Letters To The Editor
CONFLICT WITH IRAQ
Oppose ‘Operation Desert Deception’
Behold the fearsome nation of Iraq! Behold the evil Saddam Hussein who makes presidents tremble and pundits rave, activates the most apathetic and uninformed of Americans and gives military experts indigestion.
Operation Desert Deception is back, confirming suspicions that, in today’s mainstream politics, the Republicans set people against people, while with Democrats it’s just the other way around.
People, of course, are the neglected factor in our operations against Iraq. We want to punish Saddam Hussein by launching cruise missiles at military targets, and all we prove is that we are better at killing people than he is. We try to ignore the existence of millions of innocent civilians, not to mention the thousands of 1991 casualties we called collateral damage.
We hope the American ciphers in this war will be safe and detached in their ships and planes, never seeing the spilled blood and devastated families.
Am I so strange that I’ve never feared for my life or liberty from the hands of Saddam? That I feel we could help the Kurds more by telling our friends in Turkey to stop their program of genocide and torture than by fretting over which lines in the sand Saddam crosses?
Am I the only one who feels the United States should be more concerned with Mexico’s war against its poor and oppressed citizens than about which side Saddam takes in Kurdish disputes?
I’m dismayed that undeclared war has again become an instrument of domestic policies and a first resort in international policy. I hope people will join me in opposing these terrorist acts. Rusty Nelson Spokane
NATIVE AMERICANS
Quit carping and welshing on deals
Recent letter writers have complained about the tribes buying land outside of their reservations and about proposed uses for the land they’ve purchased. One suggested the federal government should terminate treaties with Native Americans and finally make them citizens.
First, land the city of Spokane occupies was once the campground of the Spokane, Kalispel, some Colville and Coeur d’Alene tribes.
Secondly, the last group of people to be granted citizenship in this country was the Indians, in 1924. Maliciousness was involved and so was shame.
Lastly, treaties were written and signed between the U.S. and the Indian tribes of America. In effect, these treaties were contracts between two sovereign nations. I’m not an expert on contracts, but I believe when a contract is broken, the wronged party is entitled to repossess the property in question.
The government of this country has never honored any contract made with any tribe. Society ought to acknowledge these unconscionable acts. According to the law, if a state has a lottery, the tribes can have casinos wherever they have land.
I demand that our representatives in Olympia take action and start to honor the treaties made by the first people, the Native Americans of this region. Tim Collins Spokane
Taking of the West was barbaric
I am responding to George Paccerelli’s letter, “Indians do shameful dance over graves of U.S. soldiers” (Golden Pen, Sept. 2).
I am amazed at your intolerance toward the Lakota Indians’ culture. You claim that the Lakotas’ ceremonial dance is a “barbaric behavior to maintain their cultural heritage.” Have you ever stopped to think that the United States’ policy for removing Native Americans from their lands for the purpose of expanding the West was barbaric, viewed from then and now? It certainly wasn’t civilized. It was a policy of false treaties, greed and prejudice.
Isn’t it equally barbaric that the U.S. government built a national monument to glorify the pioneering westward expansion and battles that removed Native Americans from their lands?
I suggest that you take a less ethnocentric view on this matter. By accepting other cultures and their beliefs you may learn something that you didn’t read in the history books. Jeff A. Godfrey Spokane
LAW AND JUSTICE
Tougher response laudable
Re: “Drive-by shooter gets 100 years,” News, Aug. 30.
It is heartening to think that at last the justice system is beginning to develop some teeth, instead of continuing to indulge in pabulum feeding of violent criminals, as has been the trend for 20-plus years.
Haven’t we heard every excuse in the book to dodge individual responsibility and accountability, and blame criminality on society? “Social deprivation” seems to be the politically correct term these days when making excuses. These young, murderous, hoodlums probably don’t look very deprived from the other end of a 9 millimeter handgun, from a victim’s standpoint.
Obviously, the Spokane County Superior Court jurors, Judge Neal Rielly and the Spokane County prosecutors didn’t buy Jose Joel Mendoza’s plaintive wails about being overcome by bad memories and taking PCP as justifications for his crime . Accolades to them.
Maybe stiffer sentences in the future will deflate some of the glamor of the gang-banger ilk and our streets will be safer for ordinary folk. Leslie P. Maynard Davenport, Wash.
THE JUDICIARY
Cozza ‘most-qualified candidate’
The upcoming election for Superior Court represents a very important choice for our community. We recommend District Court Judge Sam Cozza as the mostqualified candidate.
In his six years as a judge, Cozza has presided over hundreds of jury trials. He has demonstrated a tough stand against driving under the influence and domestic violence. He previously served as a deputy prosecutor and prosecuted many violent offenders.
Cozza will make a fine addition to Superior Court. Paul & Christie Pierce Valleyford, Wash.
ILLICIT DRUGS
Test teachers for drugs, also
As I was watching some people on an early morning news program talk about drug testing for students, a question came to mind: Why isn’t there any call for drug testing of teachers and people in administrative positions?
It seems to me that if people want to have this, why not lead by example? Have unannounced (voluntary) testing of teachers at the same time they are doing it to the students. It should include the school principals and persons in position of authority in the local education system.
But this will probably never happen because what is good for the goose (students) is not good for the gander (teachers). Ernest J. Chamberlain Spokane
End this losing proposition - again
Earlier this century, alcohol prohibition caused an increase in crime and violence but didn’t prevent people from drinking. Prohibition failed and the law was repealed.
Marijuana prohibition has also failed. In 1972, President Nixon’s National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse declared adults should not be criminalized for using marijuana. Nixon ignored his advisers and escalated his “war on drugs.” By the end of the decade, marijuana use and abuse had increased manyfold.
A marijuana-free America has proven to be an unrealistic goal. By wasting valuable law enforcement resources and maintaining an unregulated market, prohibition only makes matters worse for marijuana consumers and society as a whole. Police should instead minimize the harm associated with marijuana.
Because marijuana is typically used in private, trampling the Bill of Rights is a necessary part of marijuana-law enforcement. Courts have routinely upheld many privacy-invading techniques: drug dogs, urine tests, phone taps, government informants, curbside garbage searches, military helicopters, infrared heat detectors.
Because marijuana is the most widely used illicit substance, removing marijuana from the domain of law enforcement would reduce the need for such law enforcement policies.
Because vigorous enforcement of marijuana laws forces the roughest, toughest criminals to take over marijuana trafficking, prohibition causes violence and increases predatory crime.
By placing marijuana in an unregulated, underground drug market, prohibition creates additional health hazards from impure or contaminated marijuana.
When laws are more damaging to society than is use of the outlawed substance itself, the laws must be changed. Will Murray Spokane
BUSINESS AND LABOR
Prevailing wages are artificially high
Re: Susan Walker’s Aug. 31 letter response to “Democrats battle to challenge Nethercutt” (News, Aug. 25).
Despite its original intentions 60-plus years ago, the Davis-Bacon Act does effectively prohibit using qualified union and non-union labor at lower wages on public works projects today. The extra cost of construction means less building for our tax dollars, increasing the tax burden on all of us.
A November 1995 study conducted by Jennifer Roback Morse at George Mason University concludes that prevailing wage laws are a “protection for the privileged few who are employed, at the expense of the forgotten many who are not.” The “privileged few” pay not only union dues, but higher taxes - as do the rest of us - to support sometimes artificially inflated wages.
As highlighted on NBC’s May 23 “Inside Edition,” Oklahoma’s Labor Commissioner Brenda Reneau has proven fraud can - and does - create dishonestly inflated prevailing wages, further burdening us all.
When you vote on the $35-plus million street improvement bond issue this month, think how much less your tax assessment could be if inflated prevailing wages weren’t required on this project.
Forget union vs. non-union. Is there any reason to pay 25-30 percent more for labor to build a school or a road than to build the housing development and the businesses located all around it, considering that the same (local) workers build them all? I think not, and my increasing tax burden tells me I’m right. Steve Foster, executive director Associated Builders & Contractors Inc., Inland Pacific Chapter
OTHER TOPICS
Seems enough is never enough
This concerns forest management a la Jack Ward Thomas.
Timothy Coleman’s letter (“Forest management is pure chaos,” Aug. 20) got me to thinking about feelings on both sides (resource use vs. preservationist). I remembered that the group Coleman belongs to decided this was the best thing since sliced bread. I heard things like, “Boy, we are going to get our way now! J.W. is one of us. He will stop this nasty logging for sure!” And he almost did.
The forest plan that came about as a direct result of Jack Ward Thomas’ input was Option 9. Remember that? Timber harvesting on federal land was reduced from 5.1 billion to 1.2 billion board feet per year.
Preservationists were ecstatic. I remember some in the Inland Empire Public Lands Council saying there was dancing in the street. Then, lo and behold, within about two months, the same people were saying it wasn’t near enough. And now Coleman is just sick about the job he thinks the Forest Service is doing under Thomas’ direction.
If I could get my wish, I would like to see these people in charge for just a few months. That would be long enough for everyone to learn to live without wood products or depend on other countries for their material and, unless I’m sadly mistaken, there is no other country that has the stringent environmental laws we have.
If the preservation groups wanted to do something constructive for a change, they would focus on making recycling user-friendly so more people would engage in recycling. Gary M. Garrison Kettle Falls, Wash.
ACLU suppresses free expression
Aaron Mason is one of the best teachers in the Cheney school system. This is a person whose life, not just his career, centers around teenagers, their education and their development into happy and productive adults.
It’s appalling that this fine man is being persecuted for nothing more than exercising his right as an American to express his opinion in public. Creation is questionable as science, but that’s not the point. This is not a question of right or wrong. We’re not dealing with pornography or malicious speech. The question is whether ideas can be expressed and debated in a public school.
Along with the right to own and use property, freedom of speech is the cornerstone of a free society. I don’t know who started this vendetta against Mason, but it is clear that this person is deathly afraid of ideas that conflict with his or her own.
As for the American Civil Liberties Union’s complaining that Mason wore a shirt to work with a picture of Jesus on the back, I’m still shaking my head. I can hardly believe that anyone could consider this a punishable offense. I’m still not sure it could be true, but I read it in the paper so it must be so.
One can only wonder, what’s next? If we’re going to punish people and destroy careers for wearing religious symbols, what will the ACLU demand as an encore? Witch burning? One thing for sure, within the ranks of the ACLU fascism is alive and well. Jim Shamp Cheney
Clinton critic has a lot to learn
In reply to Bernadette Fairchild’s Sept. 4 letter: The first Mrs. Bob Dole was a nurse who helped him during his long road back through rehabilitation and therapy. After 20-some years, he dumped her and has had little to do with their child until recently. At least President Clinton stuck by his wife.
Family values?
The rest of your letter shows similar discrepancies. Read and learn. A.M. Gardener Spokane