‘KERRY DOESN’T REPRESENT ME’
I used to be a loyal reader of your paper, but notice the
use of the past tense. City claims to
be an “alternative” newspaper, but your news is beginning to look and
sound like the same biased “news” I can get from any run-of-the-mill
paper.
           Your recent
bashing of third parties, and your opinion that anyone who doesn’t jump on the
“ABBA” (Anyone But Bush Again) wagon is ignorant or uneducated, is
nauseating. I am a college-educated working professional, and I am a
third-party member who, like many others, cannot change her beliefs on a whim.
If John Kerry wins the election, many Democrats will think they have done all that
is necessary to secure the future of our country, since they have a Democrat in
the White House. I do not believe that Kerry best represents me, or that our
country will be substantially better with him in office.
           If Kerry
wins, I and many other third-party members will still be fighting for the
repeal of the unconstitutional Patriot Act, an end to the No Child Left Behind
disaster, a fair working wage, free medical care, fair and unbiased election
laws, and an end to the corporate-backed Iraq War. These are just a few of my
major concerns, and they seem to be none of Kerry’s or Bush’s. So I have to
look outside our country’s two-party system to find individuals like Green
Party presidential candidate David Cobb, who will represent me and help provide
a better future for our country.
           Your paper
claims to be alternative, so try living up to it. Provide a free, unbiased
representation of the news, and leave it up to your readers to form their own
opinion, or continue to lose readers and join the mainstream media.
           Misty Harris, Monroe Avenue, Rochester
LET’S HAVE AN HONEST DEBATE
In response to Prince D. George’s letter (“Time for
Bush to Go,” Sept 1) and many others like it: Prince writes, “Is Bush
not a president of the wealthy class?” It would hardly be news to ask the
same of John Kerry. While W. Bush was born into wealth, Kerry got it the
old-fashioned way: He married into it.
           Does Bush
deserve another four years? Hell, no. But the debate shouldn’t stop there. How
about asking: Do ordinary Americans deserve better than Bush and Kerry? While
Bush’s plan to solve the health-care crisis is to ignore it, Kerry’s is to give
businesses — businesses! — tax
breaks to make it more affordable for them! Are these real solutions?
           Why isn’t
there a major-party candidate who is against the war, when at least 40 percent
of the population is for pulling out now? Let’s not forget: Democrats led us
into World War I, World War II, and Vietnam
and dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. And I’m supposed to
believe Kerry will be any different? Nixon pulled us out of Vietnam,
not because he was anti-war, but because we, ordinary people, were organized to
demand it.
           Let’s be
honest about what Kerry is and what Kerry isn’t. This isn’t the “most
important election of our time” or “a choice between fascism and
democracy.” Most of us are old enough to have heard these lines before.
People have been holding their nose to vote for lousy Democrats for so long,
they are suffocating.
           Enough is
enough. I’ll be voting for Nader this fall. But more
importantly, I’ll be organizing the community to demand the changes we want, no
matter who gets chosen this fall.
           Brian Lenzo, Monroe Avenue, Rochester
WHAT A LAUGH!
I saw part of the Republican convention comedy special, and
I must compliment the comedy writers. They did a terrific job.
           Speaking as
a two-tour Vietnam
veteran, all the fired-up war talk, flag waving, and highly choreographed
posturing cracked me up. Coming from people who had, let’s say, insufficient
enthusiasm for actual fighting when they were young: well, that’s just comic
genius.
           But I can
do as well. Maybe better. So I’d like to apply for a job as a Republican gag
writer. Here’s a sample of my work:
           For George
Bush: “Vietnam?
Boy, don’t you know what the initials of the National Guard are? ‘NG.’ ‘NG’
meant “No Go” back then.”
           For Arnold
Schwarzenegger: “Vietnam?
Well, I heard they had only two mirrors for shaving. How could I look at my
magnificent body in such a girly-boy mirror?”
           For Rush
Limbaugh: “Vietnam?
I only like confrontation when my opponent is not actually present.”
           I got tons
more. Jokes about the economy, health care, the deficit and national debt,
Social Security, even the war in Iraq.
I’ll have them rolling in the aisles. But the administration, with its
policies, deserves all the credit. They supplied the foundation material.
           I can begin
work immediately. I got sick and had to wait so long to get medical care at the
VA that I lost my job. That’s not funny. Not funny at all.
           Call me.
           Bill McMannis, Berwick Road, Rochester
WAKE-UP CALL
Your column “Hurtling Toward November (September 1) was
excellent. I’m getting a sinking feeling about the election — and at the same
time, I’m angry and disgusted with the (apparently) more than 50 percent of the
electorate who will force us into a bigger sinkhole.
           In my
pessimistic moments, I feel that the US — much less the world — cannot
withstand another four years of Bush et al. Aside from the disastrous domestic
policies and certain issues that I care passionately about, we now face a far
more formidable anger worldwide, especially in the Middle East. I fervently
hope that enough people will wake up to reality before November 2.
           Susan J. Levinson, Rochester
THE BUSH RECORD
Four years ago, President Bush spoke of returning honor and
dignity to the presidency. He said he would be a “uniter
and not a divider.” I was willing to give him that opportunity, especially
after the terrible 9/11 attacks on our country. Sadly, after four years he has
completely failed in at both tasks.
           Today his
campaign and its surrogates rely on rhetoric that smears Senator Kerry’s war
record in Vietnam
and in the Senate while distorting their own record of failure with respect to
the economy and the war in Iraq.
           They say
the economy is strong, but more people live in poverty today than four years
ago, and more jobs have been lost than at any time since the Great Depression.
Health-care costs are on the rise, including Medicare, and we now have 43
million uninsured Americans, again more than four years ago.
           Under-funded
GOP mandates in education have help create record state and local government
deficits, leading to an increase in property taxes for middle-class homeowners,
while the GOP tries to make permanent its large tax cuts for the wealthiest
Americans.
           Bush claims
we’re safer as a result of his actions, but terrorism experts (both in and out
of the military) agree that the war on Iraq
has made us less safe. The Iraqi occupation wastes billions that could have
been spent on homeland defense, such as increased funding for first responders
and added security for our ports and nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, North
Korea and Iran
move ahead with nuclear weapons programs that directly threaten our security
while the GOP continues to claim Iraq
had “programs to create weapons of mass destruction.” You know: those
weapons no one can seem to find.
           Isn’t it
time we start talking truthfully about Bush’s record, rather than wasting time
on unsubstantiated lies and rumors about Senator Kerry? Isn’t it time we
address the issues, not the smears?
           Steven Searls, Pennicott Circle, Penfield
BUSH’S 10 MISTAKES
We were saddened by news that another seven US
soldiers were killed by a suicide bomber. And it is obvious to much of the
world that our strategy in Iraq
is producing many more terrorists than are being killed. I am reminded of
President Bush’s statement that he knows what he is doing in Iraq.
           We are
mired in an endless war that will not be resolved by the application of
military force in a foreign land, where we are seen as an occupier with a proxy
government unrepresentative of the Iraqi people. And according to General
Anthony Zinni, history will note 10 major mistakes we made in attacking Iraq.
           The
May-June issue of the newsletter of the Center for Defense Information
published excerpts from a speech Zinni gave to the Center’s board and staff. In
it, he cited those 10 mistakes:
           1) We
believed that containment as a policy doesn’t work. It worked, Zinni noted,
against the Soviet Union and has worked against others.
           2) Our
strategy — which was based on a belief that we would be welcomed in Iraq
with open arms, and that we can solve the Palestine-Israel problem by going
through Baghdad — was flawed.
           3) We
created a false rationale for attacking Iraq
to get public support.
           4) We
failed to “internationalize the effort.”
           5) We
“underestimated the task.” “Former combatant commanders of US Central Command,”
said Zinni, “beginning with General Norman Schwarzkopf, have said you don’t
understand what you’re getting into.”
           6) We
propped up and trusted untrustworthy Iraqi exiles.
           7) There
was a serious lack of planning for political, economic, and social
reconstruction and for rebuilding the infrastructure in Iraq.
           8) We
didn’t put sufficient military forces on the ground.
           9) We
created “an ad hoc organization,” the Coalitional Provisional Authority, which
did not have “the breadth, scope, or depth necessary to work the problems down
to grassroots level.”
           10) We made
a series of bad decisions on the ground, “de-Baathifying down to the point
where we alienated the Sunnis” and lost the people who knew how to run and
maintain the infrastructure.
           The truth is
quite clear at this point. Iraq
is divided into power blocks, all vying for influence and control, with an
occupying force that plans to maintain a presence and exercise influence
indefinitely. The civil war in Lebanon
lasted 15 years. How long are we willing to sacrifice our men and women and
Iraqi people to an insane policy by a president who does not know what he is
doing?
           Peter R. Mitchell, Edgerton Street, Rochester
LOVIN’ DOSER
I don’t remember hitting a link to your newspaper before,
but I will be looking forward to all future articles written Mike Doser. Day after day, I scroll through the various columns
written by his competitors and see the same old garbage.
           The running
back controversy is, in my opinion, mostly fabricated by the local press. Doser’s points about Travis Henry seem to be ignored by
most every other sports writer, and it’s about freakin’
time someone put this into perspective (“Where Is the Love,” September 1).
Having worked for a brief time with Empire Sports in Buffalo,
I had the opportunity to see the upstate New York
media wheel in motion, and I could not believe how jaded most of them really
are. Well done, and keep it real.
           Paul Helling, Los Angeles, California
JOY STICKING
Chad Oliveiri and Tim Goodwin’s brilliant piece of
video-game lore brought back memories (“Bringing Back the Age of Atari,” August
25). I am from that generation, and I would get a genuine rush when I went to
Child World or KiddieCity or Toys R Us and pick up video
games for Atari 2600 for a song.
           In my
heyday, I had close to 1000 video games for the classic five Atari 2600, 5200,
7800, ColecoVision, and the Intellivision
systems. I am slowly selling them off to a younger generation. When the youth
of today talk about the Xbox or PlayStation, I tell them those are great
systems but you need to bow at the altar of Atari. Without it, there would be
no games like the ones we have today.
           I won’t try
to compare the merits of old school versus new school, but it doesn’t matter
whether I spend two hours on Atari or two hours on Xbox. Fun is fun, no matter
which system you have.
           If you’re
interested, go to www.digitpress.com and click on “collectors.” You won’t see
more video collections of old school and new school anywhere else on the web.
           KreagClar, LeFrois Street, Rochester
WRITING TO CITY
We welcome and encourage readers’ letters for publication.
Send them to: themail@rochester-citynews.com or The Mail, City Newspaper, 250
North Goodman Street, Rochester14607.
           Our
guidelines: We don’t publish anonymous letters — and we ask that you include
your street name and city/town/village. We don’t publish letters that have been
sent to other media. While we don’t restrict length, letters of under 350 words
have a greater chance of being published. We do edit letters for clarity and
brevity. And in general we don’t publish letters (or longer “op-ed” pieces)
from the same writer more often than about once every two months.
This article appears in Sep 22-28, 2004.
