Musafir's Musings

*Increase in Poverty Rate

"U.S. Poverty rate rises" reads the headline of a report filed by Reuters on 8/30/05. "The percentage of the U.S. population living in poverty rose to 12.7 percent from 12.5 percent in 2003, as 1.1 million more people slipped into poverty last year".

The figures are based on data released by the Census Bureau, and reflect fourth consecutive annual increase.

Overall, there were 37 million people living in poverty, up 1.1 million people from 2003.

Reuters

The Wealth Divide

On the other side of the picture is the tremendous disparity between the rich and poor. In the Unites States the richest 1% of households own 38% of all wealth.

The interview with Edward Woff that appeared in the Multinational Monitor (see below) clearly describes the inequality.

"MM: What portion of the wealth is owned by the upper groups?

Wolff: The top 5 percent own more than half of all wealth.

In 1998, they owned 59 percent of all wealth. Or to put it another way, the top 5 percent had more wealth than the remaining 95 percent of the population, collectively.

The top 20 percent owns over 80 percent of all wealth. In 1998, it owned 83 percent of all wealth.

This is a very concentrated distribution.

MM: Where does that leave the bottom tiers?
Wolff: The bottom 20 percent basically have zero wealth. They either have no assets, or their debt equals or exceeds their assets. The bottom 20 percent has typically accumulated no savings.

A household in the middle — the median household — has wealth of about $62,000. $62,000 is not insignificant, but if you consider that the top 1 percent of households’ average wealth is $12.5 million, you can see what a difference there is in the distribution."

The Growing Gap between the Rich and the Rest

The Bush-Cheney Team's Work In Progress
*The editorial, "Destroying The National Parks", in today's NY Times is a must read for all who enjoy the natural splendors of our country and feel that they should be protected. Plan for basic management policy drafted by Paul Hoffman (who has "no park service experience" and was "a Congressional aide to VP Cheney") includes opening every park in the nation to off-road vehicles, snowmobiles and jet skis. "According to his revision, the use of such vehicles would become one of the parks' purposes."

In line with the administration's close ties to fundamentalist Christians, the plan provides for "sale of religious merchandise" in the parks and exclusion from the policy document "any references to evolution or evolutionary processes".

Excerpts:

• "Recently, a secret draft revision of the national park system's basic management policy document has been circulating within the Interior Department. It was prepared, without consultation within the National Park Service, by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary at Interior who once ran the Chamber of Commerce in Cody, Wyo., was a Congressional aide to Dick Cheney and has no park service experience."
  

• "Some of Mr. Hoffman's changes are trivial, although even apparently subtle changes in wording - from "protect" to "conserve," for instance - soften the standard used to judge the environmental effects of park policy."
  

• "But there is nothing subtle about the main thrust of this rewrite. It is a frontal attack on the idea of "impairment." According to the act that established the national parks, preventing impairment of park resources - including the landscape, wildlife and such intangibles as the soundscape of Yellowstone, for instance - is the "fundamental purpose." In Mr. Hoffman's world, it is now merely one of the purposes."
  

• "There are other issues too. Mr. Hoffman would explicitly allow the sale of religious merchandise, and he removes from the policy document any reference to evolution or evolutionary processes. He does everything possible to strip away a scientific basis for park management. His rules would essentially require park superintendents to subordinate the management of their parks to local and state agendas. He also envisions a much wider range of commercial activity within the parks."
  

• "In short, this is not a policy for protecting the parks. It is a policy for destroying them."
  

• "It is clear by now that Mr. Bush has no real intention of living up to his campaign promise to fully finance the national parks. This document offers a vivid picture of the divide between the National Park Service, whose career employees remain committed to the fundamental purpose of leaving the parks unimpaired, and an Interior Department whose political appointees seem willing to alter them beyond recognition, partly in the service of commercial objectives."
  

• "Suddenly, many things - like the administration's efforts to force snowmobiles back into Yellowstone - seem very easy to explain."

Destroying The National Parks

Great animated strip by Mark Morford. The President, his men, and Ms. Rice. The Vice President looks especially true to life.
*
Mark Morford

And two by Tom Toles, The Washington Post:
Intelephant Design
Iraqi Women under the new Constitution

This guy was a presidential candidate in 1988! *Founder of the Christian Coalition and one-time presidential candidate Pat Robertson called for assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and, in the face of a firestorm that followed, issued an apology a day later. The fundamentalists, regardless of the faith they practise, are somewhat akin to rabid dogs.

Reverend Terminator,
Editorial, Chicago Tribune Aug.24, 2005

In an appearance on CBS' back in May, Pat Robertson expressed the view that the threat from liberal judges is more serious than Islamist terrorism:
""It depends on how you look at culture. If you look over the course of a hundred years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings. I think we're going to control al Qaeda. I think we're going to get Osama bin Laden. We won in Afghanistan. We won in Iraq, and we can contain that. But if there's an erosion at home, you know, Thomas Jefferson warned about a tyranny of an oligarchy and if we surrender our democracy to the tyranny of an oligarchy, we've made a terrible mistake."

Whew. His image in the CBS report (see below) looks scary; literally frothing at the mouth. One would think that he ought to be in a padded cell.

CBS News, Dick Meyer

You could have knocked me down with a feather*
OK, maybe he took the books (see list) to Crawford. One of the aides selected them. Maybe they are on the bedside table. But reading them! Slay me with a dragon; "Comfort me with apples".

From The Guardian,UK:
"As well as brush cutting, mountain biking and fishing, the president will also be tucking into Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky during his five-week summer sojourn on his Texas ranch. The other tomes are reported to be Alexander II: the Last Great Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky and The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M Barry.

"There's nothing on that list that is a beach read, or even a busman's holiday," Peter Osnos, of the PublicAffairs publishing house, told the Los Angeles Times. "It's a fair bet that George Bush is the only person in the entire US who chose those three books to read on vacation."

Bookworm Bush's holiday reading

I have my foot out of the door for a trip to the coast. What I am carrying with me to read is much less weighty.

"The Kratos Criteria" and "Unusual tactics"
*

Now that all details, including video tapes, have been made available there are no doubts. Charles de Menezes, shot to death on July 22nd in London, was an innocent victim. He was not running away from the police; he did not jump over a barrier; he was not wearing a heavy, bulky jacket; he was not carrying a backpack; he did not disobey orders to stop. He was shot at close range while he was sitting down in a train. He was murdered.

Leaks raise sharp questions about police tactics
Inquiry into the killing of De Menezes shows he was sitting down when shot

Duncan Campbell, Rosie Cowan, Vikram Dodd and Mark Honigsbaum
Wednesday August 17, 2005
The Guardian

Fatal mistakes that led to innocent man being killed in Stockwell Tube
By Richard Alleyne
(Filed: 17/08/2005)
The Telegraph

Not really but I am off to the coast to spend a few days with friends.
*
There will not be much of a change in my daily routine except that instead of watching traffic through my window I shall be looking at the ocean. Shall walk on the beach, run, read, do some cooking, drink wine and watch the ocean---the Pacific is only about 50 yards from the living room. But I shall stay away from the blog. There might be a few laptops around but I do not intend to surf the 'net. There is a TV but it remains switched off. Print edition of the San Francisco Chronicle will do fine. The New Yorker magazine has been piling up, and I just began reading Jeff Greenwald's "The Size of the World", recommended by a friend. Greenwald traveled around the globe using surface transportation---land and sea. The blogosphere will survive without me.

The weather at Pajaro Beach is unpredictable. I remember one blistering summer when I was packing to leave for the coast the weather report mentioned that there would be more of the same the next few days. So I decided not to take sweats and jackets. Big mistake. Less than 60 miles away but the sun never showed during my stay and it was cold enough to freeze "your buns off". I learned my lesson.

There will be about twelve of us, including children and teenagers. One lone Republican in the whole crowd. Iraq and Bush could come up. The discussions, however, would not be rancorous.

To my regular visitors: Stay well.

*
"But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it." This essay originally appeared in The Easthampton Star, Long Island, on September 9, 2004. The acclaimed author (Welcome to Hard Times, Ragtime, Loon Lake and other works of fiction) passionately expressed his views about the callousness of G.W. Bush. Almost a year later, nothing has changed. In fact casualties have mounted. The president still blathers about Iraq and 9/11 like a record with needle stuck in a groove.
*****

The Unfeeling President

"I fault this president for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our 21-year-olds who wanted to be what they could be. On the eve of D-Day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear.

But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man.

"He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

"But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the 1,000 dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.

"They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life . . . they come to his desk as a political liability, which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq.

"How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets nothing. He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as he knew, unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his bungled plan for the war's aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a disaster. He does not regret that, rather than controlling terrorism, his war in Iraq has licensed it. So he never mourns for the dead and crippled youngsters who have fought this war of his choice.

"He wanted to go to war and he did. He had not the mind to perceive the costs of war, or to listen to those who knew those costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war when it is one of the options but when it is the only option; you go not because you want to but because you have to.

"Yet this president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much. This president and his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing -- to take power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of themselves and their friends.

"A war will do that as well as anything. You become a wartime leader. The country gets behind you. Dissent becomes inappropriate. And so he does not drop to his knees, he is not contrite, he does not sit in the church with the grieving parents and wives and children. He is the president who does not feel. He does not feel for the families of the dead, he does not feel for the 35 million of us who live in poverty, he does not feel for the 40 percent who cannot afford health insurance, he does not feel for the miners whose lungs are turning black or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to work overtime at time-and-a-half to pay their bills - it is amazing for how many people in this country this president does not feel.

"But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is relieving the wealthiest 1 percent of the population of their tax burden for the sake of the rest of us, and that he is polluting the air we breathe for the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the quality of air in coal mines to save the coal miners' jobs, and that he is depriving workers of their time-and-a-half benefits for overtime because this is actually a way to honor them by raising them into the professional class.

"And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and the flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing to our democracy is choking the life out of it.

"But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I remember the millions of people here and around the world who marched against the war. It was extraordinary, that spontaneous aroused oversoul of alarm and protest that transcended national borders. Why did it happen? After all, this was not the only war anyone had ever seen coming. There are little wars all over the world most of the time.

"But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of people that America was ceding its role as the last best hope of mankind. It was their perception that the classic archetype of democracy was morphing into a rogue nation. The greatest democratic republic in history was turning its back on the future, using its extraordinary power and standing not to advance the ideal of a concordance of civilizations but to endorse the kind of tribal combat that originated with the Neanderthals, a people, now extinct, who could imagine ensuring their survival by no other means than pre-emptive war.

"The president we get is the country we get. With each president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his characteristic trouble.

"Finally, the media amplify his character into our moral weather report. He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail. How can we sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid and ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, and the monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.
*******Source: Common Dreams.org

E. L. Doctorow is an American novelist. His works are noted for their mingling of American history and literary imagination through the interaction of fictional and real-life characters.

Another face of the war
*
It was a matter of time. Some become inured to the horrors of war; some find recourse in prayers; others in drugs and/or alcohol. For Sgt. Daniel Cotnoir, Marine Reservist in Mortuary Affairs Unit, the memories became unbearable. He reacted.....violently. There are other soldiers who are struggling with their personal demons after returning from Iraq. They need psychiatric care to help them cope. The incident in Lawrence is an urgent reminder to reach out to them before they,too, go over the edge.

Daniel Cotnoir was responsible for collecting remains of fellow marines killed in action. He was selected for this duty because in civilian life he was director of a funeral home in Lawrence, MA.

On August 15th Daniel Cotnoir shot into a crowd from his apartment and injured two persons. He said he feared for his family's safety.

*******

Millions of dollars to spread the word. The Lord will take care of the hungry and homeless...if they are Christians.
*
According to a New York Times report by Shaila Dewan, evangelical Christians have taken a page out of AOL's direct mail campaign. Christian organizations plan to mail a DVD of the 1979 movie "Jesus" to every household in certain target States.

Excerpts:
"However dated its production values, "Jesus" has come to be viewed by many evangelical Christians as a singularly modern tool for spreading the Gospel. It speaks, though without special effects or quick editing, to a populace fluent in Hollywood. It comes in multiple languages on one disc. It concludes with a "salvation prayer" the viewer can recite with the narrator. Its local distributors consider it so effective that millions of dollars have already been spent toward the goal of delivering a copy to every household in the United States, as if it were free trial software from America Online."

"..................Over the years, the effort, which began using direct mail after Alabama, has been criticized by people who objected to Jesus' being played by a white actor, or who said the money could be better spent on the poor, or who felt that the mailings were unwelcome proselytizing. Perhaps the most vigorous objections came in 2000, when a mailing was done in Palm Beach County, Fla. Thousands of videos in heavily Jewish West Palm Beach were returned, some taped to bricks in hopes that the sender would have to pay the postage, according to news reports."

While some viewers might be persuaded to embrace Jesus, other recipients of the DVD
would do what I do with the AOL software---toss it into the trash container.

Resistance growing against "Pay, pray and obey"
*
Interesting developments in Boston, a city with strong tradition of faithful Catholics unquestioninly obedient to the church. A sign of the times.

"We've learned to say 'No' to bishops here in Boston," said Jim Post, a Boston University business school professor and president of Voice of the Faithful, a group of lay people who united because of their anger at bishops who attempted to cover up allegations of sexual abuse against priests.

Boston Catholics, David Fahrenthold in The Washington Post Aug.15, 2005

There is nothing new about mothers questioning authority about wrongful deaths of their children. They demonstrated in Argentina, they marched in Israel, they protested in Northern Ireland. Now, here in America more and more parents and family members of dead soldiers are raising their voices. They are doing it because they feel driven by the need for answers. Platitudes from on high no longer suffice.

Mrs. Sheehan is not alone. All of them are not standing at her side in Crawford,TX, but there are hundreds of women who support what she is doing. Some remain silent. Do they continue to believe that their loved ones died for a just cause or are there other reasons that prevent them from speaking out?

This is one instance when the media has brought the spotlight on an issue that needed it. Bloggers too have played a major role in keeping Cindy Sheehan's campaign alive. Yes, there are detractors and Mrs. Sheehan is not going to achieve her objective of another face-to-face meeting with the president---the ground rules have changed and the settings are different than when she met him in the White House as part of a group.

Nevertheless, what she has accomplished is nothing to be sneered at. She has made others rethink their position about Iraq. Cindy Sheehan and other mothers of dead soldiers in Iraq are part of a tradition. Whether you support them or not, they do not deserve disparagement.

Why mothers push for peace BBC Aug.13, 2005
*******

Six more soldiers died in Iraq. The total: 1853
Source: Iraq Coalition Casualties

"Cause out on the edge of darkness, there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country, come take me home again"
---Cat Stevens, Peace Train

*
Look at the picture. Young, innocent, happy. This kid should have been home thinking of girls, baseball, school and a career. He ended as cannon fodder. I know that some will say "he volunteered". But did he have the necessary training before he was sent to the war zone in Iraq?


In this undated photo released by the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, shown is Nathaniel DeTample. DeTample, 19, of Bucks County,Pa., was killed in action Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2005, in Iraq. (AP Photo/Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs)
*******

Casualties in Iraq: Total as of Aug.12, 2005: 1847

An injured soldier and a bereaved mother talk about the president and his war

"One day a nurse came in to ask Rodgers if he wanted to meet President Bush, who was visiting the hospital. Rodgers declined."

"I don't want anything to do with him," he explains. "My belief is that his ego is getting people killed and mutilated for no reason -- just his ego and his reputation. If we really wanted to, we could pull out of Iraq. Maybe not completely but enough that we wouldn't be losing people -- at least not at this rate. So I think he himself is responsible for quite a few American deaths."

From "Talking Wounded" by Peter Carlson, The Washington Post Aug.10,2005. "Terry Rodgers Came Back From Iraq a Changed Man, and Not Just Because of the Bomb"


A Mother Questions why her son died

“We need to get our troops out of Iraq. The only reason Bush wants to stay there is because his buddies are getting rich and feasting off the blood of our children.”

Thus spoke Cindy Sheehan during an interview with Timesonline of London.

Contrary to some critics, Ms Sheehan is not an exception. The soldier from Gaithersburg, who returned from Iraq with debilitating injuries, and the mother from Vacaville whose son died there, are on the same wave length. More and more parents and returning soldiers are voicing their doubts and asking "Why did we go to Iraq".

I'm not budging, says soldier's mother camped at Bush's door
Tom Baldwin in Crawford, Texas, Timesonline Aug.12, 2005
*******
"To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes."
George Orwell (1903-1950)

*
I thought of the saying "If the shoe fits, wear it".

"It is not really aimed at anyone," Jagger said on the entertainment-news show's Wednesday edition. "It's not aimed, personally aimed, at President Bush. It wouldn't be called 'Sweet Neo Con' if it was.".

"How come you're so wrong? My sweet neo-con, where's the money gone, in the Pentagon," goes one refrain.

The song also includes the line: "It's liberty for all, democracy's our style, unless you are against us, then it's prison without trial."

"It is certainly very critical of certain policies of the administration, but so what! Lots of people are critical," Jagger told "Extra."

Thank you, Mick Jagger but be on your best behaviour during the forthcoming U.S. tour. The authorities will look for half a chance to put you in the slammer.

*
There they go again---the champions of sex only between married couples, the missionary position, and Russian Roulette with pregnancy. Now the women of Wisconsin have become their target. Ever think how obsessed the Mandarins of Morality are with sex. They worry not only about unmarried people having sex, but also about married people having sex for pleasure. Makes you wonder about their colossal hang ups. Cannot be easy to cope. On the other hand, it could be just their public face. In private they probably whoopee just like normal people.

"College campuses have emerged as the latest battlefield in the nation’s war on women’s reproductive rights. Wisconsin has passed a bill entitled UW Birth Control Ban-AB 343. This bill prohibits University of Wisconsin campuses from prescribing, dispensing and advertising all forms of birth control and emergency contraceptives. Wisconsin State Rep. Dan LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, introduced this bill based on the belief that “dispensing birth control and emergency contraceptives leads to promiscuity.” In reality, full access to all birth control options — including emergency contraceptives — has no effect on the level of women’s promiscuity. Instead, birth control and emergency contraceptives help prevent more than 35,000 unintended births and 800,000 abortions each year"

From: mndaily.com
Source: You Will Anyway

Rosemary Palmer and David Schroeder voice their feelings
*

Parents of Lance Corporal Edward August Schroeder II were interviewed by Chris Matthews on Hardball. As I read the transcript I thought that if I were in their shoes my reaction would have been no different. I understand grieving parents who are finding solace in patriotism but I would have railed against those who conned the nation into this war. None of them ever faced enemy in battle and they don't have their own children in the war zone. Now they brazenly offer platitudes about deaths of soldiers.

Lance Corporal Schroeder died in Iraq on August 3, 2005. He was 23 years old. What a waste; an utterly senseless death for the hubris of a few. The views expressed by Rosemary Palmer and David Schroeder are not representative of other families who have lost their sons or daughters. In fact, as far as going public with their doubts about the war, they are among the minority.

The full transcript can be accessed at : M. Kane Jeeves (Ed Naha)
*****
Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
- Only the monstruous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918)

"While is is true that the guns will effect a little useful weeding, I am furious with chagrin to think that the Minds which were to have excelled the civilization of ten thousand years are being annihilated - and bodies, the product of aeons of Natural Selection, melted down to pay for political statues."

Wilfred Owen died on the Western Front on November 4,1918..... seven days before the end of World War I.
*****

The shameful, deafening silence about civilian deaths in military action
*
In Iraq, insurgents are killing soldiers and civilians. Their actions are described as atrocities. Dead soldiers are lauded by us as patriots who gave their lives in a noble cause. When coalition soldiers kill insurgents they are fighting to establish democracy and root out terrorism, and when hapless civilians die during military action, they are shrugged off as "collateral damage".

If they don't look like us, if they don't speak the same language, live far away some place that we have difficulty spotting on a map, and don't follow our faith then they are expendable. It is true that there are many who remain unaffected by deaths and injuries suffered by civilians in Iraq and elsewhere.

"When the victims are commuters in London, English-speakers carrying briefcases, we pay attention. When they're tourists in Egypt, maybe it rings a bell -- "Sharm el-Sheikh, isn't that where they have the marvelous scuba diving?" When they're Iraqis, we register the body count the way we note the record-high temperatures in the Midwest, and then we move on. Ninety-five in Chicago, imagine that. A hundred just south of Baghdad."

The above is from Eugene Robinson's "Learning to Live with the Boom", The Washington Post July 26, 2005.

Demonization of the UN by conservatives and claims by fundamentalist Christians that their God is the one to lead you to heaven encourage and promote such mean-spirited, insular attitude. Some politicians and preachers keep fanning the fire. Interesting that the Muslims' call to prayer include: "There is no God but Allah" and some Muslims in Islamic countries gleefully took to the streets to express support for what the terrorists did on 9/11. A common thread runs between the fundamentalists of all faiths.

Latest numbers from the London-based Iraq Body Count:

Minimum 23456 Maximum 26559

Actions by insurgents have caused many deaths since 2004, but military actions by coalition forces account for a large part. IBC's site states: "As many as 10,000 non-combatant civilian deaths during 2003 have been reliably reported so far as a result of the US/UK-led invasion and occupation of Iraq . These reports provide figures which range between a minimum of 8,235 and a maximum of 10,079 as of Saturday 7th February 2004."

*******

*
Rather than expressing my own thoughts about the dropping of atom bombs, I felt that it would be better to include what others think. The items below represent opinions that some of you would not agree with. I make no apologies; I am an unabashed liberal. To me "collateral damage" is an obscenity coined by cold, heartless people.

First, letters to the editor in The San Francisco Chronicle, Aug.6, 2005.

"Hiroshima troubling even 60 years later

Editor -- Sixty years ago, our country dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. We remain the only country that has ever used such weapons on humans.

Now we have the world's largest stockpile of nuclear bombs. We are building more, weaponizing space, spending more on our military than the rest of the world combined and using "depleted" uranium munitions that poison the environment -- and humans -- for millennia.

We invaded Iraq based on fixed intelligence (confirmed by the Downing Street memo of 2002). This illegal war has already killed more than 1,800 Americans and wounded tens of thousands, not to mention Iraqi casualties. It has increased terrorism and disgraced our country.

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but we have thousands of such weapons. Let us stop this carnage now. Bring our troops home. Impeach the liars who brought on this nightmare. Observe international treaties. Dismantle our nukes.

MADGE STRONG

Willits (Mendocino County)

-- -- --

Editor -- Charles Burress understands that it is time to let the people of Japan speak for themselves ("Wrestling with ghosts of war," Aug. 3). Rather than interpret today's Japan through "conservatives tired of apologies" or by opinion polls indicating mutual Chinese-Japanese disdain, Japan should be judged by the actions of its people.

Japan expert John Nathan in his 2004 book, "Japan Unbound: A Nation's Volatile Quest for Pride and Purpose," cites a newspaper poll indicating that amending Article 9 was not the most pressing concern among Japanese for possible revisions to the 1947 "Peace Constitution." (The article renounces war and prohibits a rebuilt military force.) Rather, the majority wanted an amendment to allow citizens to vote directly for prime minister in a national election.

A political head voted into office by the direct will of the people would have the potential to buck the power of the engrained bureaucracy and allow Japan to exhibit a new patriotism, proud of its accomplishments, aware of past mistakes, finding strength within Asia's oldest democracy.

Any revisions to Article 9 would be seen as the right of a sovereign nation to take steps considered necessary for self-protection. Japan run by the will of the people: This idea has come of age and must be one China truly fears.

RICHARD LAMBERT

Sonoma

-- -- --

Editor -- Sixty years ago, America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. This is a time for reflection.

You recently ran commentary about whether it was right to drop the bomb. Those who believe it was right have various reasons, but it comes down to one thing: The ends justify the means. This did lead to the Japanese surrender.

It is not morally right to bomb cities made up of mostly women and children. Would we do the same under similar conditions? Would it be right for other nations to use nuclear weapons if threatened?

The ends justify the means: This is a morality used by nations and empires throughout history. If we go further down this path, we will truly be lost.

RON WOLTER

Berkeley

-- -- --

Editor -- Your commentary on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Insight section, July 31) made the point that Japan, a resource-poor, largely defeated island nation, was on the verge of surrender prior to our dropping atom bombs on two of its cities.

Once again, however, a key question was not addressed: If it actually was necessary to quickly demonstrate our new powerful weapon (as a message to the Soviet Union as well as to Japan), why did we not drop the bomb on the most sparsely populated outer island of Japan? No one would have missed the huge mushroom cloud and subsequent devastation.

CHARLENE SPRETNAK

Half Moon Bay"
*****

The birth of 'mere terror' - The Guardian,UK

Children of Hiroshima - The Guardian,UK

The mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki threw a terrible shadow over the 20th century. David Smith went to Japan to meet the survivors of the bright and horrifying dawn of the atomic age.
*****

"Black rain falling"

Surviving Hiroshima: Keiko Ogura - BBC
*****

Hiroshima Mon Amour

Emanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada

Then there is Alain Resnais' 1959 film "Hiroshima Mon Amour". Based on Marguerite Duras' short novel, the story is about a French actress working in Japan and a Japanese architect with whom she has an affair. Their conversations, mostly about the bombing of Hiroshima and his memories of the horrible experiences were recreated in stark black white in Resnais' film.

Where is Vice President (Last Throes) Cheney?

*
How many more must die to democratize Iraq and defeat the terrorists? Those are the reasons now given by the President to justify the war.

There is a lot of sadness in Columbus, Ohio. Twenty members of Ohio's 3rd Battalion of the 25th Marine Regiment, a reserve unit, died in Iraq in the past two days. A devastating loss not only for residents of the Buckeye State but also for the rest of the nation.

That partly accounts for the falling numbers in president's approval rating in the AP-Ipsos Poll

Excerpts from a report by Will Lester of Associated Press

"The portion of people who consider Bush honest has dropped slightly from January, when 53 percent described him that way while 45 percent did not. Now, people are just about evenly split on that issue — with 48 percent saying he's honest and 50 percent saying he's not."

"But the portion of people who view his confidence as arrogance has increased from 49 percent in January to 56 percent now."

"Almost two-thirds in the poll described Bush as strong and likable."
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As of August 3, 2005, 1826 of our men and women in uniform have fallen in Iraq. "Sorrowing Lies My Land*"

(*Title of a book by the Goan author Lambert Mascarenhas)

The names (Source:Iraq Casualties.org)