Letters to the Editor
lexsali
Published Letters: 73 Editor's Choice: 9
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Islamic supremacist
[Read the article: Rudy Giuliani's messianic paranoia]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And your point is? What religion out there does not believe that it is the sole path to salvation? Are you saying Christians accept that they are #2 in the world? Jews understand they are secondary to Christians? What is so different about a Muslim believing his religion is the only right one? Is it so different from Christians believing that all who don't accept Christ as their savior will perish?
As for "Islamic terrorism", the mere use of this term by someone running for president removes him completely from my list. Might as well ignore everything else that comes out of his mouth. I'm a numbers person, and it is clearly possible to still have hope about the future of "civilization" when you see that out of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims, the number of Muslims following a violent backlash movement against the US is only a couple of thousand, or .00000000...oh, never mind.
However, the number of people in the Muslim world who don't agree with the United States' big-stick policies might be higher. For that matter, you don't have to be Muslim to disagree with Bush (see domestic approval ratings), and you don't have to be white and Christian to agree with him. I actually think the irony here is that the American Muslim community in the U.S. endorsed Bush over Gore.
Anyway, I'm sure everyone's heard this before, so it won't make a bit of a difference to American supremacists, but it bears repeating:
The policies of the United States' government are the reason for extremism. Cases in point (a short list):
-Propping up Saddam Hussein, a ruthless dictator, against his own people.
-Then invading his country (unilaterally), toppling him, and settling down comfortably for, oh a good two or three decades, not to mention profiting from Muslim-owned resources, i.e. oil and from 'restoration projects' restoring infrastructure they themselves destroyed (I don't know if anyone else finds this as funny as I do).
-Botching up even their own plans, leading to an explosion of an 'insurgency' (read Muslims trying to reclaim Muslim-owned land and resources).
-Blindly supporting Israel (the more powerful of the two sides) while completely ignoring the rights of Palestinian Muslims, leading to another 'insurgency'.
-Sitting on the largest nuclear arsenal mankind has ever seen while simultaneously telling Iran it has no right to develop nuclear weapons (also while threatening 'military action').
-Now propping up another military dictator in Pakistan against his own people while civilians riot in the streets, leading, no doubt, to another 'insurgency'.
I would go on, but I think I've made my point (not that it matters).
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P.S.
[Read the article: Rudy Giuliani's messianic paranoia]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I forgot about the Afghanistan debacle, where the US started early (1970s), freely handing out weapons to Afghans against the Russians and planting the seeds of violence, then ignoring the region for a good 20 years while the guns slowly turned toward the US.
Here, the NYTimes happily announces history repeating itself:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/washington/19policy.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&th&emc=th
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It's called indoctrination
[Read the article: Brian Williams: "Marriage is under attack"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Some people say, what's the big deal? Yes, truly objective news has its place in this world, but so do op-eds and right/left talk shows, and so do the Jay Lenos and the Jon Stewarts of this world. So what's the big deal if Brian Williams has a conservative bias? There are plenty of left-biased broadcasters out there as well.
The problem, or at least the way I see it, is that Brian Williams is delivering his bias via the guise of objective news. The problem, at least to me, is not that he has a bias in the first place, because who doesn't? But when Williams and others like him deliver their bias into the living rooms of millions of Americans under the guise of objective news, it's really like indoctrination. It's comparable to a teacher inserting her/his bias into students as facts, or like the textbooks that used to teach Germans that Jews were the reason for all their troubles.
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YOU are the entitled one...
[Read the article: I cared for my dad in his final months -- but who gets his car?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Actually, the neighbor DOES sound like she's taking advantage of the LW. Moving into the house, driving the car? Any decent person that took care of the father out of the 'goodwill' of her heart would not be taking advantage of the situation as she is doing. Bottom line: I would just ask her point blank if she took care of your dad because she wanted something out of it. If she says yes, then give her something, but not the car! If she says no, then thank her and concentrate on the issues between you and your sister. Out of the two of them, your sister is definitely entitled to the car.
But out of the two of you, you're the one entitled to it all! Not least because the will says so, but also because it was you that held up your end of the promise between you and your dad, it doesn't sound like your sister did much at all, which might be why your dad left her out of the will in the first place. Be nice, but don't get taken advantage of!