Swans


 

Letters to the Editor

(April 12, 2004)

 

Regarding Gilles d'Aymery's Safer, Stronger, More Democratic: Kosovo, Iraq, And The Heavens

To the Editor:

Another terrific piece, thank you; although, I suppose, it's just stating the obvious!

Amazing how many of the free trade "coffee left," the comfortable and concerned, are still blathering on about war crimes committed by Serbs....are still frothing into their lattes about humanitarian intervention in the Balkans... And how come it didn't happen in Rwanda?

That, well, you know, Saddam WAS a bad man and the world and the Iraqi people ARE, after all, better off now. Amazing.

The amnesia of this culture is truly breathtaking...and the Orwellian control of the media (witness the NYT's coverage of the new puppet government in Haiti, and the lack of questions about Noriega and Negroponte and Abrams and ex-Duvalierists) is now at new a level of unreality. Does nobody remember Rummie's trip as Middle East envoy....those tax credits to Saddam AFTER he gassed the Kurds....flying US-made helicopters? Does anyone really care about Scalia and Cheney hunting ducks....openly flouting all traditions of impartiality? I guess not. Aristide was given a short vacation in the most obscure country in Africa....but has the audacity to return to Jamaica....so Condi threatens him....so much for democracy and sovereignty. State department front groups helped create opposition in Haiti....the same folks who invented the KLA are plucky freedom fighters opposing the hated demonic Serb death machine....(and yeah, Kerry wants to increase the NED budget)....so sure, yellow cake, WMD....Castro is a monster who eats babies....Iraqis pulled babies from incubators in Kuwait....and check Bush's appointments to Health and Human Services (the one argument for actually thinking of voting Kerry....that, and Ashcroft)....but I am rambling as usual. The surreality increases....the short term memory loss is systemic in the over medicated and politically comatose American public.

What's going to change the armada of death? I don't know. I wish I did, but maybe a crisis we can't imagine will awaken everyone....global warming? We'll see, I guess.

John Steppling
Krakow, Poland - March 30, 2004

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Regarding Phil Rockstroh's A Poison Pen Letter To Our Apostle Of Perpetual Psychosis, Brother Mel Gibson

To the Editor:

I was not able to follow everything in Phil Rockstroh's critique of Gibson's Passion. I think that most people don't get it. The Jews in the movie are today's Catholics. The Romans in the movie are today's non-Catholics. Together, they are destroying the Catholic Church as the mystical body of Christ again goes through its passion.

Nick Novelly
St. Marys, Kansas, USA - March 29, 2004

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Regarding Manuel García's Election 2016: The Issues

To the Editor:

I think that Manuel García's writings about 2016 are right on the money. Thank you for this article. I found it all fascinating. I remember, as a child in the early to mid 1970s, that it was predicted [Ed. cf. Club of Rome] we only had about 30 years left of oil and/or coal. That made a distinct impression on me. I could really imagine what it would be like without everything. That gave me my fullest understanding (as a child) of the scope of what mankind has done to this world.

It just goes to show that things haven't changed, just the numbers were off. It is scary that mankind has to be so greedy. I am sure there is so much technology related to alternative sources of energy that have been bought up by either big oil companies or by American car companies to keep us using gasoline and oil and other related products. I have been frustrated in trying to find economic (thus contributing less pollution and using less petroleum based products) vehicles to drive. I could dive deep into your topics, but won't. I hope that your writing stirs the thoughts of others.

Mary Ellen Crawford
Wallingford, Connecticut, USA - March 29, 2004
Manuel García follows up:

It is indeed scary that mankind -- especially that 1% sliver or so that pretty well owns everything -- is so greedy. Since everybody's "choices" are interlinked (e.g., one person's "profit" is another's "pollution"), the uses of natural resources cries out for a world-wide collaborative system ("socialism," if one wants to use the word that gives coronaries to Republicans and capitalist partisans). It is not clear that humanity can arrive at such a level of maturity -- and simple decency -- given the accumulating crises brought on by the exhaustion of such resources in the next few decades. As Ms. Crawford says, the obvious motivation to write such articles is to indeed hope it "stirs the thoughts of others." Based on my technical career, and science and engineering education, I am convinced that there are many technical methods, available now and which could be developed with conscientious effort, that would provide new ways of achieving old ends, and do so with much less collateral damage (to the environment). However, such innovations do not work well under present social conditions: they do not provide the same level nor immediacy of profit. Also, to make the most of new technologies, they might have to be implemented on a large scale with major financial investment and only pay for themselves over a long time: ideal for public systems similar to the bridges and tunnels and WPA of yesteryear, but undesirable to the quarterly-profits proprietary-format model of today. Technology is not the hold-up, it is resistance to socialized implementation and resistance to long-term financial investment.


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Published April 12, 2004
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