Below we post a selection of recent letters to the WSWS.
On “How the Democrats assess their election debacle”
I am sending you this email to find out how we can finally start to implement the Socialist Party you spoke of in your article. For years I have heard you mention this party and I must admit, at first I was a little skeptical and afraid. This is a very new thing to me. It is scary to actually break away from the two-party system (Republican and Democrat) and actually be a part of starting something new.
Your comments about the alienation of voters was right on target. In fact, shortly after the election, I spoke to a young white female (age 22) whose family is predominately Republican (we live in North Carolina). She said something that really gave me pause. She told me that she doesn’t bother voting because (in her words) “no matter who you vote for, it’s going to be the same thing ... your vote may count, but YOU don’t count.” I never forgot those words because they helped open my eyes to what is happening in this country. Incidentally, she is a single mother who works two jobs just to make ends meet.
As a worker I am finally ready to try forming a new political party and I am eager on how I can go about helping out in this effort. I don’t see things improving the way they are going now and for my future and the future of my five-year-old son, I feel it is important to try to do something.
Thank you,
KF
11 December 2002
* * *Mr. Grey:
The quotation below [from an article in the New Republic, by John B. Judis]:
“[T]he Republicans were borne to victory this fall by Bush’s energetic response to Osama bin Laden. And there was probably nothing that the Democrats could have done to stop them.”
actually made me laugh out loud. The fact that Judis can make a statement like this and apparently believe it to be true is further proof that a very large number of people are living on quite a different planet from the rest of us.
Whereas,
“The essential lesson of the November election is the need to build the Socialist Equality Party as the mass political organization of the working class” is absolutely right. We have to try and awaken those people who are most deeply asleep (even though they may be having nightmares).
CZ
San Francisco
11 December 2002
On “Kissinger resigns as head of September 11 probe”
My understanding is that the 18-month time limit is just that and that the clock is already running. The resignation of Kissinger and the failure of the Republicans to appoint committee members promptly is a way to run out the clock.
This happened in the October Surprise investigation headed up by Lee Hamilton, the vice chairman of the new commission. He gave into every request of the Republicans and as a result they were able to use the concessions to stall the investigation and run out the clock. The result was an investigation deemed “inconclusive.” This despite the testimony of Bani Sadr, the former president of Iran, that it had happened, and the claims of Reagan pal, and former head of French intelligence, that he had facilitated the meetings between the Iranians and the Reagan campaign.
Hamilton himself took the position at the beginning of the October Surprise investigation that “if it happened, so what, it’s all over.” A man who does not recognize treason when he sees it is hardly a man who should be the lead Democrat on the new investigation.
They will run out the clock on this one too. No one will ever know why Bush sat apparently immobilized listening to a story about goats while Flight 77 zeroed in on the Pentagon. No one will ever know why no shoot-down orders were given until 10 a.m., at least an hour and 40 minutes after the hijackings were known, and an hour and a quarter after the first tower was hit. No one will ever know why planes from Andrews AFB, six miles from the Pentagon, did not intercept Flight 77, or why the planes that were scrambled were from Langley and arrived too late.
One of the strange side notes to this episode is that the Pentagon commissioned two paintings of fighter planes arriving at the scene. One flying near the burning WTC, one near the burning Pentagon. It was to be part of the memorial. Fighter planes on guard. I believe they were paid for by the aerospace industry. I’m sure I’m not the only one who pointed out to them that another interpretation could be “planes arriving too late.”
RR
Florida
16 December 2002
* * *It’s extremely disturbing that the USA is continuing a “tried and true” campaign to hoodwink the public of so-called western democracies. For years South Americans have been exploited economically through the tool of hegemony utilizing induced political instability. The Iraq question demonstrates that the USA is persistent in a policy to maintain worldwide hegemony. Western democracies? What about the overthrow of the Whitlam government in Australia.
The Bush government ridicules Saddam Hussein as an obviously treacherous liar. But what of the demonstrated history of lies and corruption of the Nixon years? Heed that Henry Kissinger still lingers about the place from those earlier years and, concerning lies, for the US administration, it is a case of “the pot calling the kettle black.”
An American professor at an Australian university wrote that Henry Kissinger lied in denying the CIA’s role in deposing Chile’s Allende government. Congressional testimony in 1974 revealed the CIA did have a major role in Chile a year earlier. It was something like a planned experiment in how bribes might be used to destabilize a government considered unfriendly to the US. Furthermore, “...not only did Kissinger know of the operation but he played a major role in planning it. ... he has been caught lying through his teeth.” (John R Raser, Cabbages & Kings essays on Australian society, Joint Publications, Murdoch Western Australia, 1977, p. 77. The late Professor Raser was an expert in simulation and games theory employed at one time in the US Navy; and in the 1960s he studied under Professor Kissinger. A social scientist, John Raser was foundation professor in charge of the School of Social Inquiry at Murdoch University.)
Hope this may be of use. Cheers.
L
16 December 2002