Demand the truth

I find it disappointing and disturbing to listen to Sen. Mike Johanns' position on the state of health care. In a June 10 column in the Journal Star, he used statistics that claimed that 145,545 American men were saved from cancer by our present system who would have died under a European system.

I called his Washington, D.C., office to question how he came to this conclusion. The receptionist took my concerns, but I have yet to hear his justification. Now he is holding roundtable discussions in the state, using a family's experience with a child's cancer, claiming this child most likely would not have received quality care under a public option health care system.

These are fear tactics used to justify the current system that consumes 16 percent of our gross national product - more than any other industrialized nation - yet denies coverage to 47 million citizens. We also have one of the highest infant mortality rates. It is a system that creates exorbitant profits and excessive salaries for CEOs in the for-profit health care industries (primarily insurance and pharmaceutical) while bankrupting working families. These same for-profit industries contribute immense sums of money to the campaigns of members of Congress.

Similar fear tactics were used by the previous administration, of which Johanns was a part, to justify a war that will cost this nation $3 trillion. We now know that the "facts" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and links to Sept. 11, 2001, were false.

Government can work for the good of the people if we want it to. Medicare for those over 65 is an example.

Nebraskans should question and demand that those representing us look at all options, be held accountable and tell us the truth.

Ron Meyer, Superior

Being an American

I was at an antiques shop one day and picked up a 1943 calendar, which was the year I was born. It was put out by a lumber company in York by the name of E.S. CLARK & CO.

There were interesting notes written on the pages, but the most interesting was a yellowed clipping from a newspaper dated May 3, 1941. I could tell that it had been moved every year to the month of May and attached with an old oxidized paper clip.

The headline read "I Am An American" Day. The item read as follows: "The people of the United States will celebrate 'I AM AN AMERICAN' Day on May 18 for the third successive year. Probably never in the history of the United States has American citizenship and its implications meant more than it does today. In times like these, when democracy stands out in strong contrast to governments that have subjugated their people, it is important to observe and commemorate the privileges of American citizenship as widely as possible."

Just sounded like a nice idea and seems rather timely even today, 66 years later.

Doug Vandervort, Lincoln

Prison groundbreaking

Love your local coverage, including the piece on the groundbreaking for the new jail ("Jail groundbreaking ceremony set for July 14," LJS, July 4).

Did anyone catch the fact that July 14, the date of founding a new prison, is Bastille Day?

Bradley and Kimberly Walker, Lincoln