Letters to the Editor/<br>  Free Press Forum

Dear Free Press,

Although I agree with the underlying sentiment of Patrick's letter, I don't think it's feasible. If the U.N. was going to isolate by force every country that has a conflict with it's neighbors or an internal group, the planet would be riddled with isolated nations, which seems to me to be a strange activity for a group called The United Nations.

Actually, it wouldn't, because the U.N. has neither the power nor the mandate to do so.

However, I do agree that pressure must be put on both parties to adhere to U.N. resolutions, not simply to condemn the Palestinians but frown on the Israelis. And I agree that third-party intervention or arbitration is probably the best chance for success, since both cultures have such a "you give in first" attitude historically. I also think that the U.N. should make it clear that they favor the Rabin approach (and those who tried to follow suit) to peace between these peoples, NOT the Sharon approach, which is a recipe for unending hostility.

Solution To The Conflict Between Palestine and Israel:

There can be only one solution to the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis -- Forced intervention and separation.

The framework and mandated legal basis for peace between Palestine and Israel already exists:  International law in the form of United Nations Security Council Resolutions, backed by a host of UN General Assembly Resolutions, addressing specific elements and issues between the parties, that spell out in detail what is required of each side.  The singular problem remains getting both sides to cease the hostilities and accept what is required of each as detailed in these UN resolutions.  And there is a method in place to do just that, force -- equally and without prejudice -- both sides to comply fully with international law; thereby providing peace, security and economic opportunity for both sides living side-by-side in peaceful coexistence and within the expanded Middle East region.

Dear Harvey,

        I wish I had the ear of the DNC. They're going about this Bush military issue the wrong way. Why wait for Rove & Co. to find a couple true believers to lie about having served with Bush? Why try to prove a negative? They should:

1.        Find people to establish where Bush WAS at that time. He had to be working on that campaign. He might have been attending meetings, appearing at benefit dinners, dating, partying, whatever. ANYTHING they establish as to his whereabouts and any good time he might have been having while he was SUPPOSED to be on a military base, during wartime, keeping in a state of readiness (e.g. drug & alcohol free at the very least) would be a good example of his lack of responsibility & patriotism, and his elitist attitude that the rules don't apply to rich, powerful people like the Bushes.

        And if anyone argues that Reservists don't have to be in a state of readiness, point out how many have been sent to war by HIS administration.

People and industries that are still ranting and raving about Janet Jackson's breast need to shut up.

We live every single day with our young men and women in danger and dying in a war that is proving itself each and every day to be a thousand times more obscene than a breast being shown on national TV.

If anyone was watching the commercials for the Super Bowl they would have noticed that there is a very real aggression and negative view to women in general and hints of violence and aggression permeated these thirty-second spots.

I, of course blame George Bush and the whole conservative mind set that is going on in this country right now.  Any time we are at war citizens immediately become more, "moral" and conscious.  This is a mechanism used to keep us from looking at the corruption and lies that are going on right under our noses with our government and especially the news programs that give us the information. The bandwagon that has been transported into a witch-hunt over a one-second view of Janet Jackson's breast is more disturbing than anything I can remember.

Harvey Wasserman is right about a lot of things in his Jan 22 column but he's wrong on forgetting the south in the presidential campaign. Only by working hard in the south and making a real contest out of it, will the democratic nominee get a national message across that will reverberate through the big electoral vote states. The nominee may not carry any southern states, but by showing that the south is part of the union from the nominee's point of view, he'll generate a huge local effort all across the south, elect democrats in close local and congressional races, cause Bush to have to spend time and resources in the south, but above all that he'll portray to the nation (and to the thousands of black and white voters in old dixie) that they count, they're important. And redneck pickup truck driving farmers (I'm one) will begin to see that voting Democratic is what they want to do.

 ivan swift -- madison county, alabama

Dear Harvey,

I only wish that someone would write a set of responses to those "shut them up" lines used by the conservatives today, and one of them seems to be "you can't deny that the world is safer now that Saddam Hussein is out of power".

As a senior American who cherishes our traditional "innocent until proven guilty" legal premise, I loathe the Bush administration's insistence upon paranoia as the basis for new, unreasonably restrictive public procedures here at home as well as for their offensive foreign policies.

I long to reclaim the country we had before the current regime took control.   All of us were freer, more hopeful, more genuinely secure, and -most important- more honorable.  

As I understood it, and as we were taught in our public schools, we "Americans" were a people who took pride in striving not for world domination, but for governance by respectable, enforceable laws, dedicated to just and compassionate ethics.  But now, every morning, I wake up and wonder: How much longer will we be forced to endure the arrogance and disgrace of these terror-mongers' trampling on that true American dream?

--Carole A. Kronberg
  Detroit

Dear Editor:

    I was quite impressed with the article by Harvey Wasserman, The states of Iowa and the union agree: Bush can be beaten of January 22, 2004.  Several of my friends have already received a hyper link to the article.
       In the past I have worked on several Democratic campaigns as a volunteer.  I am currently a church musician in St. Louis, Missouri. I along with many others have been extremely concerned about the direction in which the country has been headed under the administration of George W. Bush.  Thus, the detailed way Mr. Wasserman writes is most appreciated.  

    There are a few questions which have come to my mind.  The first question is:  Does Mr. Wasserman know of any organizations which would be capable of undertaking the kind of vote verification which will be needed in 2004?  I am sure there will be people willing to participate in such a task if it can be set up the right way.  

"Come November, we can expect Osama bin Laden to be miraculously "found" whenever Rove decides the timing is best."

"A terrorist attack will explode here or there precisely as the Democrats gather steam. Bush may dump Dick Cheney into a cardiac unit to grab headlines and expand his base. "

... and don't forget the possibility that the replacement for WMD hunter, Kay, is supposed to be a person skeptical of any WMD claims.

... just how wonderful it would be for Bush if this new skeptical hunter found significant WMD's ... imagine the weight it would carry for Bush

annoymous and frightened coward (sorry :-)

A note to Harvey Wasserman from North Carolina: You're wrong about the South. For one thing, in many states, white people are not even the majority, never mind white racists. For another thing, Southerners white AND black are deeply populist and traditionally Democratic. They just haven't recently been appealed to on a platform they can identifiy with by Democrats (a platform which would have a lot to do with economic issues and health care and education). No one has won the Presidency without winning the South for a long time. Forget the South is bad advice to Democratic activists. States that elected John Edwards and Max Cleland and Al Gore to Congress can elect a Democrat to the White House. Ya'll just need to get over your rebelphobia.

Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin Cullowhee, NC