Letters to the Editor
AustinEngineer
Published Letters: 39 Editor's Choice: 2
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The Jackboot Fits
[Read the article: Goodbye, Baghdad]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Robotempire? You of military age? If this thing is so important, why haven't you signed up?
River, I've read you since the beginning. I can't express enough sorrow for what we have done to you and your people. America is a rogue nation. The citizens of this country didn't stop it. What happened to you is our fault, my fault. I'm so sorry.
Peace to you and a safe journey. Tell your story. The world needs to hear it.
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You Missed the Whole Point
[Read the article: "Sicko"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think the author missed the whole point of Sicko.
The whole idea of "for-profit" healthcare is flawed. There's no money in making people well!
The primary good thing other country's health care systems do is help people prevent major illness by allowing them to visit the doctor regularly and get the proper care BEFORE they get seriously ill.
The medical care industry in the US has become, like so many things in the US, a get-rich-quick scheme.
What Moore is saying in Sicko is the whole IDEA of US medical care has to be thrown out and replaced by a system that focuses on making people healthy instead of making people money.
How to pay for it? Easy. Do we really need to spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined?
Take some of that half-trillion per year and put it toward healing people rather than killing them.
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The rich and powerful have a different definition of "freedom"
[Read the article: Free speech for the rich and powerful]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is another example of the rich and powerful having a different definition of "freedom" than the unwashed masses.
They view "freedom" as being free to do whatever they want, regardless of its impact on others, the commons, the environment, etc.
Our definition is that we be free to think differently and talk back.
These ideas are mutually exclusive.
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Out of the bottle, out of the barn, done, toast, kaput, pick your metaphor.
[Read the article: YouTube's copyright checker: Soon, no more Colbert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When will big media figure out the horse is out of the barn, the barn has burned down and there are daisies where the ashes used to be?
Authoritarians say You Tube is breaking the law. OK...so is driving 51 in a 50.
Big media thinks it can lawyer its way out of this paradigm shift. They are wrong.
The world marches on...march or get left behind.
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This is, of course, the subject that dares not mention its name...
[Read the article: Enforcing the community's foreign policy orthodoxy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The reason the US has never had the credibility we somehow feel we deserve is because our foreign policy is so hypocritical.
We're for "self determination"...unless those pesky citizens determine to have a form of government we don't like...then we overthrow it.
We're for "economic security"...unless the citizens decide the oil in their ground belongs to them.
We're for "freedom"...unless that freedom includes freedom from US interference and influence.
We're for "democracy"...until someone is elected that doesn't play ball.
The empire needs to fall. The whole idea of empire needs to fall.
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Please...spare me.
[Read the article: How Bush betrays Reagan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Please, spare me another article about what a "great president" Reagan was. He was not too different from GW in so many ways. He too believed that "government is not the solution, government is the problem". New Orleans drowned, bridges falling in Minnesota--these are only the first of many direct results of policies started by Reagan and embraced by GW.
If Reagan had a Republican-controlled congress when he was President, his term would have been indistinguisable from that of GW. All of the ideas and pracitices, the slimy electoral politics, the rampant corruption, outrageous debt, and all the other excesses of the Bush administration got their start under Reagan.
Nixon may have originated the "southern strategy", but Reagan perfected it. All the slimy backroom players of the GW administration got their wings under Reagan.
GW showed us what the wholesale implementation of Reagan administration policies would have looked like with no oversight and no checks or balances.
He was an evil man and now he's gone. Good riddance.
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Obama Says What Needs to be Said
[Read the article: Killing her softly with his song]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I want to like Hillary, I really do, but every time she opens her mouth I can see the little angel and the little devil on her shoulders arguing about how she should answer the question.
I really don't think she can say "good morning" without a little voice in her head asking if saying "good day" would get a few more votes.
I like Edwards' message. He is talking about the issue no one else wants to talk about: Class warfare.
Obama, on the other hand, brought the house down at the 2004 Democratic convention for a good reason: He gave the speech the candidate (Kerry) should have given.
When I see Obama speak, I can't help thinking of RFK saying "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."
Obama talkes with the language of hope--and (I think) means it. Hope is something we are desperately short of right now.
If I had to vote today, I'd probably pick Obama.
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You're living in dreamland...
[Read the article: Why Bush won't attack Iran]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...and it's a different dreamland than the one Bush lives in.
George W. Bush only cares about one thing: George W. Bush. It's always about him. Always has been, always will be.
That man couldn't give a rat's ass about anyone or anything that doesn't follow his own twisted idea of how the world works. He's like a five-year-old. It's MINE...MINE I TELL YOU...ALL MINE!!!
The man has never accomplished anything positive in his entire silver-spoon life. Do you honestly think for one second he won't "kick some EYE-Ranian ass" just to prove he's a bigger man than daddy?
The man is INSANE. There's no doubt in my mind. The bombs will fall. Guaranteed.