Letters to the Editor
Goedel
Published Letters: 104 Editor's Choice: 6
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Community in the US of 2007
[Read the article: Police: Woman raped, witnesses do nothing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My view is that many Americans do not view themselves as living in a community, though the word is used with nauseating frequency. Except for enclaves of people from the same background (national origin, race, linguistic identity), we are a nation of people who live in mixed communities of many sorts. Especially since the onset of the Cold War, the immigration of hundreds of thousands of Hispanics from Castro's Cuba, Central and South Americans from nations where we have promoted wars and instabilities, Mexican poor legals and illegals, our own Puerto Ricans, have swelled the populations of our cities. Add to these, the entry of large numbers from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and other trouble areas. The poor among these (most of them) land in the slums of our cities and suburbs, where they contend with counterparts from other places. Inside or outside the slums, the mixture of populations has produced isolation among crowds. Add to these inflows, the deterioration of our schools and the pandering of businesses, large and small, to people who refuse to speak English, the lack of a nationally codified language, customs that are foreign to the US, and one has further estrangement and resentments.
In many areas, the corruption of the police by the so-called "war on drugs", the brutality of police towards minority groups, from NYPD to LAPD, the high cost of legal help for persons in the middle-class, and for anyone in a civil process, the fear of becoming "involved" by being a good samaritan becomes palpable. People get sued for trying to help someone and making innocent mistakes. Even doctors are afraid to render emergency assistance because of possible legal consequences later. Life is very difficult in our country, more than elsewhere, because we have no social safety net, because professional help is beyond the reach of many, because our police and local governments are often corrupted or useless. Local government? How about the FEMA's waste of public money after Hurricane Francis, and the agency's even greater ineffectiveness after Hurrican Katrina!
People, particularly in the media and in PR blurbs, use the word "community", but the fact is that Americans experience very little community and are very much isolated outside their own families (often dispersed!), their churches (if they have one!) and their jobs.
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What does it matter?
[Read the article: Did Chertoff lie to Congress about Guantánamo?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What does it matter if Chertoff lied, if Congress is unwilling to outlaw torture and enforce it by impeachments?
If Chertoff lied, it was because he felt that Congress did not really want the truth.
Congress is composed largely of corrupt, unpatriotic, self-serving, free-loading rascals, by and large, and we have put them there, Democrats and Republicans.
There are a handful of good congresspeople, but the vast majority are rascals.
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Liar or not, Chertoff should not have to use the Senate's mens-room
[Read the article: Did Chertoff lie to Congress about Guantánamo?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Liar or not, Chertoff should not have to use the Senate's mens-room so long as Sen Larry Craig still has a key.
An American, just because he may be a liar (like many others in high places) ought not have to be sexally challenged by a Senator offering his Senate card under the partitions and tapping seductively with his foot.
We do not believe in cruel and unusual punishment in this country, in spite of Gonzales, to liars, incompetents or worse.
Chertoff we will protect your virtue, no matter how difficult to quantify!
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No "Yea" of October, 2002 ought run for president
[Read the article: John Edwards turns on his fellow Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No one who voted for the October, 2002, war-powers giveaway to the President ought to present himself (or herself) as a candidate for the 2008 presidential election. Some bad judgments are disqualifying for that high office, and this is one of them. There was enough information available at that time to make the rush to war clearly unwise.
Those who voted for the war did so because they did not have the courage to vote against it, not because they had carefully weighed the evidence.
On the issue of campaign funding, Ralph Nader had it right when he opposed the McCain-Feingold law. He predicted the SCOTUS would throw it out, and he was right! The only way to overcome the effects of big money is to have adequate federal campaign financing for less affluent candidates and free access to media so that candidates can present their platforms to the public.
What is really needed is the election of the president on a national basis rather than by states in the electoral college. Winner take all voting by states has given small blocs control of our presidential elections and our foreign policy, e.g. the Cuban vote in Florida.
This democratic republic is so flawed that it is no longer a rebublic nor a democracy.
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The Republic is gone
[Read the article: Dan Rather stands by his story]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Our much touted checks and balances do not work, because career, party and class loyalties exceed loyalty to the nation among the officers sworn to support and defend the Constitution.
The much touted fourth estate is more like a fifth column, because the executives of the conglomerates that own the media are committed to the earnings of their companies and not to informing the American people.
We have become what President Eisenhower feared, a nation whose policies are in the control of a military/industrial power elite - as C.Wright Mils earlier called it - and the projection of military force by our country is not questioned.
Our two major parties are similar, except on some domestic issues, abortion, religion and the state, etc. Both parties are guilty in the Iraq/Afghanistan muddle, and all of the major presidential candidates support continuation of our military commitments.
The Republic is gone, and the imperial overstretch that is now America will continue until our people can no longer bear the costs of militarism or until the sea-levels rise to drown our coastal plains.