Letters to the Editor
Garry Owen
Published Letters: 2821 Editor's Choice: 151
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You're a patsy all right
[Read the article: A Marshall Plan for Mexico]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hi, I'm Vincente Fox,
I've got a huge problem here in Mexico. It's started a long, long time ago when Mexico gained its independence. For political purposes, our forefathers proclaimed a democratic republic. But that was just window dressing. We were and actually still are, an oligarchy. In Mexico, we have a group of "old money" families who are obscenely rich and getting richer, and we have a whole hell of a lot of people who are dirt poor peasants and there are more of them all the time too.
So the dilemma I face is that my family and all of our rich friends don't really like the drag on our economy brought on by having to provide at least some bare minimal social services to these growing hoards of poor people. We'd rather invest that money in the oil fields of Veracruz, or in multi-national schemes like buying up lots of stock in companies doing business in China for instance. Poor people are not only a drag on our economy and our ruling family's wealth, but they are muy peligroso!
History shows us that when the peasant's belly is empty, he gets angry. Bob Marley nailed it: A hungry man is an angry man.
Here in Mexico City, we don't need a bunch of peasants coming to town and overthrowing our government. We've got it good here.
So I am so very thankful to my North American brother, George W. Bush and all of his rich friends, who are helping us solve our little problem down here in Mexico.
Thank you, George! You leave your back door open and millions of my unhappy, discontented poor people will stream into the United States and we both PROFIT from it. You get slave labor, our diaspora send part of their paycheck back to Mexico.
Our oligarchy in Mexico remains secure and we don't have to provide services for our poor, and you American Corporatists can use our poor people to break the backs of the American labor activists and unions.
Frankly, I can't see a down-side to this arrangement.
Muchas Gracias, Amigos
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You're screwed, face it.
[Read the article: The separation of powers, R.I.P.]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Your Fourth Amendment rights guaranteed by the Constitution were taken away from you the moment you got your Social Security card. After that, it was just one goddamn thing after another: Your credit history, your purchasing habits, what motel you stayed at, everywhere you ever went on a commercial airliner. Do you have a Passport? The Feds know every trip you made outside the country. You should know that your Internet Service Provider keeps a log of every web site you visit and every email address coming and going from your computer (which by the way has a unique identifier built in). Your U.S. Postal Service mail delivery person has been told to report any "suspicious activity" on your private property and within any mail or package you receive.
Your HMO now shares your entire medical history with insurance companies.
Your freedom went away a long time ago and you didn't even notice.
You have no rights. The government is going to do what ever it wants and there is not one goddamn thing you can do about it.
Like it, or lump it. That's how it is.
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A day in your life in the Land of the Free
[Read the article: The NSA is on the line -- all of them]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You awoke this morning and went for a jog. The building's elevator camera watched you come and go. You had a shower and the Automated Meter Reading system recorded how much water you used. You switched on your computer, checked email, browsed Salon, checked the Google headlines. Your ISP logged not only the amount of time you spent, but also the email addresses of each person you communicated with and which Salon pages you looked at and the news stories you browsed. You left for work in your "On-Star" equiped SUV passing through the gate at the front of the complex. A security camera photographed your license plate. As you cruised the side streets, On-Star's GPS kept a record of your location and route.
You took the tollway, using your quick-pass so you breezed right on through the line waiting to pay cash. You went through the toll checkpoints at exactly 07:09:42, 07:21:02 and 07:37:18. You entered the city center and card-swiped your entry into the company leased parking garage.
It was a nice day, so for lunch you bought a boxed salad with a packet of dressing and sat on a park bench taking in the rays. The Metro Police security camera operator was especially taken with your pretty legs and high heels. When you re-entered the building you passed through a security device that read a code inside your plastic ID badge.
While at work you received and answered 41 emails. While taking a break at exactly 14:21:06 you Googled "Shoes" and selected several websites. One of them was "High Heel Lust" and there were several foot fetish sites along with the Ferrigamos you were looking for. The cookies were piling up and being sent to One Click, a web marketing company who falsely identified you as a toe freak. Within hours you're getting unwanted spam mail from slimey porn sites specializing in foot worship.
After work, you joined friends at the nearby wine bar and picked up a round of drinks using your Visa Card. In a few weeks, you may notice that you're getting wine catalogs in the mail.
You drove home, back through the tollway, leaving electronic tracks all along the way.
That evening, you called your brother who is an oilfield engineer working for Aramco in Saudi Arabia. As soon as the call was connected, there were at least two digital recording devices picking up your every word, one in Langley, Virginia and one in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. You told your brother that your boss was so mad at his agent that he was ready to explode.
Congrats: You are now on a terrorist watch list.
Goodnight, and good luck.