Reformation, not Reform
Re: “Making the Most of a Scandal”
7/29/02

Nice thoughts. But nothing fundamental will change because the problem lies not in corporate culture but in a failure of democracy.

As our corporate leaders have openly said, we are now living in a post-democratic era. All economically important decisions are made by major corporations and corporate management and the only real debates about policy arise when one corporate faction is in conflict with another. That is why, for example, the new bankruptcy reform act is advancing even as legislation to curb some peripheral accounting abuses is signed and congressmen compete with each other in their efforts to excoriate the corporate executives whose behinds they were kissing only a few months ago.

We don’t need reform. We need a reformation.

Andrew J. Zuckerman

 

Operation TIPS? No Good!
Re: “The Furor Over TIPS”
7/17/02

TIPS is just another brick that the Bushites are using to wall off our hard-won freedom. While there are “Bad Guys” at large, that idea is being exaggerated to instill fear in Americans while the real terror is in the White House. It’s a game at it’s worst… where’s the terror?

John Bidleman

 

George Sanchez is correct. Our civil liberties are what set us apart from the other governments. They help us sleep at night. The way suspected terrorists are treated is clearly unconstitutional. I don’t wish to be targetted as one just because some power-mad service worker wished to exercise his new “civil duties” overzealously.

Mary Terese Mills

 

I can think of three political establishments which made very good use of citizen spies. They were the Gestapo, the SS and the KGB. I can’t imagine why anyone here would get upset thinking our own government would misuse information gathered by the good people of the United States. I mean, if you’re not guilty of anything what do you have to be afraid of? This is just some of those liberals trying to make trouble for the rest of us. Excuse me, it is time for me to get sheared.

Sam Fariss

 

Not Harsh Enough on Israel
Re: “The Rough Beast Returns”
6/17/02

I agree — this whole thing is becoming embarrassing to anyone who wants to protest the treatment of Palestinians in a decent and effective way. Of course anti-Palestinian hatred is equally disturbing to those of us who have long looked to Jewish thought as the shining example of humanism and liberalism. A year or so ago, I heard an NPR segment in which an Israeli settler said that Palestinians had no rights that the settlers need recognize, because “they are the ‘servants of God’ (I suppose that is a referrence to Islam) and we are the sons of God.” Perhaps we need some sort of a movement to oppose these ugly trends.

Adrien A.

 

I don’t think it is anti-Semitic at all to point out the similarities between Israeli government actions, which parallel or are identical to those of any other abusive inhumane regimes, to the Nazis in another era. The systematic humiliation, destruction and elimination of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government is well documented and obvious to the world. Much of the world is outraged at Israel’s recent failures and acts of brutal inhumanity. To ignore that, or to offer some counter-argument about Palestinian outrages, only reduces the discussion to drivel and name-calling. Disgust with Israel does not constitute racism, and only racists would wish to label it as such.

Robert J. Philbin