Major parties care about corporations, not families

When I saw the title "Democrats care about families" above Travis Thickstun's column on the Oct. 3 opinion page, I had a sudden urge to ralph. \nIf Gore and other mainstream Democrats cared about families, they wouldn't support the $1 billion in military aid being sent to the brutal Colombian government. They wouldn't be supporting the brutal sanctions against Iraq or the bombing campaigns in Iraq and Yugoslavia that killed thousands of civilians. And Gore wouldn't have opposed efforts by African countries to gain permission to produce cheap generic versions of anti-HIV drugs so that they could afford to treat infected people in the face of a horrible epidemic. People who care about families don't support policies that kill them.\nIf Gore and the Democrats care about families, why do they continue to support the "war on drugs" and "get tough on crime" policies that have resulted in a prison population of 2 million, by far the largest in the world both proportionately and absolutely? If the Democrats cared about families, they would stop supporting these policies that impose long prison sentences for victimless crimes, such as drug possession, they would support alternatives to prison for nonviolent offenders and they would resist the priorities of states such as California that spend more on incarceration than education. \nIf Gore and other mainstream Democrats care about families, why did they support "welfare reform"? A recent Urban Institute survey found that more than one-third of women who left welfare following passage of welfare "reform" reported experiencing serious struggles providing food for their children; nearly 40 percent reported being unable to pay for housing and utilities in the past year, 41 percent had no health insurance and 39 percent were unemployed. If mainstream Democrats cared about families, they would support a minimum wage that could support a family rather than the paltry $1 increase Gore is calling for. They would make sure single parents of preschoolers could afford day care if they choose to work, and could afford basic necessities if they chose to stay home. In short, they would support policies that would meaningfully reduce the United States' shameful 20 percent child poverty rate, by far the highest in the industrialized world, instead of throwing workers crumbs from the rich man's table while supporting things such as NAFTA and the World Trade Organization that hurt workers immensely. \nThickstun asserts in his column, "Democrats believe decisions on health care should be left to families and their doctors, not HMOs and insurance companies." These wouldn't be the same HMOs and insurance companies that donated lavishly to the Democratic Convention, the Democratic Party and Gore's campaign, would they? The number of people without health insurance, now at 45 million, has been growing at more than 1 million a year just as it did under George Bush. \nIf Democrats are so concerned about the quality of American health care, why do the vast majority continue to oppose (and avoid even mentioning) national health insurance programs such as those in Canada, Sweden and many other industrialized countries that provide universal, comprehensive coverage and have proven their effectiveness? \nWhy do they not even mention that the United States is the only industrialized country that doesn't provide health insurance for everyone, or that this nation has the worst health statistics of any wealthy nation? The reason, basically, boils down to this: Health insurers, HMOs and pharmaceutical companies have contributed lavishly to the Democrats and Republicans. \nWhat mainstream Democratic politicians care about is not families, but campaign contributions. Like their Republican counterparts, Democrats have raised millions of dollars in soft money, and millions more in direct campaign contributions or donations to the convention. Most of this money, like the money Republicans receive, comes from giant corporations. Thus, it is not surprising that the concerns mainstream Democrats listen to are those of corporations, not families. If you want to support a candidate who cares about families instead of wasting your vote on a candidate such as Gore, who won't win Indiana anyway, cast it instead for the only candidate in the race who isn't bought off by corporate money -- Ralph Nader.