Dear Editor:

I am surprised to find that Salon is now imitating the mainstream media by forcing an equivication between the monied interests of the Democratic Party with those of the Republican Party. It is no secret that the only way to achieve political power in our country is through money and fundraising. In the absence of some sort of election campaign financing thorugh public and/or more equitable sources, the only way any candidate with any political agenda can run for office and win, is to solicit funding from wealthy sources and people. This is a given in the U.S. political system as it exists now and pointing it out, unless with that is a proposal to reforming election campaign financing, is a ad hominem remark without any sort of practical political point.

While there is no doubt that the Democratic Party owes many favors to its campaign financers, this does not mean at all that both parties have the same agenda and wish the same fate on the middle classes of our country. While there is no hope under Republican rule that there will be any sort of positive reform to any number of issues which concern middle class voters, the possibility does exist under the Democrats, especially if that party can build a large enough coalition in Congress and retake the Presidency. Moreover, it is less likely that our country will be plunged into unecessary wars such as the one going on in Iraq and other forms of dangerious foreign policy adventurism.

The unfortunate reality is that fundraising for election campaigns from private sources is an integral given of the U.S. political system as it actually exists. Nevertheless, even in this reality, Democrats in office are not like Republicans in office. This means we should vote for them as a vote for Democrats remains a more positive alternative for our country and more disasterous years of Republican rule.

Sincerely yours,

Arthur C. Hurwitz

Dear Editor:

I may or not like George Bush as a person, or as a personality. On the other hand, if Bush would advance a different sort of political agenda and policies, I would definitely support him.

The problem with Bush is not that I do not like him, the problem is with the policies which he pursues and the damage they have done to and inflicted on our country, on the world, and yes, even to my personal well-being. My "hatred" of him is not personal, it is political and reality-based. It has no neurotic quality to it because ultimately politics is about policies and nothing else.

Mr. Kamiya, like many other liberals, has turned his hatred of the policies of the current Bush administration into some sort of personal neurosis on which he is dependant. He fears losing it as if having a better president in power would undermine his identity. Unwittingly, he is playing into the propaganda of the Right which tries to portray opposition to the policies of this Bush Administration as a kind of irrational neurosis detached from any sort of reality. Unwittingly, Mr. Kamiya is adopting the discourse of the mainstream media which treats politics as a game about personalities rather that the real-life implications of a certain person acquiring political power and what sort of policies he is likely to pursue.

Sincerely yours,

Arthur C. Hurwitz

Dear Editor:

The recent purge of U.S. attorneys by the Bush Administration once again demonstrates the weakness and inability of the American system of government, those too often vaunted "checks and balances," from truly reigning in the power of a ruthless president whose lust for absolute and uncontested power and domination, not to mention vengence upon his enemies, is without limit or restraint.

In the theory of the U.S. governmental system, the President is considered the Chief Executive whose principal administrative function is the enforcement of the nation's laws. The practice, however, has been slightly different. The Executive Branch was really divided into a political sphere on the higher tiers of administration and a law enforcement section more emeshed in the government's bureaucracy. The political branch consisted of the cabinet and sub-cabinet officials, and they were responsible for carrying out the specific policies of the specific sitting president and defending these always controversial policies from attack, political and otherwise. Deeper in these departments was a more profession staff, both professional bureaucrats and presidential appointees, who were charged with enforcing the law impartially.

What this incident reveals, however, is that this operational split between the political aspect of the executive branch and the impartial law enforcement and regulatory part was only an accepted convention and not an encoded system, held together by law or regulation or constitution. What this incident also reveals is that if the president wishes to used the executive branch and its law enforcement function as a political branch as in a "banana republic" goverment, he is free to do so. It also means that innocent civillians, who happen to be in the way of the president's agenda, might be victim of criminal prosecutions.

Until we, the people of the United States, understand that our country's system-of-government has relied on convention to safeguard our civil liberties, rather than constition and law, we will continue to be subjected to these sorts of threats upon our freedoms. Until a more specific division of power within the executive is both codified by law and enforcable with some sort of real and applyable governmental or legal mechanism, I am afraid that our civil freedoms and rights are really only at the pleasure of the president in power.

Sincerely yours,

Arthur C. Hurwitz