Letters 9/29/05

Sept. 28, 2005

Time to stand up
Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of southern Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and the flooding of New Orleans is a tragic national disaster of major proportions.
An equally great disaster, however, is the slow and weak response by the federal government, when all New Orleans resources were destroyed and state resources were overwhelmed.
People were left in their homes and in the Superdome and the Convention Center without food or water or medication for up to six days and longer. These include newborn babies and the elderly. This is outrageous. Hundreds of thousands of people were left stranded all over the region, starving, and probably thousands died. The help is much too slow and people are dying as a result. FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is a joke. Paul Krugman, in his September 2 NY Times editorial, “A Can’t Do Government,” described how Bush gutted the FEMA with “privatization” and the consequent loss of competent managers.
The Homeland Security Department is a joke, even after hundreds of billions of dollars in national debt to fund it because still there is no planning, no infrastructure, and no coordination. This is the result of top Republican operative Grover Norquist’s strategy of starving the government beast so he can “drown it in the bathtub,” as he stated on camera. This is, furthermore, the consequence of giant tax cut for billionaires and a foolish invasion of Iraq, while ignoring the plight of real American families.
Bush has been the most irresponsible, spendthrift president in history! Borrow and spend. Borrow and spend. Let our children and grandchildren pay for the profligacy of his policies. Converting a balanced budget before he came into office into a $300 billion a year deficit, running the national debt up to $7 trillion. This enormous debt is owned by Communist China (who we now can’t stand up to because of this) and Japan and others. This is bankrupting our country. Economists predict that it won’t be too many years before the dollar crumbles with devastating consequences for all.
Bush should be impeached! He is totally incompetent. He should be removed from office along with the equally incompetent Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. The American people should take back power. The Democratic Party should take the lead. But if neither political party does, we need a new sensible, caring, thoughtful, protective American progressive movement of the people to stand up to counterbalance the selfish billionaires and the uncaring multinationals, and to work for “we the people.”

Charles Novitski • Mount Pleasant





No expiration date
Regarding Cindy Sheehan and all who mourn the death of a loved-one: The death isn‘t really something you ever get over. Instead, one morning it‘s not the first thing you think about.
There is no expiration date on grieving.

Jude Caird • Petoskey

Bush‘s bungling
I know you love to print controversial letters but you‘re giving my husband a heart attack! (Re: “Kerry is worse,“ by Darci McKellar, 9/15)
Miss McKellar, please open your eyes... Bush is the one closing military bases; how can you blame things on past presidents, especially Clinton? He had our economy flowing along nicely with no deficit.
There aren’t any military personnel here to help us; they‘re over in the war. ABC News stated that the Louisiana National Guard, along with other states, complained that too much of its equipment was in Iraq, States are facing shortfalls when facing fires, floods and other disasters.
It‘s pretty sad that we, the superpower, cannot even rescue our own citizens. Bush’s staff was terrified of having to tell him to cut his vacation short -- Gov. Blanco was not permitted to get through to him for hours. She asked for 40,000 troops on her own and didn’t get them.Bush’s response has been almost detached, like in the 9/11 attack.
And, of course, contracts to rebuild are going to his cronies like Fluor Corp Inc., Bechtel Group Inc., and a secondary company of Halliburton called Kellogg Brown & Root. Also, a southern firm from Houston was contracted to collect human remains from the disaster. These same companies have been audited for contracts they have performed in Iraq and were found to have misspent hundreds of millions of dollars. Some of them were paid twice with no documentation to back up what they did.
FEMA’s head man, as we all know now, had no prior experience except that of running a horse show.

Nancy Henning-Baumdraher
• via email

Clueless right wing
(Re: The Truth About Gas Prices,“ 9/8)

I am sure that I shall never see,
Brett Yokom making sense to me,
But, thank God in America he is free to express,
His myopic vision no matter how repressed,
And blather and blunder all in good tact,
Regardless of his obvious use of partial facts.

All you people like Brett need to cut the spin from Bill O’Liely, mail Rush another bottle of pills, get Michealweird Rageved off your radios, and bring Sean Insanity down from his gunner‘s nest and make him actually, honestly debate anything with anyone.
None of these propaganda ministers of the far right can openly and fairly debate anything. Check out the bios on these losers and you’ll see that every single one of them has failed miserably in their past whenever they have been placed in an environment that is not prearranged for them to succeed. Why? Because they do not have enough command of the big picture and the whole story to know what is really going on. They only have their myopic view and partial facts. And you people just soak it up like a sponge.
I bring this up because I routinely watch and listen to the Bush propaganda ministry. It is better than the Comedy Channel. I have yet to make it through “The No Spin Zone” without laughing at the audacity and outright untruths espoused under the guise of “No Bull!”
The entire lineup at FNC (the Fascist News Channel) is better than an evening with Howie Mandel. And more appalling too! Brett, and all those who agree with him, every time you write one of these public opinions you are just regurgitating what you have heard on FNC, or Rush, or wherever. I heard it there too long before you put it here. And even though I am very liberal (and I say that with EXTREME PRIDE), I often listen to the other point of view in an attempt to be more well-rounded and open. Which, by the way, if you check your dictionary, is part of the definition of the liberal. I might suggest you people do the same. The far right needs an infusion of open minds who are willing to work with everyone for a better America, for EVERYONE!
Brett, I can dismantle your entire last argument about gas prices with two questions:
1) Seen any gas stations closed lately because they are out of gas? So much for that supply and demand argument.
2) Noticed the profit margins the oil companies are enjoying during this price escalation episode? Shame they just cannot find some of it to build new refineries. They found a lot of it for bonuses to the top executives. Yup all those government restrictions and “junk science” are really hurting them. Gimmy a break! Open your eyes. And PLEASE open your minds a little.

Karl Thomsen • Cadillac

Iraq was no hoax
I‘m not a big fan of Mr. Bush, but things are getting out of hand. I take issue with “The Hoax“ editorial of the Sept. 7 issue by Robert Downes.
The reason the world (not just Bush and Cheney) believed that WMDs were in Iraq is because Saddam Hussein wanted the world to believe this. Hussein defied every UN resolution which required him to disarm. He would not allow weapon inspectors to do their jobs. We all remember how Hussein‘s henchmen would not allow the inspectors into any critical areas until they were “sanitized.“ One weapons inspector was almost murdered and the entire team was thrown out of Iraq in 1998.
Let‘s remember that Hussein used prohibited nerve agents against the Kurds in his own country and also in his war with Iran. He wanted to be known as the most dangerous person in the Middle East. It was his brutality and terror that kept him in power.
Prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, most headlines spoke of the danger that Hussein posed to the world. Just after the invasion, the media changed its tune and Hussein suddenly became a docile and benevolent guy who was never up to anything really bad. It was the people of Iraq who tore down the statues and effigies celebrating Hussein‘s tyranny. He was
generally despised by all except those in his ruling Baath party.
Mr. Downes goes on to use the Downing Street memo and the Joseph Wilson - Niger investigation to assail Mr. Bush. The Downing Street memo was debunked by the British long before it hit the U.S. media. Ambassador Wilson and his conclusions were discredited over a year ago. Even the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found numerous lies in his testimony.
We may never know what WMD capabilities Hussein had before the war. He had years to perfect his system of keeping his arsenals hidden. What we did learn from the invasion was that Hussein had every intention of putting his weapons manufacturing operations back into full swing as soon as the UN sanctions were lifted.
Even the CIA report by Charles Duelfer concluded that even though Hussein had abandoned most of his weapons projects due to financial reasons he purposefully kept the illusion going that he was heavily armed to maintain his power in the region.
Picture a re-armed, reinvigorated Iraq with nuclear weapons. What an inspiration that would have been for Libya, the Sudan, or even Pakistan if it were to fall into the hands of Islamic extremists.
This is not a discussion that should be made in the context of partisan bickering. It is also one that should not be made with simplistic slogans or faulty, biased, or purposely misleading information.

Charles Russell • via email


Well done...
As a former journalist myself, I want you to know of a retired, second-generation publisher‘s praise of your publication.
Weekly, I take newspapers, including freebies I encounter, an occasional magazine, and clippings to my 85-year-old friend. I learned that his father had edited a weekly. So sharp is this man that he can recite the names of some 15 papers once published in villages of the region, quite often with alliterative names such as the Arcadia Argus, Copemish Compass, Bear Lake Beacon and Kaleva Chronicle. We have a virtual history lesson from it all. What a pleasure!
Thanks for adding the excellent Northern Express!
Tom Northway • Beulah

Bush a poor Christian
I watch C-Span almost every day and am especially interested in what the call-in persons have to say. Many of them express their political views with intelligence and obvious knowledge of what is really going on. Even if I don’t agree with their views, I consider them “food for thought.“
I do take issue with those who constantly bring up the moral integrity of our President. They say they support President Bush because of his religious stance. If they really believe this, they do not know the real story of the BUSH DYNASTY. They don’t know how this family became so rich and powerful; they don’t know about the secrecy of their private lives and how the moral indisgressions are hidden or forbidden to be made public by pressure and bribery; they don’t know that the Bush family have taken much from Americans as well as leaders of foreign countries. This family’s power is such that even foreign leaders won’t challenge them.
George W. Bush can wear his religion on his sleeve to try to fool the public: but a true Christion is not a dictator: a moral person does not ignore the poor in his own country and give billions in our tax dollars to other countries: a moral person does not lie incessantly to save his skin: and a competent leader would not refuse to talk to their constituents who want some answers.
The Bush Dynasty is a major part of the new world order. They want us to believe this will help the poorer countries to raise their standard of living; but their aim is to divide the United States into rich and poor, with no middle class. They have, for at least three generations, advocated that the world should be ruled only by the rich.
WAKE UP PEOPLE! Do your research and don’t allow yourself to be duped into believing anything you hear from this family. The Bush
supporters are responsible for our country’s demise and will bear the responsibility of dragging our nation into a third-world country.

Lynne Rochet • via email

We‘ve been deceived
The tragedy in the Gulf has been traumatic for all. If what happened to our fellow Americans has not made you stop and think and react in some way, then you just don’t care. And if you don’t care that our own people lost family and friends and their homes, and if you don’t care that our government failed these people on every level in the early days of this disaster, then this letter won’t do you any good.
For the rest though, it’s time to wake up. It’s time to be aware of what’s going on all around us. It’s time to get out from under the EVIL veil that has been our government for years. We have been taxed and lied to for the benefit of a few. We have been led to believe that our leaders are strong and righteous and that we could count on them in time of such need. How we have been deceived!
The first respondents to the needs of our brothers and sisters in the south were not our elected officials but rather the people at the lowest levels of the system. They are the heroes. Military and volunteer rescuers, the Red Cross and other such organizations who immediately took action. These people didn’t wait for orders, they didn’t think of the threat to their own safety, they didn’t worry about whose toes they might be stepping on, and they didn’t wonder what was in it for them. They reacted! From the heart. They care! And who are they? They are Americans like you and I who care.
The whole world is watching. We have a chance that rarely comes along. We have a chance as citizens and patriots to rise up and undo the embarrassment of our failed elected officials, to show the rest of the world that we are strong and that we can and will take care of our own. Do all can now to help those affected by our national disaster. Rise to this challenge!
And when the time comes to hold those responsible for the failures in our times of most need, rise up again! Rise with your patriotic duty and your rights as citizens of the United States Of America. Cry out, organize, vote! Stop what’s been going on far too long. The price we pay for what we’ve got is far too great to be given to a few elected officials and big businessmen. RISE UP! “Look what’s happening down the street...”

Tom Graham • TC

Cruise is on target
Tom Cruise is right. Psychiatry is a pseudo-science. So are psychology and psycho-analysis. There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance as a cause of a mental state; instead the mental state causes the imbalance. If you knock out the imbalance with drugs, you have only suppressed the symptoms and done nothing for the cause.
Psychology’s all-is-caused-by-chemicals-in-the-brain theory is new, radical, shallow and unfounded propaganda, and I hope short-lived. It is only advantageous to the drug companies and their advertisers and the people like Mr. Paffhouse who depend on this many-billion dollar establishment.
I can see comparing psychiatry to Nazism. Psychiatry gave us prefrontal lobotomies, topectomies, orbital leucotomies, electroconvulsive therapy, insulin shock, the water treatment, the spinning cure, and a long, long list of drugs from cocaine to LSD to methadone to Thorazine and now to Ritalin and Prozac and Haldol and Paxil, ad infinitum.
None of these treatments have cured anything, or ever will. They only show the desperation of those charged with the responsibility of handling mental illness, who are supposed to be the experts, and who don’t know what else to do. These drugs are not safe, witness the listed side effects, which include murder and suicide.
If Tom keeps anybody away from these so-called mental health professionals, that is all to the good. If someone has got a problem he wants help with, he or she is better off seeking help from friends, family, a minister, an M.D., anybody but a psych. These people are dangerous. They have done nothing to clean up their area unless forced to by outside agencies, and their failed science has not advanced in 100 years. If anything it has degenerated from the days of Freud and William James, who were at least more humane.
I expect in another 100 years, hopefully sooner, they will be relegated to the ranks of such other quackery as phrenology, alchemy, and astrology. I hope I’m not being unfair to astrology!
Alden Smith • Northport

And furthermore...
Just because Tom Cruise is a movie star doesn‘t mean he has any brains! Quite a few out there are what I‘d call strange.

Marilyn Oslund • Mackinaw City

Correction
Regarding a recent article in the Express RestauranTour issue: Please note that pizza from a former business on Mitchell Street in Petoskey is still available at Peruzzi‘s Downtown Pizza.
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