Feb 28, 2008

Letters

Police shooting

Dear Editor: The shots that killed Brandon Terrell Jones woke me Sunday night. Since then a single word haunts me: Waste. When Michael Moore asked, "Why are we so violent?" his answer was, "because they want us to be." Want us to stay caught in, as Stanley Tookie Williams wrote, our "personal dramas called 'survival.'" In "Blue Rage, Black Redemption," Williams writes: "Strange how we (black youth) ... were so gung-ho to obliterate one another - but would shy away when it came to confronting poverty, unemployment, politics ... and other social inequities. Throughout most of my life ... I carried an inner loathing of self and my own culture. ..."

The economists Bowles, Gordon and Weisskopf were so haunted by the extravagance with which this country "wastes human talent" they called the current system a "waste land."

And it is the horror at waste that moves David Cay Johnston, in "Free Lunch," to note that "since 1980 it has become official policy to ensure that the rich receive the benefits of government, (while) ... money for the basics that make society work ... is dwindling because so much (is) diverted to the already rich through giveaways, tax breaks and a host of subsidies. ..."

The usual response to the killing of yet another black man is "more police." But would more police have saved Brandon Terrell Jones? How will more police save us from the vampires endlessly upending the government milk jug while we endlessly labor to fill it? Will more police remove the stress that leads to violence and crime?

Pamela Satterwhite,

Berkeley



Waterboarding

Dear Editor: It is not surprising that the Prevaricator-in-Chief and his Dark Lord would deny that waterboarding is torture, and now further assert that they have a legal right to order such practices. Neither Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, Idi Amin, Augusto Pinochet nor the rulers of Nazi Germany admitted that their actions were illegal torture. But it was not for them to say. The International Criminal Court has that authority, and obligation. Someday, the human rights abusers currently running our country will be taken to the bar of justice as well. Soon, I pray, very soon.

Bruce Joffe,

Piedmont