Also this issue: Shady's Back -Howard Altman A Toke Too Far -Bruce Schimmel Common Ground Jews and Arabs in the U.S. want peace. Why not? -Rania Awwad and Josh Ruebner Totally Idiotic Americans The right to privacy dies with a whimper. -Ted Rall

December 5-11, 2002

mailbag

Letters to the Editor

by the Readers

Sad But True

(Re: "Lamentations," Howard Altman, Pretzel Logic, Nov. 28, 2002)

You are right. This is no way to live. But don't blame Bush. He didn't start any of this. Blame the people like bin Laden or the people who are nuts enough to go on a murderous rampage after a throwaway line in an article.

Please, will somebody get the balls up to stand and say what needs to be said?

Domenic DiPilla
Overbrook Park

Furious (at) George

On Dec. 18, 2000, G. W. Bush said, "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just as long as I'm the dictator." Well, now he has his wish. With the Senate falling under the domination of the Republican party, and the Democrats knuckling under to the demands of the White House, the man who was selected president is now in control.

I predict that over the next two years we will see the packing of the federal courts with the ideologues of the far right, Bush's most ardent supporters; a further erosion of the Bill of Rights (started by the passage of the so-called PATRIOT Act); the selling of the White House on a scale that will dwarf anything Bill Clinton did while in office; and the rise of a new class of robber baron, whose excesses will put those of J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford and the rest of their ilk to shame.

Why do I say this? Simply because it's true. G. W. Bush has abused the office of president to cement his current dictatorship, by using taxpayer dollars to campaign shamelessly for congressional races. He devoted time and energy to wooing big corporations and big donors, telling them that he'll get his tax cut for the rich made permanent, he'll gut environmental laws and make sure that no one complains.

For middle-class, Jewish, gay, black or female Republicans who voted the party ticket, I pity you. You will see your rights eroded and lost over the next two years. And for those who didn't vote, I heap scorn upon your heads. You allowed this to happen by your lack of civic duty and your lack of patriotism.

I plan on spending the next two years making sure that G.W. Bush doesn't get a second term and that the Democrats regain control of the Senate. Why? Because I don't want to see over 200 years of American civilization wiped out by a party and a man willing to sell their souls for a mess of pottage.

Samuel Gish
Philadelphia