Letters to the Editor
-
3000 "Americans"?
Joan: Great fun seeing you on Bill Maher last night! One of the best ever. However, this morning, I feel bound to point out: 3,000 "Americans" did not die on September 11, as your headline states; 3,000 people from around the world, who had the misfortune to be working in or visiting the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, or traveling in those planes, died. I do hope you will correct such a glaring error. As a British-American, it upsets me.
-
War OF Terror
No, Not War ON Terror, but the administration's War OF Terror. That's what we've had for 5 years. Where's the opposition to this? The real terrorists are right here in our elected officials and the corporate media conglomerates. The "terrorists" have won over and over again because this administration finds it helps them win "electronically suspect" elections. (Yes, Ms. Walsh and Mr. Manjoo they still are suspect.)
We live in fear. We need opposition leaders with balls who can repeat the words of Dubya (What does Iraq have to do with 9/11 "Nothing") over and over and over again until the stupidity of the American voter gets that simple fact. They've been fed so many lies over and over and over again, they believe idiotic things (bringing makeup and water onto planes - even through security puts us in danger - imbeciles)
FDR said it so well: We have nothing to fear but fear itself. And here we are living in fear. Even the corporate media doesn't get that their constant repeating of White House spin rather than true reporting makes their bottom line weak (newspapers subscriptions are down - overair News viewership is down - the majority of the young get their news from Comedy Central rather than the corporate news media)
It's time to clean house. If you go to the polls (and everyone who looks for other news sources should) vote the incumbent out. It's the only way to save this republic. Throw 'em all out.
Pete Thelen
-
I Lost Trust
A few days after 9/11, I was on a cnn.com bulletin board with hundreds of posts expressing their thoughts about that horrible crisis. I posted a post something to the effect of "I did not vote for you Mr. President but I am 100% behind you now. Godspeed Mr. President." I can't remember the exact wording. I truly felt deep in my heart that the divisions of the awful 2000 presidential election needed to be put aside. I needed to get behind Bush and the government and we needed to be united. cnn.com took my post and highlighted it into a sidebar. We were united in our grief and our resolve.
Bushco abused that trust for their own agenda. THAT is what angers me so much.
We handed over our trust in time of crises, and they did the most unspeakable thing. They used that trust for their own purpose WHILE shoving aside the original crisis AND abused fellow Americans who dared ask questions about their war drums.
I lost trust, I lost my naiveté. I learned how willfully ignorant people stay even when presented with facts. I learned to what depths fellow Americans will sink when called a traitor to my face. I will teach my children to never trust politicians and never never never never trust a Republican. I don't know where my country is, nor what my country is anymore. This still hurts.
-
Joan Walsh: A Refreshing Oasis in an Everencroaching Fascist Desert
The article was succinct and heartening, Ms. Walsh. Never stop writing; we need your words.
When Americans wake up to the fact we are not a democracy, have never been, were instead a Republic (and look what happened to Rome!!); that we do not elect the president and never have - the electoral college does that - and have very little input into federal elections, then we may begin to understand 'how this could happen.'
Smedley Butler had been approached by financiers in America to become the next 'Diktator' and to overthrow Roosevelt; these were the same financiers who fancied Hitler and his policies. Butler instead went to the press, who published the facts and a congressional investigation proved them true. But the guilty - being the real power behind the throne - went unpunished and unpublished.
It looks as if they finally managed to pull their 'coup' with their papier-mache puppet who has racially the 'right' credentials (grandpa Prescott and his banking connection with the Nazis during WWII). They can dress him up all they want as a soldier (remember the staged and phony landing on the aircraft carrier which was just offshore from San Diego at the time? They made the ship turn around so we could not see the shore and recognize the theatrics - pres comes swaggering out of the cockpit - of a plane he did not land but 'transfer device' of propaganda..)..he'll never be the soldier that Butler was.
Butler wrote the book: "War is a Racket" way back when. It still applies today.
And our journalists who tell the truth are fired, run out of the country. Hasn't anyone noticed? The newspapers and television companies are owned by just a few corporations; the same corporations who feed their pet canary Bush. Real journalism is done via the Internet these days.
Joan Walsh is a real journalist!
-
On to the right
the article and the letters reacting to this article show why most americans, us dumb folk, are fast moving to the right. the debate for liberals is not about how to protect the country. it's not a debate. the liberal belief is that we are bad, we deserve to be attacked, we should not prevent it, the other side is good, and they are justified in whatever they do.
-
"I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!"
We all know things are bad -- worse than bad -- they're crazy.
It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone."
Well, I'm not going to leave you alone!
I want you to get mad!
I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the [Al Qa'eda] and the crime in the street.
All I know is that first, you've got to get mad.
You've gotta say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!"
So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell,"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!!"
With apologies to Paddy Chayefsky. I'm glad he died before he got to see his nightmare become reality in America.