Wondering what effect 12% may be having upon some atitude$$$$$$$ toward Catholics:

[patrice]

http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/topics/healthcare/documents/2005factsaboutcatholichealthcare.pdf

From Catholics for Choice:

According to the Catholic Health Association (CHA), the trade association representing Catholic health care institutions throughout the US, there are 611 Catholic hospitals, representing approximately 12% of all hospitals nationwide.

It's a relatively good bet that you can follow the dollar to explain so very much, especially in the almost completely fungible culture of the internet, where negativity has such a low, widely accessible threshold, compared to positivity, and one could at least hypothetically consider whether, in a national "health" "care" environment, the value of certain classes of negativity could increase.

Not, of course, that critique isn't valid, but more that variations and exceptions, which are, of course, ALSO allowable, are interesting, especially when those variations and exceptions are claimed as the exclusive property of those doing the judging and who also happen to be encouraging others to engage in same (as long as they conform to the "right" attitude toward those who are judged).

One of the most reliable research outcomes in psychology shows how people rarely know accurately what they will do in adverse circumstances. You probably have heard of Stanley Milgram, but there are several others showing the same class of phenomena that can be compared to events such as Argentina's Dirty War. These behavioral phenomena include a strong tendency toward error in ascribing causes to other people's failures compared to ones own: "they did bad because they are a bad person" vs. "I did bad because the situation made it unavoidable, and, btw, my bad isn't really bad."

The judgers ALWAYS get the benefit of the doubt, their own shortcoming assumed to be "insignificant", while the mistakes of others damning. WHATEVER other label judgers wear (and that could be *A*N*Y* of the many many many labels there are), they're always better than ___________________________ (the poor, homosexuals, convicts, women, Black Americans, Catholics, whatever suits the politically correct mode of the moment . . . ). That's the beauty of this particular hate; it works for any set of labels anyone wants to use.

Not only do people usually not know what they'd actually do under big dire circumstances, the criteria that others are held to, ever so conveniently do not apply in the same way to, say, small things that the judges could easily change in their own behaviors and attitudes, small easily changed behaviors that would add up are always a "lesser" crime than blanket condemnations of vast groups of others whom the judgers have never met.

None of us should be shocked by the growth of private prisons. I'm thinking we will never change that.

Maybe you can understand why it scares me that what we are seeing so very very often comes, not only from those whom we justifiably resist, but ALSO from those who claim the social and economic justice high ground of this country.

It's no secret around here that I am disappointed in what calls itself "the Left". I was not like this before 2008. I keep trying to get over it, but what I see returns and returns, so I keep having to put my hope away, after-all, it is my own fault. It IS my error in assuming it's more widely identified, than it actually is, that one's critique of others is justified ONLY to the full extent that it is honestly and equally applied to one's self. If "they" fail at "big" difficult things, then certainly one's own "small" easy failures are significant too and if that's NOT what we are doing here, then I have no idea what the all of the bother is about, because learning is not a priority and without learning, there is no authentic revolution. Just more of the $$$$$$$$ame, wearing whatever the hot label$$$$$ are.

Pardon me, while I despair for justice.

Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.