Democratic Failures: Your Letters

Tompaine.com Readers

March 23, 2006

We want to hear from our readers! Please submit all letters to the editor through our  feedback form, and remember to specify which article your letter is in response to. Letters may be edited for length.

Money Problems Here

Re: Hoop Dreams

Well said. The gutting of funding for higher education, particularly for state universities, is a major threat to the American dream of equal opportunity for advancement.

Greg Karst

Re: Wanted: A Highroad Economy

Thank you for your analysis. All people that actually work hard for their employers should be paid fair wages. I do not remember a case where raising the minimum wage has ever put business out of business.  It is important that even illegal workers get a fair wage for their work.

Peter Sutherland

Money Problems There

Re: Hamas Looks Inward

There remains the problem of funding and the international community is very hesitant to fund a group committed to the destruction of Israel. The writer of this article chooses to overlook that little but most important matter.

Miriam Null

This is one of the most insightful, accurate commentaries I have ever read on the valid election of Hamas to leadership. Frankly, the reason nothing "works" in the region is because Israeli leadership, backed by U.S. leadership, doesn't want it to work. I toured Israel last fall, and our guide, a secular Jew, gave out the most egregious line of propaganda I've ever listened to. She also whisked us past Muslim merchants and religious sites to make certain we never spoke to a Muslim.

When we got to Egypt, of course, the picture changed. In the assessment I was asked to provide for the tour company after my return, I cited all of the above. I am an ordinary secular (or, as I think of myself, cultural) Christian. I have no ax to grind with anyone, except those who tell lies and half-truths. I wish the Palestinians luck. They're going to need a mountain of it. As an imam once said to an Israeli Jew, "Why are you doing to us what was done to you?" (referring, of course, to the Jews' displacement and victimization in Europe). If one of those illegal eavesdroppers is monitoring what I'm saying here, fine. Bring 'em on.

Carole Carlson

Valuing The Future

Re: Immigrant Children: America’s Future

Exactly. "Family values" go away pretty fast when they do not fit a right-wing agenda.

Diana E Forrest

Impotent Withdrawal

Re: The Lessons Of Iraq

Thanks so much for your continuing articles on the situation in Iraq. They really serve to bring the most significant issues to light. Regarding the issue you mentioned of "the collective Arab inaction or impotence," I'd like to point out that one could replace the word "Arab" with "American" and convey the problem in the U.S. that allowed the Bush administration to act unilaterally against Iraq in the first place.

Jerell Lambert

I find the term "American-led experiment in designer democracy," as applied to the current state of the United States occupation of Iraq, wholly inaccurate. The U.S. government is not now, nor has it ever been interested in an Iraqi democracy. The U.S. government can barely hide its contempt for a semblance of democracy on its own shores and seems hell-bent on dismantling the most fundamental democratic protections of its own people.

Linda Norman

During all this discussion of American withdrawal from Iraq, I notice little, if any, mention of the vast air bases there that have been established. The media should be emphasizing the huge footprints that will be left in Iraq—and probably under-reported on over ensuing years—after so-called American troop withdrawal, and the effects on Iraq, not to mention the U.S. budget.

Alexandra Moffat

Leadership Vacuums

Re: Bush’s Skunktails

Voters are disgusted with Democrats for being gutless wonders. When only one or two Democrats in Congress are willing to demonstrate they are not invertebrates, why should anyone be ready to vote for them? The party must realize that playing nice with America's conservative scum can never pay off in any way. It is essential that Democrats point out that Republicans are incompetent at governing.

Kal Palnicki

I think Robert Reich is right to focus on cynicism in relation to the political parties. Cynicism can provide the vacuum that sucks in even more corruption and, I fear, fascism. Profit-motivated and far-right religion-motivated persons will never lose motivation, but will flow into this vacuum. Therefore, while skepticism is healthy, cynicism must be avoided. 

The fact that there is also a high level of cynicism among Democrats seems to me to indicate a structural problem in government. In my opinion, the two-party system is obsolete. Gerrymandering has contributed greatly to that outcome. The two-party system is not representative of the broad spectrum of political inclinations. We need proportional representation in at least one house of Congress.

I think that the Democrats have really let us down by largely supporting the initiation of the war in Iraq, to pick an outstanding example. Why did that happen?  Are our representatives too focused on their local constituencies in order to maintain their gerrymandered power bases?  But also, the American people must accept responsibility for not looking more critically and getting more involved. And maybe they have been too naive in believing the popular media, which is designed mostly for entertainment now.

Berry Ives