Letters to the Editor
ELYDOG
Published Letters: 498 Editor's Choice: 43
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Ethanol, Pot, Unions, Imperialism
[Read the article: Lou Dobbs vs. La Raza]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One other - Ethanol is making tortillas and other base foods etc. cost more in Mexico. Ending ethanol production would also help that country, not to mention us.
Pot? If it was legal, there would be less rationale for the Mexican gangsters on the border to be there, and would weaken the gangsters. Having gangsters controlling a big part of your economy actually makes it worse for ordinary people.
Broader drug decriminalization might help there too, as other posters have pointed out. In fact, if they want to grow massive fields of pot in northern Mexico, it would revive their farming.
A stronger U.S. labor movement? It would be able to raise the wages on jobs, and slowly reduce the poverty-stricken part of the working class, ie the super-exploited Mexican worker will not be in such demand.
The main problem, as I perhaps didn't make clear, and as one poster pointed out, is the extreme differentiations of wealth in Mexico. There are many new millionaires in that country. The poor and working classes should take this wealth from them.
Imperialism results in inequality between nations. This is happening all over the world, not just here. Lou Dobbs is kidding himself if he thinks he can keep the walls between poverty and wealth up for the rest of eternity.
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Irish went home?
[Read the article: Lou Dobbs vs. La Raza]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And if the illegal Irish in the Bronx went home because the Irish economy improved, it only proves the point. The best solution to the 'illegal immigration' issue is in Mexico.
I am sure there are other, non-brown ethnic groups in the U.S. illegally. But from watching the expert Lou, I wouldn't know. Romanians? Liberians? Somali? Cambodian?
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"Laid"
[Read the article: How does a single father ever get laid?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think the problem here is the word "laid." If all your looking for is that, no wonder you have problems finding a relationship.
Actually, I found that single women, or childless women, became my girlfriends after my divorce. I had two kids, older than these though. The single mothers with children somehow seemed unavailable... perhaps spending all their time with their own little ones and never going out. You can tell that is the mentality from some letter writers here.
Find the childless women. They are there.
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Transition to Organic will be iffy period
[Read the article: The upside to peak fertilizer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cuba has sucessfully transitioned most of their soil from artificial oil input fertilizer to organic fertilizers. They had to do it after the USSR folded in 1991.
They have a lesson for us all.
As they transitioned from the depleted, destroyed soil common to inorganic fertilizer - as crops had been growing in an unnatural environment - it took several years for the soil to be renewed as real soil. This is a danger period, because soil productivity can drop.
Once established however, studies have shown that organic methods can produce MORE food than in-organic fuel fertilizer. The only difference is more human labor and intelligence is needed. This is being seen in Cuba, where there has been return to the soil from the cities, and to more use of animal power.
Organic food tastes better, is healthier for humans, is healthier for the ground, and is sustainable. None of this can be said for factory farming. Of course, changing the food economy will be a radical undertaking. The typical U.S. farmer with his immense combine and tractors, seed hat and monocultures, will be a thing of the past.
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Sure about that?
[Read the article: Obama, Clinton and the working class]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Where is the evidence the working class is voting Clinton?
Still haven't seen it.
If this is true, Barack could pull an "Edwards" and talk about MFN status for China and NAFTA. But then again, Barack is not Edwards. He's a lawyer educated at Harvard.
And Hillary is a lawyer educated at Yale.
Do you see a pattern here? Mice voting for cats again.
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"Grass Roots"
[Read the article: Change beyond the ballot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think the very presence of 'super delegates' shows the Democratic Party is still in the hands of the party bosses. The Republicans don't need super delegates because they will NEVER be swamped by masses of working class or young people wanting change.
Here in Minnesota this 'super Tuesday' our Democratic ("Farmer Labor!!") caucuses were swamped by Obama supporters. There wasn't enough room in place after place. It was a mass outpouring. There were traffic jams outside the halls, too few chairs, too few ballots and just not enough room for mass direct democracy ... which tells you how much it happens. Almost never.
I saw somewhat the same thing in 1972 when anti-war youth swamped the DFL caucuses, and put McGovern over in Minnesota. I myself ended up in a caucus for Shirley Chisolm, who was to McGovern's left, and a black woman. What happened to that? Well, a party that uses workers and young people as voting cattle will get itself back.
The Democratic Party is not your party, no matter how much they tell you about the wonderful sugar cookie in the sky they are going to get for all of us, if only we'd vote for them.
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College
[Read the article: What will YOU do with your fiscal stimulus check?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Put in my kids 529 plan.
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Constant war is legacy of Holocaust
[Read the article: The blind giant of the Middle East]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One of the Nazi's lasting effect on the world is the existence of the State of Israel as a semi-democratic liberal theocracy stuck unfortunately in the middle of the Middle East. For it's birth, it depended on English imperialism and the removal of the Palestinians. It was a nationalistic response to fascist atrocities.
However, Trotsky called Isreal a 'death trap for Jews' and was against it. Zionists of the time should have wondered why 'kindly' English imperialism thought this was such a swell idea... Even Stalin got on board.
The cry "never again", quite justified (I believe it too!) does not mean Israel right or wrong, as the Likud thinks. 'Never again' should not mean turning Gaza into the biggest open air jail in the world. (or is that Bagdad?) The right wing in Israel has squandered the good will of the world for many years. Isreal has a right to exist, but has to allow the Palestinians and others the right to exist too.