country when the health care providers are always on the look out for a good financial investment---like a diseased joint that can be replaced---rather than the welfare of their patient?
We need economic justice---but we won't get it from the top down. If we cut off one of the hydra's heads, two more will grow back. Don't kid yourself that the evil lurks out there somewhere, on Wall Street. The "evil" is within us. It is the voice which tells us "I am me and a few other people are also me and everyone else can go die for all I care." It is the voice which tells us "First, my needs get taken care. Then, I'll start thinking about other folks." It is the blindness which cannot see that we are all connected, that every "dog starving at his master's gate, predicts the ruin of the state'" (Blake) and that every crying child is shedding our tears, tearing a great big hole in our heart.
We will never excise suffering from our lives, because suffering is part of our life. We will never eliminate all the risks, because life is risky. But we can change how we think. We can open our eyes, take a good, long look at the faces of children who are suffering----
And acknowledge that their suffering is our suffering. That revelation does not fill the empty bellies or take the gun from the hands of the child soldier. But if enough of us look and really see, then the change will come from within us---
And that is Real Change for a Change.
Now, some worry that protecting the human rights of the LGBT community is a luxury that only wealthy nations can afford. But in fact, in all countries, there are costs to not protecting these rights, in both gay and straight lives lost to disease and violence, and the silencing of voices and views that would strengthen communities, in ideas never pursued by entrepreneurs who happen to be gay. Costs are incurred whenever any group is treated as lesser or the other, whether they are women, racial, or religious minorities, or the LGBT. Former President Mogae of Botswana pointed out recently that for as long as LGBT people are kept in the shadows, there cannot be an effective public health program to tackle HIV and AIDS. Well, that holds true for other challenges as well.
The third, and perhaps most challenging, issue arises when people cite religious or cultural values as a reason to violate or not to protect the human rights of LGBT citizens. This is not unlike the justification offered for violent practices towards women like honor killings, widow burning, or female genital mutilation. Some people still defend those practices as part of a cultural tradition. But violence toward women isn't cultural; it's criminal. Likewise with slavery, what was once justified as sanctioned by God is now properly reviled as an unconscionable violation of human rights.
In each of these cases, we came to learn that no practice or tradition trumps the human rights that belong to all of us. And this holds true for inflicting violence on LGBT people, criminalizing their status or behavior, expelling them from their families and communities, or tacitly or explicitly accepting their killing.
Of course, it bears noting that rarely are cultural and religious traditions and teachings actually in conflict with the protection of human rights. Indeed, our religion and our culture are sources of compassion and inspiration toward our fellow human beings. It was not only those who’ve justified slavery who leaned on religion, it was also those who sought to abolish it. And let us keep in mind that our commitments to protect the freedom of religion and to defend the dignity of LGBT people emanate from a common source. For many of us, religious belief and practice is a vital source of meaning and identity, and fundamental to who we are as people. And likewise, for most of us, the bonds of love and family that we forge are also vital sources of meaning and identity. And caring for others is an expression of what it means to be fully human. It is because the human experience is universal that human rights are universal and cut across all religions and cultures.
Secretary of State Clinton speaking on International Human Rights Day, 2011, Video at link
http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2011/12/178368.htm
