Letters

‘Road map’ still a force

There were two references to the road map being “dead” in PWW of 9/13, one in the letters column and one in the news story about the intensifying Palestinian and Israeli conflict. References to the road map being dead are inaccurate and may give fuel to the forces against a peaceful, negotiated settlement.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said he was still committed to the road map after being inaccurately quoted by CNN as saying it was dead. I found this from the Palestine Media Center:

“The Palestine National Authority on Wednesday reconfirmed the Palestinian leadership’s commitment to the Quartet-adopted ‘road map,’ indicating that President Yasser Arafat’s statements to CNN on the peace plan were ‘inaccurately quoted,’ while the EU stressed that the plan ‘is alive’ and all parties will have ‘to maintain its life.’”

Mary LyonsVia e-mail

Peace message from Holland

I’ve lived for 20 years in Holland. I’m a Japanese supporter of the JCP and the Palestinian community in Holland.

As you know, this September there were international demonstrations all over the world. In the U.K./London was a big demonstration, and I know in the USA also. Upcoming Sept. 20 there is a big demonstration in Holland. Of course I will go.

Let’s make a peace movement with many international peoples!

Ken HiranoVia e-mail

Idolatry in courthouse

Idolatry (n): 1. the worship of a physical object as a god; 2. immoderate attachment or devotion to some thing; 3. confusing a piece of granite in Alabama with the divine.

Richard CurtisVia e-mail

Thurmond praise outrageous

Last December, Trent Lott was forced to resign as Senate majority leader after he praised the segregationist policies of North Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond in the 1948 presidential elections. But there were no protests following Thurmond’s death this year, when the Republicans openly embraced South Carolina’s history of racism, along with the departed senator.

This summer, the national Republican website featured a speech by South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson, calling Strom Thurmond the state’s “greatest statesman of the 20th century, just as John C. Calhoun was the most revered South Carolinian of the 19th century.” Thurmond’s racist and anti-worker record is well known, but what about Calhoun?

John C. Calhoun, senator from South Carolina and presidential contender, was a wealthy slave owner. He was the chief ideological spokesman for slavery in the U.S. As slavery’s strategic leader in the Senate, Calhoun formulated the laws and practices that increasingly forced the entire nation to support the “rights” of slaveholders, even in the North. Today, when the Republican Party embraces Calhoun, it embraces the legacy of slavery. Our outrage should be as great as if a German politician were to praise Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering as that country’s most beloved leader.

Art PerloNew Haven CT

All baby boomers to blame?

In a New York Times editorial “Home Alone” (Sept. 1), the editors assess the situation at home, saying: “Appalling behavior and appalling policies have become the norm among folks entrusted with the heaviest responsibilities in business and government. … And, of course, the baby boomers, the least responsible generation in memory, will soon begin retiring and collecting their Social Security and federal health benefits, leaving the mountains of unpaid bills for the hapless generations behind them.”

The Times editors are absolutely right. It is a pity that they did not mention – or write another editorial – what those “baby boomers” did all over the world. What they did at home is nothing in comparison what they did and are still doing, for example, to my country and my people, Yugoslavia (they made it “former”) in violation of the Charter of the UN and all principles of international law. The millions of their victims deserve at least to be mentioned in the Times, all the more so since the Times newspaper on innumerable occasions inspired and helped them to do what they did.

Dr. Milan TepavacBelgrade, Yugoslavia