Letters to the Editor
Dirigo
Published Letters: 660 Editor's Choice: 1
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Barbara Adcock
[Read the article: Battle of the Bushes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for your kind reply.
You mention Jim Webb. I've read a couple of his novels and of course am aware of his service. George Allen parsed some of Webb's stuff during last year's Virginia Senate campaign and then suggested, because there were some juicy parts, that Webb was immoral and therefore an unworthy candidate to represent the Old Dominion. Do tell. This gambit occurred after Allen's macaca problem.
So Allen, who may have thought he fought for the rebels at Bull Run, is toast, and Webb, former Marine commander in Vietnam, is a U.S. Senator who is being talked about as a possible vice-presidential candidate for the Dems.
Our generation is now in charge. We can't go to mommy or daddy anymore for advice how to save the world, or, as a fall back, to save democracy in our own country.
If G.H.W. Bush and G.W. Bush have family issues, that is their problem. If we choose to put them on the couch, we can "do" psychology the live long day on how their issues have created the mess we're in.
But the mess we're in is our problem now. The mess is political, and, aside from Iraq, it's breathtaking to wonder whether George W. Bush has, however inadvertently, put in doubt the notion of a free society under the Constitution when you look at the nodding and winking on torture, extraordinary rendition, domestic digital eavesdropping, habeas corpus and things like that.
American "values" seem at least to have been abandoned for a while.
Back to Webb, he was taken to task for bristling a bit at the president's flippancy during a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress. The president asked about Webb's son, a Marine who is serving in Iraq, in a way that rankled the new senator.
What was the dynamic there between these men of a certain age?
I might have gone further in a similar circumstance and popped the man on the forehead with a ball peen hammer, which is why I stay away from public functions.
Well I don't know if Webb is worth a damn as a national candidate any more than John McCain, but I'd like him to get about the business of speaking truth to power in the present situation.
He's not a preppy that's for sure.
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Future Shock
[Read the article: Mitt Romney: Perfect tough guy for right-wing war cheerleaders]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Fakers are fakers; Iraq is in shambles; and the nation is faced with caring for thousands of new veterans.
I enlisted in 1966 with a draft notice in hand. I punched by 'Nam ticket. Want to see my DD 214?
Who cares about the chicken hawks?
I want to know if this president, or the next, regardless of whether they did or did not serve long ago and far away, will lead on reform of the sixty-year old veterans health, disability, and pension system?
Will George Bush take care of this before he leaves office? I wouldn't place a bet on that.
People our age (I won't use the cliche B-----S) need to stop the pissing contests about these cowards and help our veterans now.
That would be good way to learn a "lesson" from Vietnam.
Bring it on.
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FIX VA?
[Read the article: Kerry takes on the Swift Boat Veterans]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]After the Walter Reed fiasco, will this president, or the next, lead on a true reform bill to bring up to date the sixty-year old veterans health, disability, and pension programs?
Bush has about a year. He could do it, but don't hold your breath.
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Support The Troops Indeed
[Read the article: Corporate profiteering against Iraq vets?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The people of this country must oppose any effort to privatize veterans' access to the current system, and support - post-Walter Reed, and post-Iraq and Afghanistan - a complete and legitimate political reform of sixty-year old polices on disabilities, care, and pensions.
On the whole, the VA works fairly well, in the day-to-day sense of giving care. It's a large hospital system, actually the largest in the world. Unfortunately, due to the coming crush of returning troops from current conflicts, demand is going to go up.
The American people allowed these wars to happen; the American people must do right by veterans. That's the deal.
These companies standing in line to profit from this system - or steer it to other "Blackwater" contractors - must not be allowed to diminish the use of effective government health facilities by veterans. Ideological "enablers" to the contractors shriek - over and over, year in and year out - about the dangers of "socialized medicine," aiming to destroy the system altogether.
The fact is the VA system is a working model for better health care for many Americans who do not now have it.
Tell the truth.
Keep the hacks at bay.