Letters to the Editor
mjkoch
Published Letters: 46 Editor's Choice: 2
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The only divisive candidate is Hillary Clinton
[Read the article: The real reason Barack Obama's divisive]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hillary will not get the nomination. It is clear after Obama's speech yesterday and the more than two million downloads on YouTube of that speech that he has touched people in a way no other politician has since John Kennedy did in 1960 and his brother Robert did in 1968. The number of young people that are joining the political process because of Obama is staggering. The commentators like to speak about the Black vote but he is not winning States such as Minnesota, Washington, North Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming because of any Black votes. He has clearly tapped into a deep yearning for change in the American people and for a leader to bring the country together. If you hate the Republicans then I guess you are going to vote for the revenge minded candidate, Hillary Clinton, but what both both Clinton's have failed to understand is that America wants to get beyond the politics of divisiveness, polarization and demonizing those who don't agree with our particular point of view. Obama's message is the message of hope and a new way of getting the nations business accomplished without angry and nasty partisanship.
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GOP attack plan is getting their ammunition from Hillary Clinton
[Read the article: The GOP attack plan for Barack Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From the first day she announced she was running for president she has lied about her thirty five years of service, which is not only a bald faced lie, but totally laughable as well. She lied about Nafta and lies about many, many other things. Her campaign has tried discrediting Obama with Jewish voters implying that he was a Moslem and anti-Israel, and has done whatever they could to bring the ugliest parts of racism to the voters in an attempt to scare them away from voting for Obama. The Clinton's have run a win-at-all- costs campaign against Obama of mud slinging, incessant lies, and trying to disparage, demean, and debase him every chance they get. Her vote for the Iraq War is not what makes me against her. Why I can never and will never vote for her is because of the type of person she is and the kind of campaign she has run. She is a revenge filled, mean and nasty person with zero scruples who will stop at nothing to get to the White House. She has engaged in the politics of personal destruction and the real sorry thing about all of this is that senior members of the party and superdelegates such as Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore have sat silently by and not warned the Clintons that if they did not change their tactics of smearing Obama and racism that they would come out publically and declare their support for Obama. A party without any principles does not deserve to return to the White House and if we have President McCain in the White House a year from now the Democratic party has only itself to blame.
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The Audacity of Truth
[Read the article: Moving beyond Obama and race]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I found Pastor Wright's comment's distasteful and his embrace of Louis Farrakhan abhorent. That being said, trying to belittle the anger of Black Americans is not only misguided, it is wrong. The worst evil the world faced was the Nazi's in World War II. Black soldiers faught and gave their lives but were not allowed to stay in the same barracks with White soldiers and were treated like third class citizens at best. Yet, when they died, their blood was no different than their White counterparts. They returned home to water fountains they were not allowed to drink from, restaurants they were not allowed to eat in, and had to sit in the back of the bus. The Tuskegee episode had the American government using Blacks as experimental guinea pigs. While I too find accusations of the government manufacturing the HIV virus to murder Blacks outrageous any Black American that was taught about the Tuskegee disgrace has reason to doubt their government. Voter suppression of Blacks was rampant and even as recently as the 2000 election for President there were allegations of attempts to turn away Black voters. The entire world saw Black bodies floating down the flooded streets of New Orleans as the federal government stood by and did nothing as the Black neighborhoods of New Orleans were destroyed. Today, in 2008, Black men are still stopped at random by policemen for the sole reason they are Black. A Black man trying to catch a taxi in most major cities in America has a less than 50% chance the taxi will stop for them. Yes, I abhor what Reverend Wright says. I am White and I am Jewish but I still can understand his anger and the anger and doubts of most Black Americans. We can criticize him all we want for hating us but history shows his animosity is most definitely not make believe. There were wrongs that were righted and wrongs and injustice that still must be righted, but we do our country a great disservice by dismissing everything the man said as ranting and raving. We cannot move forward if we cannot understand our past and we must embrace each other as equals and treat each other as we would like others to treat us.