Letters to the Editor
-
"American family" ?
“But she has endorsed raising the minimum wage, cutting interest rates on student loans and making some college tuition tax deductible. As Warner points out, though, these aren't nearly enough. The American family needs quality after-school programs, national standards for childcare, voucher programs and tax subsidies to help pay for that care, universal, voluntary public preschool, paid family leave and incentives for businesses to make part-time and flex-time work financially viable.”
All admirable and worthwhile goals which no doubt would benefit and are deserved by children and their caretakers.
But what is this thing you call “the American family” , and why would the “feminist left”, or anyone else, frame arguments for socially progressive and humanistic measures for children and their caretakers only in terms of this “American family”? Is it something like the “American way”, or the “sacred vow of marriage”, or maybe “American might”?
Do those who fall outside of your constructed “American family” have legitimate needs and rights as well?
-
I hate to say this
because I really, really wanted the Green Party to take the Democrats' place as the leftist party in this country. I clung to that notion (though I did not continue in many cases to vote Green) up until this election cycle, when I moved to Vermont and heard the foundering Green Party making the exact same claims about Bernie Sanders that the nasty Republican candidate made. (Those negative commercials lost Tarrant the campaign from day one.) I no longer trust a word the Green Party says. They are holding people to impossible standards. Those Democrats are not what they seem! The Poison Pills in the liberal Democrats' (and in Vermont's case, Independents') voting record never come up in these discussions somehow.... It is hideous from the Republicans, but from the Greens it is just pathetic. I know virtually nothing about Nancy Pelosi's voting record, but the criticisms I read in this piece smack of the same rhetorical balderdash I heard from Greens in the Green Mountain state about Bernie. The Progressive and Liberty Union parties are very strong here, and I will probably never entertain the notion of a Green vote again.
-
couple things..
first, Pelosi is a multi-millionaire (hardly unusual in the House), with all the advantages and blind spots of the breed.
I'm sure she'll do what she thinks is right, as long as that doesn't get in the way of her continued political power--after all, let's not forget who we're dealing with here, as Speaker, she's a *politician* first, and everything else second.
Finally, I have to say, I am increasingly bemused by what I see as a really weird disconnect in our politics these days...caused by this long, surreal rule by the right.
Anything that actually helps people who aren't rich is now "far-left" thus, bad. Anything that leaves people hanging out there with their asses in the wind to fend for themselves is "American" and, thus, good.
I understand how we got to this point, but it still blows me away, to tell you the truth. There was a time, not all that long ago, when centrist politicians in this country really did want to help *the people* have better lives. When these same politicians understood that sometimes we all had to pull together to make a better life for all of us.
This is now considered a "far-left" notion. I always thought it was an *American* notion.
How did we ever let the brutal morality of the Richard Mellon Scaifes of this world to dominate our politics? By being too compacent, mostly.
Make no mistake, this demon is now out, and we can't put it back. Progressives and centrists are going to have to fight this brutal morality of the far-right for as long as the eye can see. The best we can hope for is that Ayn-Rand style libertarianism is pushed out to the fringe where it belongs.
Very soon now, we are going to be facing problems the like of which NONE of us has ever seen...global-warming, world-wide water shortages, the permanent decline of fossil-fuels, the slow poisoning of our oceans... we are in deep, deep shit, folks, and the Mellon Scaifes of this world have absolutely no answer for those problems, other than to make them worse. Our leaders better figure out how to stay upright in the storm that's coming...or they'll be swept away, as will we all, if our leaders cannot stand.
If Pelosi can make a good start toward a new, better, more productive direction for us all, that'll be enough for me.
-
Left wing nuts are just as laughable as those of the right wing
Todd Chretien is embarrassing. He shoots his mouth off without the facts. Ms Peolsi grew up in a working class Baltimore neighborhood, daughter of Baltimore's legendary mayor Tommy D'Alesandro, a die hard Roosevelt Democrat and a man who spent his life in Baltimore's Little Italy tending to the needs of the working class. She knowa what needs to be done
-
Continuing the above
Her father was the mayor of Baltimore. Then she went off to a rich kids college and found a rich man to marry. She never earned a W-2 in her life except as a politician. She lives in a marvelous house in the rich section of San Francisco and her children attended private schools. She got into politics when being a socialite-housewife got boring. Her entree was by being a money man, raising money from her wealthy friends and contributing them to politicians that did their bidding.
Then one of the politicians she funded died and Nancy took her place. She's from a wealthy San Francisco district that is overwelmingly Democrat. She's never had to work for a buck or a vote in her life.
-
Salon Appreciation
I really enjoyed reading the Pelosi's family values piece and learned more of the complexities than I knew of the newly elected Speaker of the House. The PBS program "Now" is one of my favorites and I was pleasantly surprised to see the Salon Editor interviewed last night. I think Salon could be exposed more in PBS and NPR programs to increase your audience. Also, appearances on Canada's national CBC TV and radio networks would be a good thing now that there's a positive political breakthrough in the U. S. There are many North American issues that should be better understood by all including Salon readers. Thanks.
Jack Century
Calgary, Canada