Letters to the Editor
aveutter
Published Letters: 198 Editor's Choice: 32
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Unemployed construction workers are back in Mexico
[Read the article: The housing bust finally takes its toll on jobs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The demograpics of the U.S. construction work force suggests that the job losses would never show up here. That they finally did bodes badly for working Americans, but worse for the Mexicans who returned home to find out that their diet staple tortillas are a lot more expensive, and everything else probably, thanks to the ethanol program in this country. While inflation didn't find its way back into the United States from China, for a long long while, you can bet it will be a long time before it is taken out of the system, which means something like stagflation, inflation which persists through a recession, and destagflation probably, rising prices, and falling interest rates. Rising rates provide the savers in this country with a hedge against the ravages of monetary excess. This next recession will a doozy, and worse.
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Re: Raven, Singin' in the Rain, A Clockwork Orange
[Read the article: Opus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I used to hum that song at work, and people never knew what I was really thinking....
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Eat Your Veggies Lucky Ducky
[Read the article: Tom the Dancing Bug]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's the point here. The poor have plenty of money, but they are still hungry. Why is that? Food is available, however a balanced diet is out of reach for many. Many people don't eat vegetables. Poor nutritional quality processed food has become a staple of the poor, hence more obesity, and diabetes, putting more pressure on healthcare costs, making food less affordable. You don't need a think tank to see what is happening.
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What about Guantanamo?
[Read the article: Opus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Everyone is watching the fat lady, no one is wondering about the no-fly list and a trip to Guantanamo if you make a fuss.
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The Mulitiple Win Scenarios
[Read the article: Why Bush won't attack Iran]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Iraq was a win-win-win scenario; oil, democracy, isolating Iran, the list is pretty long actually. That none of it came to fruition is a matter of timing and patience, one could say. A defeat of Iran would break the the back of the radical Muslim world. Oh sure, a few discontents outside Iran would riot and throw molotov cocktails. Without a central government dedicated to their cause the protests would vanish quickly. Secondly, as you point out, there is a great deal of oil at stake, and the continued open passage through the Persian Gulf is at stake. Increased security for Israel and Saudi Arabia, another talking point. Frankly knowing this administration I am not sure why the bombers are not over Tehran right now.
Sure the military is tired, but once they get out of the Baghdad slums and start taking over Persian real estate, morale will improve.
Politically this will break the back of the Democratic party, whose hawkish middle of the road candidate, Obama and Clinton will get torched by the anti-war left. Yes, we're going there, it makes perfect sense, the more you think about it, and of course the spineless Democrats who could have taken the sword out of Bush's hand, are completely to blame. For them its a mulitiple lose situation, although of course America might find a populist cause in all this that destroys both parties. So be it.
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Democrats will defect
[Read the article: Dianne Feinstein, symbol of the worthless Beltway Democrat]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The problem doesn't begin or end with Senator Feinstein, it extends to the Speaker of the House, who is a serial Bush enabler. San Francisco is a city which nearly went Green in the last election, when the Democratic candidate for Mayor was running behind the Green party candidate, who advocated Gay Marriage. The party threw a ton of money at the problem, in the eleventh hour, and a Democrat was elected. He then lifted the ban on Gay Marriage, and the idea spread like wildfire across the country.
It's not just podunk Mayoral races that the Greens have shown a proclivity toward, they ran Peter Camejo for Governor, during the recall ripoff which brought Arnold to power, and most analysts agreed, that he won the debates on substance. Greens have made their influence felt. We can't be sure under what banner Cindy Sheehan will run against Pelosi, but she has promised to do so.
There is a real and possible fatal tendency among Democrats, to underestimate the Green Party in California, but independents make up a large percentage of Republican swing voters, which includes the Libertarian branch of their party.
Since politics is nothing if it isn't a gerrymandering, demographically correct, pie eating contest, Beltway Dems tend to paint anyone outside the party with the same brush, although a lot of those Libertarians would probably cross if the Democrats had fought Bush on FISA. The first official act of the new state Republican chair, Ron Nehring, was to exclude independents from the 2008 primary, because nobody wants a brokered election.
The Greens are a more progressive party than Democrats, and it doesn't help when the rank and file bloggers at places like DailyKos gives kneejerk support to every Democratic encumbent. Feinstein is just the tip of the iceberg. Democrats are trying to build solidarity, but who can say, honestly, that being anti-war is a Democratic party plank? For the first time since Kennedy, Democrats are being forced to face just what kind of party they have, and when that happens a lot of voters who thought the Democrats cared about them, are going to defect.