Letters to the Editor
ELYDOG
Published Letters: 712 Editor's Choice: 52
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Die Off
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Due to global climate change and biofuels, as well as peak oil, there is going to be a large die-off of humans. This is if we do little to address these problems.
Population control through the legalization of abortion, plentiful birth control menthods for men and women, sex education, ending poverty through sharing the wealth, and perhaps a '2-child' rule, are things that can be done as far as the population angle to prevent this die off.
Conservative religious 'values' and conservative family values have no place in the surivival of our species. Nor does unrestrained capitalism.
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Nationalize the Oil Companies
[Read the article: So long, John -- gas is $4 a gallon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What no candidate will even mention under their breath. Nationalize the oil companies.
Like Alaska, which pays each citizen some of the money the oil companies make, the U.S. should nationalize the oil companies and pay the citizens, that money. If Alaska (and every other somewhat perceptive country can do), so can we.
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Bees
[Read the article: So long, John -- gas is $4 a gallon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bees,
Let me ask you a question, "What did you do with the bees?" You should re-title yourself "one angry bee" because colony collapse just left you an 'army' of one.
And with about as much heft.
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"Chinese" fast food
[Read the article: How the fortune cookie crumbles]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nice article, shows how cultures change food.
I visit my local Chinese fast food joint at lunch sometimes, and noticed nearly everything has breading, meat or sweet sauce on it. Yikes. The 'sweet' sauce or coconut sauce is now in every "Thai" dish, many "Vietnamese" dishes, not to mention the Chinese dishes.
Americans will load up on "General Tso's" ultra sweet, ultra breaded caged chicken meat, then a pile of white rice, plus a 'soft' drink.
Sugar for lunch? And Chinese is supposed to be healthy.
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Labor Movement
[Read the article: "Battle in Seattle" rocks Austin]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A good fictional book that includes the Seattle protests is "Fountain at the Center of the World."
This film doesn't seem to include the massive presence of the labor movement against the WTO in the streets in those days. Many unions were invovled. If your view of Seattle is some broken windows at Starbucks, I suppose we can all miss the point by a mile if we try hard enough.
Anarchists were there, yes, and so were tens of thousands of workers. And the police, even in 'liberal' Seattle, reacted like fools, and attacked peaceful demonstrators. Now the police create a their own little police state in every city that has a political convention or meeting. I guess we get used to everything, don't we?
The protests actually had a huge impact on the WTO itself, creating international pressure that continued in country after country (see Genoa Italy, where Italians aren't afraid to come out on the streets...)
The "BLue Green" alliance that started in Seattle is actually now coming together again across the country to push for green jobs, a demand now taken up by Obama and even Clinton. So all you snarky know nothings can go sip your lattes at Starbucks in peace.
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Agree with Whispers
[Read the article: Another day, another $200 billion liquidity injection]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can't see this as anything other than taking bad collateral for good coin, with the working class taxpayer funding the bailout of the banks.
Many major investment banks nearly failed a month or two ago, and are still on the edge. If not for the bailout by Dubai, Singapore, the Chinese, Saudi's and Swiss, the U.S. banking system would be on the ropes.
We can thank the Reaganite deregulation brought to us by good ol' boy Bill Clinton, who felt that the old-fashioned Roosevelt Glass-Steagal Act of 1933, passed in the dark days of the depression, was 'outdated.'
So now banks can also be broker-dealers, and there is no 'wall' between betting on the stock market and old fashioned banking. And if the stock market bets tank, than your nice little deposit in your bank is also at risk. See, isn't progress great? Isn't Clintonism just the bomb?
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People In Charge
[Read the article: "Battle in Seattle" rocks Austin]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Moondoggy,
The 'people in charge' almost NEVER listen to anyone. So saying that is saying nothing.
The Seattle protests actually mobilized hundreds of thousands around the world, and made the issue of the WTO more than a 'policy geek' inference but a public matter, especially in the working class. This actually has even penetrated into the thick-headed Democrat party, where even corporate centrists like Clinton have to pay lipservice to 'rethinking' NAFTA.
Are public protests useless? Ask the people all over the world who engage in them, and get beaten, arrested, tear gassed and sometimes killed. Someone doesn't want them to happen, and guess what, they have friends on websites who chatter about the 'real' actions that are going change things, while abhoring public protest. That is Andrew's "meme" point, and you are part of that conservative meme. The police have their clubs to keep the protesters from shutting down these international criminals, and then the police have 'thought police.' Get it?
Protest, of course, are not sufficient, if that is your point, which I don't think it is. We need, for one, a new party in the U.S. to actually implement progressive politics. That party would have to be in the streets, at the ballot box, and in the workplaces and communities.
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McCain as Target getting bigger and BIGGER
[Read the article: John McCain runs for George Bush's third term]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Perhaps we should call it the "Me-Too Express."
I think the Democrats will be able to target this doddering cretin, who perhaps 'used' to have a brain. That is if the Democrats aren't 'doddering' too.
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Don't Resign
[Read the article: Spitzer resigning for real this time?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Get a spine. This is a private matter between Elliot Spitzer and his wife and children.
Prostitution should be legal. He should say it now. Jesse Ventura in Minnesota had the guts to say it. But then he wasn't a Democrat.
Spitzer should also point out that he is a victim of a political move by the Republican DOJ. They have been targeting liberal Democrats for years. The DOJ section behind this prosecution is using an ancient sex law previously used against blacks, liberals and radicals for years - the White 'Slavery' act.
Get a Spine. Don't resign.