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Coalition for Peace with Justice
Letters to Raleigh News & Observer [to CPWJ Letters page] [ to CPWJ home page] April 26, 2003Dear friends, A few days ago, I submitted the letter below to the News & Observer; hopefully, it will be published soon. Meanwhile, most of the letters published in today s issue of the N&O were on our side (see the five copied letters below). Please write your own letter to the newspaper to build on this momentum while extending the positive effect of last week s Funeral for Democracy event that we held in downtown Raleigh. Also, your supporting letters will increase the chance of mine (or a similar one) getting published too. Thank you. In solidarity, Wael Masri [Wael's letter:] Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. Those were the words of General Omar Bradley in a speech he gave to West Point cadets in 1952. Those of us who participated in the funeral march reported in your April 20th article ( Activists march for peace ) seek to create a different world. We want people to live freely and to prosper from the peace dividend promised us after the end of the Cold War. But the peace dividend was squandered through massive military budgets that continued to grow until we, the taxpayers, now spend more dollars on the military than does the rest of the world combined. We pay for this excessive military spending through cancelled social programs, reduced funding for education and health care, and more insecurity. Dissent has fallen out of fashion and our civil rights are under attack, as we haven t heeded Julius Caesar s famous warning: Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor. For patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and patriotism, will offer up all of their rights to the leader and gladly so. Wael Masri G.D. Gearino's April 22 column about Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins really missed the point. I recently saw Sarandon on a TV show and she was delightful to watch and listen to, but the only point she made about the "Bull Durham" thing was why bring politics into it at all? The movie was about baseball. Banning people from a celebration about baseball because they speak out against President Bush's policies is not at all what this country is about. Thirty-five years ago the vast majority of Americans were in favor of our policies in Vietnam. These policies, examined in the light of truth, even by their architects, are generally repudiated. Perhaps when this Iraq business is examined in the light of truth it may be viewed as an even darker but thankfully less bloody chapter of American history, or maybe not. Objecting to these policies should not be a basis for denying actors the joy of participating in a celebration of something they as artists helped create. Baseball transcends politics. Gearino seems to think that people who don't believe in President Bush and his cronies should not be allowed to celebrate things like baseball. That shows a serious lack of understanding not only of the spirit of baseball, but also the spirit of America. Will Bradbury Wake Forest I was dismayed by G.D. Gearino's April 22 column "A lesson in free speech" about Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon being "uninvited" to the Baseball Hall of Fame event to celebrate the movie "Bull Durham." Gearino tried to paint Robbins and Sarandon as silly and misguided in stating that there have been "warnings, veiled and unveiled threats...directed at any voice of dissent." I wonder if Gearino has actually read the Hall of Fame's letter to Robbins. In it, Hall President Dale Petroskey stated that Robbins' outspokenness against the war "helps undermine the U.S. position which ultimately could put our own troops in even more danger." Calling opposition to the war not only "unpatriotic" (something the antiwar movement is constantly accused of) but possibly traitorous is exactly the "chill wind" that Robbins is referring to. Personally, I find it extremely chilling. I'm sure that Gearino would view me as histrionic for worrying that this atmosphere could ultimately lead to something like the infamous Hollywood blacklist. Yes, thankfully things have not gone that far. However, I feel that we must remain vigilant in protecting speech and criticizing ideologues like Petroskey who would have the country move in the direction of viewing any opposition in wartime as equivalent to treason. Marilyn Ghezzi Chapel Hill Regarding G.D. Gearino's April 22 Life, etc. column "A lesson in free speech": Plain and simple, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins should have been allowed to attend the "Bull Durham" 15th anniversary party at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. The fact that their invitation was revoked because of their antiwar views shows that the executives of the Hall of Fame -- not Sarandon and Robbins -- are in need of a lesson on free speech. Gearino's column only served to distort the facts and to applaud those who punish the outspoken. Michael Taeckens Carrboro Dan Gearino, in his April 22 column "A lesson in free speech," was correct that Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins had no right to expect to broadcast an antiwar message at a Baseball Hall of Fame function. (But how does he know they would have done that? Their invitation to appear was rescinded.) He was wrong to indicate that there isn't "a chill wind blowing in this nation," as Robbins described the sponsored propaganda issuing daily from the TV and radio stations of the reactionary right. Is that the "healthy debate" Gearino believes we are having? Bill Mitchell Hillsborough Saturday, April 26, 2003 12:00AM EDT A budget in trouble In the face of the war, the federal budget process has gotten limited coverage of late. However, we are headed toward potentially record deficit spending. Massive government deficits undermine our security by limiting our response to emergencies and increase government spending needed to service debt. Recent poll results reported in The N&O indicate cross-party support for waiting on tax cuts, even though people feel they pay too many taxes. In short, people would like a balanced budget and smaller government. With control of the presidency and both houses, the GOP pursued large tax cuts and limited discretionary spending cuts to give us big deficits and big government. Looks like all that talk about never running deficits again and disliking big government were just talk. George DeMuth Chapel Hill |
