Letters to the Editor
Reality-based Liberal
Published Letters: 774 Editor's Choice: 100
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More women CEOs would be great, but...
[Read the article: Corporate parity's comin'! And you'll enjoy it from your retirement home]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I endorse equity in America's boardrooms and executive suites. But the obsession with this goal among activists is disappointing for two reasons:
1) Corporate executives increasingly represent the most bloated, over-compensated and least productive members of our society. Buying off elected officials with whom they golf, in order to ensure a legal environment reduces competition and regulations, appears to be their chief contribution to their companies (certainly managing companies has become passé for executives – take a look at any accused of fraud: "I had no idea what was going on!"). What's more, the gender of women who work as executives at large companies generally has no impact on their behavior; it doesn't strike me that feminism is all that well served by women who imitate a flawed male system (for the most part, women are no more likely than men to push progressive reform within large corporations).
2) Corporate executives make up a radically tiny percentage of the population. Raising the minimum wage to a living wage ($10/hr at least) would help tens of millions of women. A single-payer health care system that includes reproductive health care services would represent a sea change in women's lives. I'm not saying that those who advocate equity in the board rooms and executive suites don't also advocate for more broad-based policies like these, but the weight given to pursuing equity among the rich seems to me to be way out of whack. I’d guess this is in large part due to the fact that those who have the time and education to write about this stuff have a disproportionate number of peers in the upper class, and like all of us write about what they know and see.
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I wish I could be excited
[Read the article: Democrats: Hope for the House, and good news on the Senate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First, I share other posters' worries that after election day we will all be figuring out how Rove got out some phantom base to defy the polling (e.g. computer hackers).
But what is most depressing is that I can't even get excited about a successful Democratic victory. Sure they are better than the GOP, but if the GOP has us headed toward a cliff at 70 mph, all I expect out of the Dems is to slow down to 55 mph.
If we had a Senate led by Reid, a House led by Pelosi, and another Clinton White House, we would still not: pull out of Iraq; raise the minimum wage to a living wage; raise taxes on the rich, banks, oil companies and the like; outlaw offshore tax-dodging; regulate drug and gas prices; enact single-payer health care; increase federal funding for light rail; decrease subsidies for airlines and road construction; sign Kyoto; decrease defense spending; fully and equitably fund our education system; enact public financing of all federal elections; decrease prison populations; provide real anti-trust action; etc. etc. etc.
Then, after 2, 4, or 6 years of continued status quo, the public (or the 30% that still votes) will casually opt for the GOP again - and the car is back up to 70 mph...assuming we haven't already hit the cliff.
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Absolute Fiction
[Read the article: Still looking for that pony]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That speech is so divorced from reality that Bush's continuance in office is a testament to our nation's inability to handle democracy. Certainly the fact that we haven’t impeached him shows we are not to be trusted with the military we have.
Hamas is keeping the Palestinians down by fighting democracy? Is this the same Hamas that ran for office and won? The same Hamas that, after being elected, was rebuffed by...George Bush? I'm not sticking up for Hamas here; merely pointing out that Bush does not deal in facts or reality.
As for the extremist terrorists and their autocratic governments, does he think we were all born yesterday? Egypt and Saudi Arabia have autocratic governments that we back who are opposed by the religious extremists in those countries. Moreover, when democracy does take root, these nations are going to elect the most anti-US and anti-Israel governments the planet has ever seen, because the biggest beef these potential electorates have with their governments is their close dealings with the US.
War is peace. Ignorance is freedom. We have always been at war with Islam…
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Other possibility
[Read the article: Fathoming the unfathomable: Bush's non-response to Lebanon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Could be that our goal is to set Lebanon back decades and let it decend back into civil war. That way it's a lot easier to install a string of puppet governments that would play ball in ventures like the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline.
While it probably wouldn't work, it matches with the historical record a lot better than most other explanations of US behavior.
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Don't forget Keisler
[Read the article: In bench warfare, Republicans sit this round out]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Peter D. Keisler, co-founder of the Federalist Society, nominated by Bush in June, just got a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The committee has had no time to review his record and he's being pushed through at warp speed. I guess Haynes, Boyle, etc. showed them that it doesn't pay to take your time.
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Question for Green bashers
[Read the article: The Pennsylvania Green Party/GOP nexus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why don't you blame Republican voters? Didn't they take away nearly 3 million Gore votes in Florida? Aren't you assuming a lot to think that Nader voters had more to lose with a Bush presidency than the suckers who voted for Bush?
I bet the Nader voters were richer, better educated and certainly less likely to end up unemployed or dead in Iraq. So the case could be made that, from their point of view, a vote for Nader was not a compromise.
Of course, Green Party bashers could make the case that their vote hurt other people. But of course you would then be admitting that Green voters are the most decent and altruistic voters – so much so that they can be trashed for not looking out for the masochistic Bush voters. So it would seem that the hate for Green voters is necessarily based on respect.