Newtown Shooting: How to Recover

I believe the recent disaster evoked such an emotional response in our nation because the victims were children. Children are often thought of as the most innocent form of human beings. Defenseless, they were taken from this earth. All of us know and love children in our families and therefore, many of us can relate to the families of Newport. We can imagine the pain caused by losing such an important little part of one’s life.

The story is so painful and relatable that many of us feel we are called to action. Every morning on my drive to school, I hear people call into the radios asking how they can help. I think it took such a horrendous act such as killing children for our nation to realize the extensive harm of violence.

As a society, I think it is highly important that we do not evoke fear in other children. School should be a safe place, not a scary one. To prevent other crimes like the Newtown shooting, I believe the key factor is recognizing mental illness before a mentally ill person causes others harm. We need to promote organizations and rehabilitation centers that help those who are mentally ill and get help for our loved ones who are “not acting them selves.” I heard on a news station that Adam’s mom told a friend the week prior that she had begun feeling as if she was “loosing her son.” Imagine how different Friday could have been if Adam’s mom had taken action after noticing her son was acting differently. CST calls us to help our poor and vulnerable. Those who are sick from a mental illness are suffering psychologically and need support from those in their lives. I believe a movement to treat mental illnesses, as well as being there for those in our family during the hard times, may prevent any other horrendous acts such as the Newtown shooting from happening in the future.

Bangladesh Fire

The story of the Bangladesh factory fire is as infuriating as it is sad. The way the factory workers were treated goes completely against our CST beliefs of human rights and workers rights. The poor and vulnerable communities are being taken advantage of by big corporations. I find it incredible that the boss of the factory did not fear for his workers’ lives. Instead, he used them as if they were slaves or robots.

After reading the passage, I believe many people are to blame for the harm caused by the factory fire. However, I also completely agree with Josh Green’s statement that “It’s just not feasible” for big corporation leaders to round-the-clock monitor every factory they purchase from in every company. To blame the head manager of a corporation such as Disney or Sears would be like blaming the cardinal for an incident in the religious department at MSJA. The cardinal, like the leaders of Sears and Disney, are so high-up in the hierarchy that keeping up with the lowest level’s safety regulations may not be “feasible” as Josh Green stated.

I view the fault in this incident to be the immediate government and factory owners who are not ensuring their workers’ rights are respected. These leaders lower down on the totem pole have seen the conditions inside the factory. They needed to take a stand and fix the unlawful conditions. I think corporations such as Sears and Disney should have a system set in place where they train the owners of their factories to respect their workers. Inspections from the local government is another solution that I believe can be feasible in the future.

The article comments that as consumers we pressure for lower prices, which in turn results in lower wages for the workers. Maybe if corporations instead considered how much damage could to their reputation from an incident such as a factory fire, they would not follow the “low-price pressure” trend. As consumers, we also need to back off from pressuring big corporations to lower their prices. Is a $10.00 walmart bathing suit really worth someone’s life?