The following is a selection of recent letters to the World Socialist Web Site.
On “Amnesty International report denounces US abuses of human rights”
Excellent piece, Chris. Nothing works better than the truth but it does hurt those who seldom apply it to themselves. Keep up the great work.
SW
Bronson, Kansas
28 May 2005
I regularly read and hear about human rights abuses by the central and the state governments in India, as a routine practice of the police. These range across unwanted and purposeless beating and torture, rape and killing in police detention cells, and the so-called encounter deaths in which a scene of armed conflict is created. Such practices are so prevalent that people have started treating them as normal. Even movies use police torture for entertainment (as chivalry or as comedy) purpose and audiences accept and even enjoy it.
JP
Hyderabad, India
28 May 2005
On “Bush pledges to veto stem cell bill”
Great and truthful article. Can Bush be impeached for not doing what is right for the majority of the American people? I suffer from a spinal cord injury that happened 36 years ago and my health is failing. Stem cell research is my only hope! If life begins in a Petri dish as Bush believes, why aren’t they given Social Security numbers? Why can’t people claim them as federal tax deductions as dependents? Ask Bush those questions. Please keep up the good work and hopefully we can do something about this ignorant snob.
Thank you,
CM
Columbia Heights, Minnesota
27 May 2005
On “The nature of Stalin’s purges: A letter to the Wall Street Journal”
A good letter pointing out the differences between the left-wing nature of Bolshevism and the horrendous Stalinist perversions, a difference that the Hoover Institute, Rupert Murdoch and the American political establishment denies. It is important to preserve the nature of accurate history rather than the current wave of ideological distortion as articulated by that female right-wing judge the Democrats allowed to proceed to nomination.
TW
27 May 2005
On “Hack work, not scholarship: the decay of American liberalism”
Excellent, clear analysis. Thank you. I work with a hard-hitting, self-taught, legal-fight-type welfare activist who has been apolitical, and anti-union his entire life (i.e., he hates welfare workers and the useless unions which protect them); as well, of course, he is suspicious of communism—his only problem with this now being that people like me make too much sense to just write off as he’s been doing his entire life.
And so, interestingly enough, this guy has been working the concept of “Natural Justice” for some time now, all on his own, as his main angle into wresting people’s rightly owed benefits out of the petty, evasive, and downright fraudulent hands of the bureaucrats in the local welfare bureaucracy. So I’m sure that when he sees in your review how what he is doing ties in neatly and perfectly with the entire political development of the moment as he’s been learning it recently—well—I’m sure you will suddenly have his complete, total and rapt attention.
JJ
Ontario, Canada
26 May 2005
On “US Army deliberately withheld details of Ranger’s ‘friendly-fire’ death”
I have to wonder—why didn’t Pat Tillman’s parents try to stop him from going in the first place? The story is just heartbreaking!
KH
New Orleans, Louisiana
26 May 2005
On “Real ID Act: Congress takes another step toward a police state”
Your article on the Real ID act really gets to the crux of the evil facing the United States. This great Republic, once a beacon of liberty and Enlightenment throughout the world, is now going down the same dark and dreary path of war, despotism and empire. The aristocrats who hate freedom have been with us from the beginning. From the Federalists of the 1790s to the Republican Party of today they are always at work propping up money and capital against freedom and liberty. The difference is the early Republic had Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine and other democrats. Today we have cowards like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.
The fact that a Stalinist measure like a national ID card can pass the US Congress shows how far we have gone down the road to dictatorship. Uncle Joe would be proud of our supposed “democratic legislators.” Maybe next we will see the US Congress dissolved by the president and the forcible removal of its members like Napoleon did to the French legislature. Then the way will be paved for Bush to be a “leader for life.” Let’s hope not. Keep up the excellent work.
GG
Manteca, California
26 May 2005
On “Scandinavian governments criticized for poor tsunami response”
I read the article about the lack of response from the Swedish government for the victims of the tsunami. I am intimately involved with the case of a two year-old Swedish boy named Joahnnes Adamsson who has been missing since the tsunami. He was seen alive afterwards, and there have been sightings of him in Thailand.
Despite her efforts, his mother has been unable to get the Swedish police to do much for her. With my help and the help of some others she has begun to make a bit of headway. She could not even get them to issue a notice to Interpol about Johannes as they insisted that they would not be able to help her. After researching and giving her some info the police finally made a notice for her.
The lack of response continues to be appalling, as the mother is in need of funding in order for the search for Johannes to continue. She represents 84 missing children from Sweden whom the government has brushed off as dead. If there was ever a time for the government to respond, it began December 26 and will continue until it has done everything that it possibly can.
NJ
24 May 2005
On “Buying silence: Bush awards Medal of Freedom to key figures in Iraq debacle”
Thank you for this article, which states the facts that I surmised but never had the opportunity to track down and confirm. Your article very clearly portrays a great atrocity committed by Bush and Company, in their campaign to write history and justify what has been done.
JH
Brownsville, Texas
27 May 2005