Beatriz, Our government IS an active agent in creating the US epidemic of cancer. 3,000 die every day in the US from environmentally related cancers. That IS a sin. Of the 80,000 chemicals and pesticides in US in this country only 8,000 are EPA approved. The Constitution states this is the government of, for and by the People, and for the PUBLIC good. The top 10 Agriculture businesses dump 8.3 billion tons of pesticides and chemicals into our water, farmlands, soil, and food, and Philip Morris, RJ Nabisco, Coca-Cola, Archer Daniels Midland, Pepsico, Con Agra, Outback Steakhouse, McDonalds, Pilgrims Pride and Tyson contributed $45 million to GOP campaigns in 1992-2002 alone. When 3,000 died on 911 the adminstration’s response was to burden taxpayers with $3 trillion in debt that largely enriched its friends with no-bid contracts, at the same time it actively bars legislation that would protect tens of millions of citizens by underfunding the EPA so it can’t adequately test chemicals, their interactions, use, applications, and how they are secured in plants and in transport. The chemical lobby is so powerful they can CHANGE congressional votes on legislation AFTER the vote. Example: Senator Corzine initiated legislation to tighten security of our 123 relatively unsecured chemical plants near populations centers that exceed 1 million, and the other 3,700 near populations of up to 100,000. Chlorine is a common chemical stored and transported throughout the US, including on railcars through WDC. In 1984 a Union Carbide chlorine gas leak in Bhobal killed nearly 10,000 within days, 20,000 from after effects, the area is still poisoned and children are still being born with horrifying related birth defects. Victims are still fighting for recompense for ruined business and lives, just as Exxon hasn’t paid its Valdez disaster fines though it is one of the largest and richest companies on Earth. One railcar contains enough chlorine gas to kill millions. We need reasonable safety requirements, yet not only does the administration not assure minimal standards, it intervenes to prevent it: After then Democratic Senator Jon Corzine’s Chemical Security Act received unanimous approval from the Senate’s Environmental and Public Works Committee (EPW), 30 members of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the American Petroleum Institute (APT), and oil lobbyists got out checkbooks and persuaded GOP Senators to kill the bill. Days later Red Cavaney CEO of APT, faxed James Connaughton chairman of Bush’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to help defeat Corzine’s bill. Seven of the nine GOP EPW Senators reversed their positions. The ACC gave more than $1 million in political contributions, with $850,000 of it going to the Senators who reversed themselves on Corzine’s bill. The other part of this is that poor people die more from environmentally related disease that include cancer, work related incidents, asthma, etc because 43 million in this country lack health care. Since the Bush Administration has occupied the White House Americans are in the worst poverty since the Depression, we’ve experienced the most real estate foreclosures ever filed, the most catastrophic stock market fraud in the history of the world when $4 trillion was lost by investors and $1 trillion was lost in pension funds and university endowments, leading to the most personal bankruptcies, and the worst US energy crisis occurred when the administration’s number one all time contributor Enron bilked California out of billions. More jobs were shipped overseas than in any time in US history, and the Bush administration has the worst job creation record in 60 years at the same time more unemployment benefits were cut than ever, and Federal revenues as a percentage of GDP fell to their lowest levels since 1950 according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (www.cbpp.org) (www.opensecrets.org), (www.publicintegrity.org) More health care, public safety, disability and retirement benefits, veteran benefits, Federal civil service protections, environmental and consumer protection, education, after school programs, Social Security, employee rights and even job safety rules that were ten years in the making to help prevent the accidents that kill 6,000 and injure 6,000,000 workers a year, were eviscerated. Education was cut, the defense budget was raised to 50% of our discretionary budget, while administration cronies like Halliburton other campaign contributors wallowed in boondoggles that will cost the US over $3.1 trillion. Bush administration actions in the Middle-East have placed America in the top 4 of all countries in the world as likely to see another 911 scale attack within its border according to the Worlds Markets Research Center. More international environmental protections, human rights, arms control and other treaties have been denounced than in any other time in American history. Global public relations firm Edelman polled Europeans and found that 64% were less likely to buy American brands because of Bush policies. A Pew Global Attitudes project reported that Muslim rage at the US throughout the Middle-east is at a record high. As President Coolidge said, “Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest.” I’d say today the three foremost deadly sins are Greed on thee part of the Bush Admin and the plutocracy that supports it, and the concomitant Ignorance and Apathy on the part of the people. We get the government we collectively deserve. GenXers report that they feel they’ll never be able to retire. I think the greatest sin is the sin that causes the foremost damage. Today the #1 SIN in America is Apathy. Any citizen who isn’t doing everything they can to become more informed and take measures to improve this country however they are able is party to killing the American Dream. We were all given the Constitution and the Bill of Rights by the smartest, bravest, and most ACTIVISTS people of the 18th century and it is all slipping away by design. http://www.truemajorityaction.org/oreos/

I respectfully beg to differ, beatriz m. It’s a sin if the cause is contamination of our water supply because of the masses of drugs we’re dumping down the toilet, infected food supply because of the hormones we’re injecting into cattle to fatten them faster, or people die because they can’t get health care because they have no insurance.