"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field"--Niels Bohr

With the Tsunami’s disaster happening just at the end of 2004, my understanding for a better future rests more on our humanity to be able to understand each other, rather than on the emphasis of predicting the future from the analysis of the supposed civilized historical events. One reason why I don’t like to make predictions is that most of these predictions are predicated on our rationalization of democracy as the Free Market and I disagree with this notion of democracy as I have been explaining in my past articles published in Ensign. Therefore, rather than making predictions, I wish that some myths be broken down and that a New World is possible as opposed to the Bush’s New World Order. The following are some myths which come to my mind today:

• Religion is not more important than humanity The Tsunami’s disaster has brought the question if this was a vengeful act of God. But can we believe in a vengeful God when thousands and thousands of children are dead?[1]
• The system is not worth more than one person Some years ago I became outraged at the murder conviction of David Milgaard who spent twenty one years in jail while he was innocent. And, I equally became outraged when his Crown Prosecutor Serge Kujawa stated "The whole judicial system is at issue -- it's worth more than one person." [2] [3]
• Comparing Apples with Apples This is a myth which helps to maintain the social and political status quo at the expense of a progressive democracy. Three years ago I wrote "We are used to saying that we should not mix apples and oranges, but we have reached such a level of erosion of our democracy that to further fragment our issues and make them specific for the interest of our conventional wisdom is not enough anymore." [4] And on New Year's Day Heather Wokusch wrote "The Bush administration has ample funding available for war and increasingly barbaric means of killing, just not much left over to help out in global humanitarian catastrophes." [5]
• Money is not more important than life It is mind boggling to realize that the Pentagon keeps track of the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq while not counting the civilian Iraqi deaths. MBA president Bush seems to weigh the success of his war against Iraq in terms of a business "cost and benefit analysis" as if domestic and foreign public policies are based on the changes of the Gross Domestic Product brought by the war.[6] [7]
• Bush’s Tort (and medical) reforms are against the understanding of common law Tort reform is also known as NoFault insurance, that is the curtailed ability of citizens to sue for pain and suffering. While Bush is proposing Tort reform [8] to supposedly make medical insurance more affordable I read that rehabilitation hospital operator HealthSouth will pay $325 million to settle charges that it improperly billed the United States government's Medicare system. [9]

References

1. Kamenetz, Rodger Was God in This Disaster? Beliefnet http://www.beliefnet.com/story/158/story_15866.html

2. deSantis, Mario The System is not more worth than one person’s rights July 27, 2000 Ensign http://www.ftlcomm.com:16080/ensign/desantisArticles/2000_200/desantis204/system_individual.html

3. Canadian Press Milgaard inquiry to begin in January 2005, 36 years after Saskatoon rape-murder November 18, 2004 Injusticebusters http://www.injusticebusters.com/04/Milgaard_inquiry.htm

4. deSantis, Mario Learning to Mix Apples and Oranges to End the Free Market January 14, 2002 Ensign http://www.ftlcomm.com:16080/ensign/desantisArticles/2001_500/desantis543/appleNoranges.html

5. Wokusch, Heather Stingy? Not with WMD and War December 31, 2004 CommonDreams.org, http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1231-03.htm

6. deSantis, Mario The values of money and life in a war against Iraq: President George Bush versus Robert Kennedy December 9, 2002 Ensign http://www.ftlcomm.com:16080/ensign/desantisArticles/2002_700/desantis720/costanalysis.html

7. Klein, Naomi Risky Business January 5, 2004 The Nation http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040105&s=klein

8. deSantis, Mario Bush's Tort Reform to Quick-Fix Higher Medical Insurance Premiums: Cap on jury awards, no frivolous lawsuits, limited punitive damages January 19, 2003 Ensign http://www.ftlcomm.com:16080/ensign/desantisArticles/2002_700/desantis740/malpractice.html

9. Schroeder, Robert HealthSouth pays settles U.S. probe December 30, 2004 CBS MarketWatch