Letters

Another League of Nations
As opposition to the Bush administration’s threats to launch a war against Iraq grows, The New York Times reports that Bush is contacting the leaders of Russia, China and France, who are on record against a war, in order to convince them not to veto any war resolution in the Security Council of the United Nations.
What is interesting, though, is the Times statement that the Bush administration, “if it chose to,” could simply ignore any such veto and do what it wanted.
In the 1930s, Japan and Italy ignored League of Nations resolutions condemning their aggressions against Manchuria and Ethiopia respectively, and walked out of the League. The United Nations was founded, largely through the work of the United States, in cooperation with its Soviet allies during World War II, to insure that there would be an effective international organization to resolve international conflicts and prevent unilateral military actions. That was the purpose of the Security Council to begin with.
A Bush war against Iraq, besides the obvious dangers it brings, would also profoundly undermine the United Nations and put it on the road to becoming the tragic failure the League of Nations was in the 1930s.

Norman Markowitzvia e-mail

A ray of hope

I write to your from capitalist Ukraine. The situation here is horrible. The poverty level is getting higher and higher. Sometimes I think that a real nightmare is slowly but inevitably approaching.
It is good that I have access to such source of news and information like yours. It really gives me hope and a ray of light.

Konstantin Kalinovskyvia e-mail

The new steel

Steelworkers the nation over were elated when Mr. Bush announced that stringent tariffs against unfairly “dumped” steel would take effect in a few months. Since that announcement Mr. Bush has retreated from his former position, permitted the Commerce Department to issue exemptions for many steel exporting nations, and chastised steel Companies for their refusal to understand and meet the demands of today’s steel market.
The European Union threatened to issue severe sanctions against the U.S. if it continues to adhere to its steel tariff, and as a true Republican, Mr. Bush turned away from steel communites, families, and workers, so as to keep the well-oiled machine of capitalistic exploitation from needing repairs.
Such a profound change of heart should incur the wrath of the enitre organized labor movement in this country. Angry letters and phone calls should be made to the White House protesting his sudden “about-face” regarding this matter.
Bush lied to the thousands of American Steelworkers when he told us that foreign imports were severely damaging our nation’s most basic of industries. He has used the cover of the ever-failing war against terrorism, which has been used as an excuse for the “ever-failing” economy.
Bush is no friend of organized labor, and his economic plan for emerging from this maelstrom is far too indicative of the failed, racist, and anti-working class program espoused by the now incapicitated Reagan.
Bush is wholly concerned with maintaining his high popularity rating for the upcoming 2004 election, and the concerns of the people, the common people, those individuals who lost their retirement, their “nest egg,” their sense of security in our new, and more exploitative economy, are left without hope, struggling to makes ends meet; just like the steelworkers.
This is not the Steelworkers of the 1950s and 1960s: when we elected Presidents. This is a union besieged on all fronts. Management demands ever greater concessions from the workers, from a paltry health insurance program, to reduced wages, they have consistently asked and received numerous concessions from a once proud and militant union. We, as steelworkers, erroneously thought that Bush would assist Steelworkers, but instead witnessed his callous aforethought.

Angela Birminghamvia e-mail

The real reason

Hasn’t anyone realized that Bush wants a war with Iraq so that he might gain votes for the Republican candidates in the November elections. This clown is happy to sacrifice the lives of America’s youth (what does he care, after all the sons and daughters of his rich owners – the wealthy privileged one percent – won’t be among them) so that he can increase the fascist might of himself and his evil Party.
What Bush is up to ranks among the greatest abominations in history.

John W. Michaelvia e-mail