Letters policy
We welcome letters, but please include your full name, address and a daytime
telephone number. We edit all letters for libel, length and clarity.
Send letters to: Letters, Illinois Times. P.O. Box 5256. Springfield, Illinois
62705. Fax: (217) 753-3958. E-mail: editor@illinoistimes.com
ENJOYING HIS PIPE DREAM
I appreciate your articles on climate change
and war. Let us contemplate, however, that for every calorie of
food energy we eat, we put in nine calories of petroleum energy
producing it. It seems we’re almost literally eating Iraqis
— in the corn syrup in my jelly and ketchup.
Even if the petroleum were enthusiastically
gushing forth into our filling stations and acres of plastic
products, it would still run out eventually, no matter whom we vote
for! Will there be a Ballot Boxer Rebellion? The next time we vote,
will everything change?
Perhaps it would be wise to nurture community
gardens rather than strip malls (no matter how elite), neighborhood
gardens instead of backyard fences.
I’m enjoying this pipe dream, but in
the end, it seems, every city must become a garden. Can it be any
other way?
Don Smith Moorman
Springfield
NEXT YEAR, LET’S FILL THE PLACE
On March 8, Tuscany Italian Restaurant
participated in the Share a Meal program. This program asks a
selected restaurant to give 30 percent of the day’s receipts
to the Community Shares program to be distributed to various local
charitable organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, the
Springfield Project, Prevention First, and the Lincoln Memorial
Garden.
As a small-business owner bent on making
profits, I must confess that this was one day I actually enjoyed
losing money. Everyone who works at Tuscany, from the kitchen staff to the servers and
bartenders, did an excellent job for the patrons of this event and
enjoyed providing the service for a successful event.
The only regret that I have is that we should
have done better. In a time of declining government funding for
things that make all our lives better, we need to support the
organizations right here in this area that do things such as
educate kids about the dangers of drugs and alcohol before these
kids are victims or cause our society a problem, put people in
decent housing, beautify our city, and, in general, make the
Springfield area a better place to live.
Next year we would be happy to participate
again, if we are selected. But next year, let’s fill the
place and turn the 150 patrons who supported the event this year
into 300 and give these organizations some serious support.
Chuck Tamminga
Tuscany Italian Restaurant
Springfield
NAACP SAYS THANKS TO SPRINGFIELD
The Springfield Branch of the NAACP would
like to thank the Springfield community for 84 years of prayers and
support. On Feb. 13, the Springfield NAACP celebrated its 84th
annual Lincoln-Douglass Freedom Fund Banquet. This banquet brings
the community together to show solidarity in the promotion of
justice and equality.
The Springfield NAACP is humbled by all the
years of support that this community has given. This support has
crossed all racial boundaries and ethnicities, a true testament to
humankind. There are more people in Springfield who believe in the
principle of justice and equality for all than there are people who do not believe in
this principle.
After 84 years in the struggle and with your
support, the Springfield NAACP will continue to promote all the
principles of social justice and fight for justice and equality
in this land.
Kenneth L. Page
President
NAACP Springfield Branch
A REASON TO SWITCH CHANNELS
The story “Canned news” by Todd
Spivak in the March 17 issue of Illinois
Times accurately describes the
blatant propaganda purveyed as “news” by
Springfield’s Channel 20 and its owner, Sinclair Broadcast.
If viewers are looking for an ethical perspective on the news, they
have only one sure option: don’t view Channel 20. Confide in
a reputable news source. Remove Sinclair’s news perversion
from your life. Relegate Channel 20 and Sinclair to the darkest
recesses of the universe.
Tom and Darlene Noreuil
Springfield
WE ARE THE
MAJORITY
On Saturday, March 19, the second anniversary
of the war’s start, we rallied — 30 strong — at
the statue of Abraham Lincoln, on the grounds of the Capitol, to
act as witnesses for dignity, justice, and peace in a time of daily
belligerence and criminality perpetrated against Iraq and the
peoples of the world. We joined many hundreds of thousands around
the world marching and rallying for the cultivation of a just,
peaceful global order based on people and stewardship, not the
perverse accumulation of profits and power. At the same time the
Bush administration calls for Syrian troops to quit Lebanon, we
agitate for an end to our own occupation and the immediate
withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
However, because it is not in their interest
to do so, the mainstream media, controlled as they are by
powerfully profit-oriented conservative corporations, refuse to
cover the growing public outcry against this war and the moral
bankruptcy of this administration. Don’t forget that the
largest-ever public demonstrations were conducted by involved
citizens of the antiwar movement in February 2003.
That does not change the fact that we are the
majority! We are told that peace is un-American, that dissent is
treason, and that we are too few to effect change. Nothing could be
further from the truth.
Last year, shortly before the election, the
Program on International Policy Attitudes and the Chicago Council
on Foreign Relations, prestigious organizations that monitor public
attitudes, published underreported studies finding that the two
dominant political parties and the “liberal” media are
actually further to the right than the American public. Put another
way, the public is further left than the establishment. The CCFR
report, Global Views 2004, may be found at
ccfr.org/globalviews2004/index.htm.
For example, the reports show that a majority
of Americans think global economic policy is not fair to developing states and
that America should support multilateralism and cooperation in dealing
with the great threats of our day, including terrorism and
environmental devastation. This means accepting key treaties (Kyoto)
and working with international institutions (the International Criminal
Court) while opposing pre-emptive warfare except under the aegis of the
United Nations.
Yet we are told by the pundits and political
hacks that our ideas and goals are unreasonable, too imaginative,
and hardly practical. In other words, the business and political
elites — those who control the channels of disinformation
— oppose the public’s agenda. In their utter contempt
for democracy, these same elites and know-it-alls then use the
dominant media to consistently air their right-of-center social
philosophy, whipping up fear of gays, fear of terrorism, fear of
phantoms to bring society around to their line of thinking.
We have allowed ourselves to become victims,
our ideas degraded: health care, peace, a living wage, social
responsibility for the poorest and neediest. On March 19, 2003,
George W. Bush went to war against Saddam Hussein. However, he
continued an elitist battle against the people of Iraq, the United
States, and the world. Our national wealth and resources have been
used for enrichment of the few, depriving us of decent and
dignified education, health care, wages, and cities.
Another world is possible. Let’s build
it. In the March 17 issue of Illinois
Times, Diane Hughes’ commentary
“Why we speak out” was a perfect starting point for
involvement.
Michael Ziri
Springfield
NOT EVERYTHING IS ON THE TABLE
All possibilities supposedly “are on
the table” in the discussion of Social Security repair
— except the things President George W. Bush and other
ultraconservatives don’t want on the table, such as raising
the assessed-wages cap or formulating a reasonable test to
determine actual need for benefits. Yet progressives, historically
and unarguably the champion of the vast majority of American
citizenry, somehow are cast as obstructionists if we say that
private accounts should not be on the table because they
don’t address, much less solve, the basic funding issues for
Social Security.
Speaking of the possibility of massive Social
Security borrowing in the future, Bush said recently: “This
is a debt to future generations of Americans and unless we do
something about it we’re not going to be able to pay for it
without wrecking the economy.” It seems not to occur to him
that the same can be said of the massive deficits generated by his
unending string of tax cuts for the wealthy.
Tim Slack
Newburgh, Ind.
This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2005.
