Responding to Sheldon Adelson
(Posted also on the Good Reads forum)
Regarding Sheldon G. Adelson's "I Didn't Leave the Democrats; They Left Me" (op-ed, Nov. 5): Sheldon Adelson and I grew up in the same poor, Jewish, immigrant neighborhood in Boston. Our fathers might have known each other since they were both Boston cabbies—an unusual line of work for Jewish men at that time. And we surely had some of the same life experiences. That's apparently where the similarities end. I remain a card-carrying Democrat.
Mr. Adelson writes that one of the reasons he left the Democratic Party is that Republicans are now more generous contributors to charity than Democrats. Yet many of those very states that vote Republican have the highest child poverty rates, the lowest education levels, the worst health outcomes and the greatest number of children living in distressed communities. And many of those states that vote Democratic have the lowest child poverty rates, the highest education levels, the best access to health care and the most kids growing up in communities with the resources to provide safe and thriving neighborhoods.
I'm sure Mr. Adelson knows that the word in Hebrew for "charity" means "justice." Surely, in addition to Republican positions on social issues that he doesn't agree with, I would hope he'd have a problem with a political party whose budget would cut food for the hungry as well as increase child and family poverty by cutting programs that assist people who are elderly, seriously disabled or unable to afford health care. "Charity" may have worked for some in the old neighborhood. That neighborhood is long gone.
Carol Simon Kamin
Brookline, Mass.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204349404578102803794945638.html
By the way, I did not bother to read the original opinion by Adelson. Why should I?
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