More Justice, More Peace: Your Letters

TomPaine.com Readers

February 09, 2007

We want to hear from our readers. Please submit all letters to the editor through our feedback form , and remember to specify the article to which you are responding. Letters may be edited for length and content.

A Better Brand Of Justice

Re:No Defense Against Persecution

Do you not understand that your American so-called system of justice has spoken? No one can expect true justice from a system where government prosecutors make their fame and fortune on winning cases. Why don't you copy the much older and much more fair British justice system where prosecutors neither win nor lose; they just present the case!

Archie

Following Feingold's Lead

Re:How To End The War

Dear Senator Feingold,
Thank you for being the conscience of the country. I agree that the honor of the country requires action and that the Congress has the power to do this if it has the will. Let us hope, in fact, that it has the will to do all four of the steps that are needed:

1) The impeachment of the illegitimate and incompetent Bush administration;
2) The withdrawl of troops from Iraq;
3) The completion of the cleanup in Afghanistan, with sufficient troops and funds being committed to make that country a viable, secure, and peaceful state;
4) The partition of Iraq into Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiiite states, with all the funding that might be needed to accomplish this. This is perhaps the best of many poor choices since the destruction of one of the few secular states of Iraq in order to avenge Bush's pappy.

Best wishes as you consider your crusade to do what must be done.

Dr. E.F. Milone
Retired Prof., University of Calgary

Liberal Lexicon

Re: Challenge Market Fundamentalism

I would venture to say that one of the main reasons people do not challenge market fundamentalism is that it hasn't been a part of the national conversation—that is, we haven't discussed the problem as market fundamentalism. We all understand that the mantra of deregulation shouted constantly by big business, which has been supported by massive deregulation of industry by the Bush administration, has done nothing but ill for the American people. Competition has not fluorished under deregulation, the main argument for deregulation touted by big biz, and the rise in publicly held companies has shifted the emphasis away from the customer/consumer to the shareholder. This means the good deal for the consumer has disappeared for the profit of the shareholder. Coupled with this stripping away of concern for the consumer is the return to the huge robber-baron monopolies of the late 19th century that negate competition, again due to deregulation and cronies in the Bush administration who promote the huge mergers that are occurring at an increasing rate.

It's great we have a term to rally around now—market fundamentalism—but you'll have to spread the word and make it a part of the national vocabulary if you really want Americans to rally behind it as a focus for change that will affect the decisions of our legislators.

Jerell Lambert

——— ——— ———

This is an important effort. I an amazed that people still allow the energy sector, for example, to function as a private enterprise—even in the wake of Enron and related scandals—including utiities collecting taxes that are never paid to the government. I believe strongly in private enterprise and individual initiative but I cannot see why oil companies and electric utilities should function as a cash cow for investors. The entire economy and people's lives depend on these major industries and corporate ownership is the ultimate disincentive for essential efforts toward conservation. The health care industry is also fundamentally corrupted by corporate business practices. 

Michael Conley  

Castro's Dark Side

Re: Castro's Legacy

During the cold war Americans were told that the dictators that the USA supported weren't that bad because they were anti-communist. During the 1960s, the New Left said that Castro wasn't that bad because he was anti-U.S. imperialism. While Castro was an egalitarian, Eldrige Cleaver remarked that Castro was a racist. Castro also sent troops into Ethiopia to help Ethiopia's dictator suppress Eritrea's bid for independence. I call this Cuba's Vietnam. Castro also approved of the USSR's invasion of Czechoslovakia. Look at all of the Cubans who came to the U.S. to flee Castro's tyrrany. They voted with their feet. No, as much as the far left would like to think, Castro is no saint.

Ken Mitchell

Corporate Democracy?

Re: Undermining Workers Again

To counter "paycheck protection"  unions would need approval from memebers to spend money on any political cause; how about requiring corporations to get shareholder approval for any money spend on any political cause?

Chris Hemmi

New Orleans Needs Kucinich

Re: Rebuild New Orleans Rebuild America

This article "Rebuild New Orleans Rebuild America" sounds like what presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is advocating: a "New WPA" sort of thing.  The congressman from Ohio got it right on Iraq, and he's got it right on rebuilding our country with the money otherwise spent on war and killing.  Too bad the media has already decided he won't be the next president. They're going out of their way to ignore him. Soon they will be making fun of him.  But if you listen honestly to his policy positions and eschew the personality popularity parade, you might have to admit he has it right on a lot of things.

Scott Hotchkiss