Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 246 Editor's Choice: 22
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As Usual, A "Second Tier" Candidate Shows Superior Knowledge And Insight
[Read the article: Bill Richardson on greening SUVs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While I disagree with Bill Richardson that Americans can keep the present infrastructure in a post-carbon world, this interview shows how a "second tier" candidate is in many ways superior to the media-selected "front runners". Bill Richardson has some ideas that do not make the globalist corporate establishment happy and so cannot expect to get a lot of free coverage and attention like Obama and Clinton can.
Access to inexpensive energy is the key to the American economy and all aspects of our lives as individuals and as a nation depend on it. Bill Richardson seems to have notice this more than any of the candidates.
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How Bush Told The World He Knew Saddam Had No WMDs
[Read the article: Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's so God-awful simple that one must marvel at the obtuseness of the press and the world that such a simple inference could be made. The accumulation of troops and supplies in Kuwait on the southern border of Iraq occupied several months before the March 2003 invasion. If Saddam had WMDs he most certainly would have used them in a preemptive strike, resulting in horrific casualties among the American military. George Bush would have been held personally responsible for exposing our soldiers to this threat without adequate protection. However, Mr. Bush knew that the troops were safe from physical harm and he was safe from political harm because Saddam had none of the weapons that he was alleged to have. The confidence Americans have been conditioned to have in our political leaders was shamefully exploited in a most egregious manner. The fact that Mr. Bush stays in office even after these inferences are confirmed by reliable testimony is further evidence of the sheep-like stupidity and cowardice of the American public and the members of Congress who could and should get behind impeachment proceedings.
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Betrayal
[Read the article: The Iraq debate: Caving in before it begins?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]After all the crowing about the "mandate for change" the American people handed the Democrats in the November 2006 election, the only thing they seem capable of now is aiding and abetting Bush's criminal follies. Neither of the Democratic senators from my state nor the "Blue Dog" Democrat representing my congressional district can expect to receive my vote again. They've played me and their Democratic constituents for the sucker one time too many. They have betrayed the American people and deserve to be turned out of office.
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Republicans Buck History At Their Peril
[Read the article: Thompson proposes a new gay marriage amendment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Looking back over the last 250 years we see that group after group of socially marginalized, economically exploited, and politically excluded people join the mainstream of humanity as socially accepted, economically independent, and politically empowered. These include voting rights for tradesmen, farmers, and laborers in the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries, the liberation of slaves in the mid-Nineteenth century, the establishment of female suffrage in the early Twentieth century, and the end of legal discrimination against people of color in the late Twentieth Century. Those who struggled to achieve social, economic, and political equality and those who assisted them are now celebrated as heroes, while those who opposed them are cast as being ignorant, backward, and evil.
When politicians attempt to use prejudice against a minority group as a means of boosting their popularity, they run the very real risk of being regarded as reactionary, villainous thugs by future historians. There is no reason why, in light of historical trends, the current electorate should not likewise condemn and reject efforts to generate political advantage by treading on the faces of people aspiring to attain the equality that is the birthright of all people.
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"You Broke It, You Own It"
[Read the article: Brand Petraeus, by the numbers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Iraqis don't want their country to be "owned" by foreigners, no matter how badly it has been broken by them.
Concerning the bull in the china shop, step one is to get the bull out. If the china shop owners want to go at each other hammer and tongs after the retreat of the bull, that is to be regretted, but reintroduction of the bull will not help.
Iraq under the American occupation has become a cesspool of corruption and violence. Bush seems to be more interested in maintaining the status quo of waste and bloodshed year-after-year than allowing the Iraqis to confront their own problems and create the indigenous institutions that will allow them to build their own future. The idea that the American republic's mores and institutions could be successfully grafted onto an Islamic totalitarian state by force of arms and the importation of planeloads of cash is a juvenile fantasy.
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The First Clue That Something Was Badly Wrong With The Bush Administration
[Read the article: How Bush is trying to save face in Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]OK, I'll ignore the whole point of the Supreme Court stopping the Florida recount and summarily appointing Bush as president. I hope this will be thoroughly investigated someday.
When the Bush Administration first dragged its feet and then fought tooth-and-nail against having a commission investigate 9/11, it should have set off alarm bells throughout the country. Instead, our shocked psyches, having been redirected after the attack to cheering our troops chasing will-o'the-wisps on the other side of the planet, barely registered the anomaly. Only after Bush/Cheney/Rove were assured complete control of the commission via their loyal stooge Philip Zelikow and got the commission to accept their version of events as axiomatic did they agree to cooperate. The commission's conclusions were, consequently, worthless. No person in a position of responsibility who messed up on 9/11 has ever been so much as reprimanded.
A nation priding itself for "freedom" and "government by, for, and of the people" has submitted to an exploitive group of ruthless, mass murdering criminals with barely a whimper of protest. Even in view of the current unpopularity of the administration and its leader, the Congress seems to be paralyzed in dealing effectively with this situation. If you ever wondered how a democratic society could be transformed into an authoritarian state, just look around you.