Letters
02/18/2010
Stand for women
Why is America slipping back into the Stone Age?
At one time we were the most progressive nation on earth. Now we’re forgetting our mothers, sisters and daughters.
Let’s show the world where our real values are by standing up for America’s women.
~JONATHAN GUERRA, STUDIO CITY
Partisan tomfoolery
I’ve been reading Pasadena Weekly since I moved to the Pasadena area in 1982 and I must say that I have never been tempted to write a letter to the editor until today (Re: “Right cross,” Jan. 28).
I don’t mind your gloating over Scott Brown’s election in Massachusetts. Two things to keep in mind though: 1. He’s more libertarian than conservative, so don’t count your chickens yet. And 2. This special election means that the Democrats go from having a big majority to having a big majority. The fake meme of the Dems controlling the Senate has not changed. The Blue Dogs still lie in wait. This being said, the election changed pretty much nothing. It’s nice to gloat for a while and you certainly are encouraged to do so. Every time I hear our president come up with yet another good idea on how to move the country forward, or when I see how America is once again respected in the world, I gloat over his election.
Now, as to your “right-wing nut” points, FOX News is not a news organization; they are the propaganda arm of the Republican Party and are quickly becoming the same thing for the Tea Baggers. There is neither balance nor truth in their version of “fair and balanced.”
The fact that you get your information from FOX News is apparent with the points you make throughout this tawdry and offensive little missive.
Let’s review some of them. You are an atheist, and are not a big fan of religion. What this has to do with politics leaves me confused. You claim the “Religious Right” holds themselves accountable for their actions. Why has George Bush not been held accountable for lying us into two wars? Why is David Vitter, an adulterer who has been caught with a multitude of prostitutes and claims to have a proclivity for wearing diapers, still in Congress? Why was Larry Craig not confronted and censured by his party after being arrested for trying to lure a young male vice policeman for sex in an airport bathroom? Why is Mark Foley not in prison for propositioning young, minor male congressional interns? Why is Dick Cheney not in prison for outing one of our CIA agents? Do you condone Ted Haggard for going after homosexuals, while paying for sex and drugs with them? Are these the members of the Religious Right that you claim have some sort of moral standard? I guess there is a different moral standard for people like Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, who cheated on their wives, then moved their lovers in while their present wives were sick. I have a long list of this kind of hypocrisy.
You clump “most people on the left” as people who “just seem to want to be spiritual.” Are you kidding? Is this how you describe the millions and millions of Democrats who are members of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues?
Claiming that “I warned you it would be short and shallow” does not give you license to belittle millions of citizens, hundreds of thousands of who gave their life in our military or served their country in countless ways. It’s beneath the standard I’d expect of a civil society. It’s also patently false. While you might think you are being coy or that you might be loved and get nice gifts for this type of rhetoric, I have to say I find it repulsive.
I’m a US Navy veteran and belong to a church. I’m not “spiritual.” You said in your column “People on the left always say they love their country, but they only say that when they are complaining how bad things are.” The democratic process thrives on citizens contributing to their democracy with critiques and backing it up with their vote.
You claim that wearing flag pins and waving flags are what makes you patriotic. I claim that my four years in service to the country and the resultant injuries I suffered while in that service are what makes me patriotic — not waving flags. Your comments are offensive to all veterans, regardless of party.
I don’t much care that you parrot FOX News global warming talking points, because 98 percent of the scientists in the world are working on solving this problem. The handful of partisan scientists that attack global warming can join the pseudo-scientists who opposed stem cell research and helped the right put us so far behind with this important research.
If you were really grateful and wanted to honor the military, you’d stop watching FOX News, and you’d apologize for this divisive sort of opinion piece. The president is trying his level best to get the two parties to work together and published partisan tomfoolery does no one any good.
~GARY VITULLO, SOUTH PASADENA
FROM THE WEB:
Re: “Trouble brewing,” Feb. 4
Chevron earned $24 billion in excessive profits in 2008, as per tyrannyofoil.com. Schwarzenegger should put an excessive profits tax on these profits instead of protecting the oil corporations from fair taxation. Then there would be sufficient public funds for all the vulnerable people programs. Big business lost the fight to eliminate domestic violence funding, so now they are coming back with a vengeance. There is no domestic violence funding provision in the proposed budget. …
It is against the law to physically harm another person, including wives. Schwarzenegger’s government is not enforcing this law. The funding priority for battered women shelters (BWS) should be the highest, because human life is at risk and because BWS’s keep the good people in and the criminals and the murderers out. During a recession with its high unemployment, government funding for BWS’s should be increased, not eliminated. The governor’s proposed budget cuts, with the backing of Big Oil, are very dangerous for women and children. Obviously, this budget picks on the most vulnerable, and it endangers children. If a battered wife is murdered in front of a closed-down BWS because of these cuts, then Schwarzenegger and his oil industry tyrants should be charged with first-degree murder and child endangerment. If the mother suffers, then the children suffer.
~ posted by Earl Richards
Like any hungry dog, you have to keep feeding them. Obviously this sheriff is very hungry. He wants to ignore that overcrowding is causing numerous problems in the prisons and jails. It is also bankrupting California.
How about a little rehabilitation?
How about putting some of this jail money into the school system?
Could it be that these sheriffs are just afraid of losing part of their budget? Oh my!
~ posted by norweb
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