To the editor:

Can we all just say, "God Bless America"?

Well, maybe not if you’re the CEO of the world’s best diesel engine company and are announcing a new initiative. (The Tribune, Nov. 2, front page). To the contrary, America is not blessed. Rather, it is gorged full of race prejudices.

CEO Tom Linebarger uses modern phrases like "systemic discrimination" and "institutional racism" to describe today’s America. He declares that (in the United States) "institutional racism is a disease deeply rooted and longstanding …"

What a judgement on the country that made a great company possible!

Of course, CEO Linebarger is not alone. With his announcement, he joins in lock-step with much of our national leadership, ranging from Mr. Biden, the Democratic Presidential candidate, to President Obama ("racism … still part of our DNA"), to the dominant upper classes in the corporate world and throughout our culture. In other words, he has aligned himself and his great company with the anti-American sanctimony of the powerful who condemn the United States as a nation "diseased" with racism.

Welcome to the America-racist corporate cure team, Mr. Linebarger.

Before you really get going, you may want to review Matthew 7:3. (Perhaps we all should, and regularly.)

Alan Winslow

Seymour