Letters 3/21/02

March 20, 2002

Hero was a hard sell

It‘s always fun and sometimes interesting reading your “Best Of“ addition of
the Express. It‘s also a nice way to highlight folks in our community who
do a good job at what they do or who have a great services to offer.
But I was a little (or I should say a lot) uneasy with your category Best of
Community Heroes to see Larry Sellers listed. What kind of a community hero
is he? He let his bad temper get out of control and he beats up someone
three times his junior and he‘s considered a hero. Come on! What kind of
example is he for our young people and our community? I didn‘t know doing
something bad gets you listed as doing something good. I guess it‘s like
yes means no and no means yes, right?
What Mr. Sellers did was wrong and
you have highlighted him as a community hero. I find that pretty
distasteful and surprising in your paper. I understand it‘s not that
difficult to stuff the ballot box for the Best Of issue but I‘d think you
would have some common sense to realize good from bad. Maybe next year the
TC Yes group can stuff the ballot box to list Fred Phelps as a community
hero. It really says a lot about our community when the bad guy gets listed
as one of the good guys. I look forward to see who makes the list next
year.

Jim Carruthers • TC

Kennedy‘s decision

“This country can not afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.“

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

We live in increasingly dangerous times, and have to wonder how in the
short span of a year this all seems to have happened to us. For those of
us who endured the threat of massive nuclear destruction during the Cuban
missile crisis, there is perhaps a lesson of wisdom to learn from the wise
leadership of former President Kennedy. At that time two nations in
particular possessed weapons of mass destruction. Every individual on
earth, whether they were aware of it or not, faced the very real threat of
global destruction through “nuclear winter“ - the chilling aftermath of a
massive nuclear exchange. The Soviet Union had just upped the ante by
beginning to arm missiles close to our shores in Cuba. Kennedy was urged
by some of his advisers to make a “pre-emptive strike“ on those missile
bases in Cuba, least we loose the element of surprise and allow more
weapons of mass destruction to be amassed against us. Those same advisors
pointed out that the longer we wait the more we place ourselves “more in
harms way“ - and that the slow and more vulnerable route of public “power
diplomacy“ was risky with such an untrustworthy adversary as the Soviet
Union.
To his credit and our collective salvation, President Kennedy opted against
a pre-emptive strike, and opted for a masterful bout of “power diplomacy“
paired with a great exercise of restraint, as recorded in the popular film
“13 days.“ Nuclear war was averted, and in good time the “evil empire“ of
latter day proclamation largely dismantled itself from forces within with
relatively minimal violence. I believe “the evil empire“ fell first and
foremost through the strength of human spirit of its own enslaved citizens,
citizens who were allowed the time to evolve and press for freedom and
democracy internally.
Recently President Bush labelled three nations an “Axis of Evil.“ They each
possess, like ourselves, weapons of mass destruction, and to varying
degrees oppress our restrict their own citizenry. North Korea, as
repressive as it is, has the economic impetus to reach rappochmont with its
neighbor to the South, and has been in hopeful dialogues to this end.
Iran, though still gripped by repressive fundamentalism, has a popularly
elected moderate president who opposed the Taliban, advocates more freedoms
internally, and has called for a warming of relations with the United
States. Bush‘s proclamation however calling these nations “evil“ has done
nothing to help the voices of moderation in these countries. Now we are
reading in the world press (the Guardian, February 24) that President Bush
and Prime Minister Tony Blair are planning a “pre-emptive strike“ on Iraq,
the third nation in this imagined Axis. The justification for such a
strike? Though they have not used those weapons of mass destruction
directly on us - someday soon they might. Get them before its too late,
the Bush admistration will argue. But will this approach lead us to a
safer world?
Countries such as Iraq, when boxed into a corner with a threat of war
seeming inevitable, might choose their own forms “pre-emptive strike,“
however futile this may seem to us. Militant Islamic groups elsewhere
might also see the handwriting on the wall, and choose to strike us while
they can. It‘s the logic of fear and desperation at work, and we have only
to look at Israel and the West Bank to see where this logic leads.
President Kennedy showed us another path in the face of a direct
confrontation in Cuba. In that instance, he chose the path of powerful
resolve coupled with restraint. He managed to hold the line on the direct
and real threats to our nation in Cuba, while accepting the continual
existence of a great “potential threat“ in the Soviet block (one far
greater than anything Saddam Hussein could muster.) He did not back his
adversary into a corner. Perhaps this was a strategy that felt like to him
“a simple necessity,“ but sensing the stature of that man, I believe that
the risk he took for the world was based on his greater faith in the
ability of human spirit to prevail, not through the exercise of coercion
but through the exercise of wisdom and restraint. I pray that we citizens
can find such wisdom in ourselves, and that we may lead our leaders to it
in these times of great need.

Jim Norgaard • Petoskey