Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 344 Editor's Choice: 70
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Remember When Politicians and Police Made Sure Unions Were Infiltrated By Organized Crime?
[Read the article: "The first time I was back since the storm ... drugs were everywhere"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Unions were a threat to big business. Big business funds politicians and buys judges. How could unions and unionism be destroyed without angering the population? Obviously, hiring Pinkerton detectives to shoot pro-union protestors and to enforce lock-outs wasn't working. It only made more people sympathize with union organizers.
So they hit upon the idea of organized crime taking over the unions and destroying the unions from within. The pols and the judges knew exactly who to contact. Crime syndicate members were given the green light (and given money) to muscle into unions and to threaten union members from within. Unions went to the police. The police said "Suuure we'll help you. Suuure we'll arrest the bad guys" and laughed as businessmen made larger and larger contributions to the "Police Widows and Orphan" funds. And that's how organized crime was able to take over unions.
The same tactic was used by the FBI in the 1960s and 1970s. Informers were recruited to infiltrate all kinds of civil rights and anti-war groups. Smaller groups like the Black Panthers and the SDS were eventually entirely made up of FBI informants, committing crimes to make the groups look bad to the public.
I believe the same thing may be happening now in New Orleans. Bush pulled his usual routine of "let somebody else deal with this, I'll just show up for the photo op" with regard to Hurricane Katrina. But this time, it didn't work. For once, Bush was seen as the callous, arrogant, uninformed boob that he is. But there's more to Bush than just those qualities. Bush is also spiteful. He has always been known to be a champion grudge-holder. Now I will bet you that New Orleans pissed him off no end. How dare there be so many poor black people unable (or unwilling) to leave their homes? How dare they get stuck on rooftops like that, for all the TV cameras to see? How dare they drown like goddamned idiots and float around all naked like that?
Being the venial, vindictive person that he is, Bush would want to get back at New Orleans. The city made him look bad; why not make the city look bad in turn? Make Americans think "Good riddance! New Orleans wasn't worth saving anyway! It's all filled up with criminals and drug pushers and addicts.. you know, black people!"
So you get some CIA folks from the old Iran/Contra days to bankroll drug dealers and send them into the city. No biggie --- we've done the same thing in Afghanistan and Central America. And Los Angeles. And Harlem. Our undercover operatives have lots of experience bankrolling drug dealers. And arms dealers.
Now isn't that a good way to punish New Orleans for making Bush look bad? You know the Bush family by now. Poppy was head of the CIA. Neal bankrupted an S&L and got bailed out free of charge by our tax dollars. He pulls down a couple of hundred thousand a year as a "software consultant" for the Chinese, though he is barely computer literate. JEB had his henchmen (and women) purge voter rolls in Florida and welcomed phony "protestors" -- known GOP operatives -- into Miami to prevent a recount. Marvin keeps a very low profile, making one wonder whose operative he is. And Barbara Bush -- well, she's just a pearl-wearing grandma who wanted those black folk out of Houston ASAP.
C'mon, let's not be naive. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes a conspiracy really is an undercover conspiracy. But of course, Americans don't believe in conspiracies, do we?
Only crazy people do... heh heh
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"will attract an innocent man -- often, Wilson points out, by wearing promiscuous clothing"
[Read the article: Toxic wife syndrome]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Can clothing be promiscuous?
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This Is So Important
[Read the article: Terrible hatred and anger on the left]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"That is why so many of them who have never been anywhere near the military -- and will never go near it even as their wars are endangered by a lack of volunteers"
This quote from Glenn is a very good, important talking point to use in the Walter Reed scandal. Let's not forget to remind everyone -- every day -- that the men who run this administration, the men who are ultimately responsible for the care of our soldiers and our veterans, not only never served a day in the military, they all actively avoided military service as strenuously as they could.
Of course they would allow our soldiers and veterans to languish in filthy conditions. What else can we expect from a bunch of chickenhawks? They never served. They never experienced combat -- though every last one of them had the opportunity. They ran from the military, they had 'other priorities'. Our soldiers today have 'other priorities' - like Dick Cheney, many of them are married and have children (two excuses Cheney used to avoid military service). But they can't take care of those other priorities because they are stuck on a second or third combat rotation in a war that was badly planned by chickenhawks. Our wounded veterans do not receive the care they need because chickenhawks cut veterans benefits in order to give tax cuts to their big bucks CEO buddies.
Wounded soldiers are being treated badly by men who couldn't be bothered to serve in the military when it was their turn. We can't make this point often enough. Smarmy creatures who can only play act at being men are mistreating our soldiers.
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C'mon
[Read the article: Spinning away the Libby verdict]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There has to be reams of video from CNN in the 1990s of upstanding Republican politicians practically peeing themselves in horror at the thought of PERJURY.
I want to see it. I want to see every one of those righteous individuals educating the public at what a serious crime PERJURY is! That's PERJURY folks, remember? It was a horrible crime back in 1998.
Just ask Kenneth Starr...