posted August 4, 2006

Bad karma

In response to “Of candidates and kings” (July 28): Previous to this attack on Lebanon, I was of the naive belief that our “independent, progressive representatives” were on the side of peace, standing for our independent Vermont values. However, I was shocked to discover Bernie Sanders’ consistently pro-war stances, and well as the pro-Israel (same thing as pro-war) positions Patrick Leahy and Jim Jeffords have taken. Talk about sleeping with the enemy!

Israel was artificially created by acts of terrorism toward the native Palestinian people — this land “given to the Jews” by people who didn’t ever own it. Is this nuts or what?

Call it what you like, “karma” or “spirituality” — good doesn’t come from bad. No peace or joy will come from stolen property. And it’s obvious that peace is not what Israel wants. It’s on a path of domination by force — unilateral terrorism.
Christine Arvizu
White River Junction

Bernie — just another politician

An open letter to Rep. Bernie Sanders:

I have been excited to work on your senatorial campaign this year. I have handed out leaflets, attended rallies, and praised your candidacy to everyone I know. I can no longer do that in good conscience. Your yea vote on HR 921 is appalling.

Israel is not conducting a tit-for-tat action in Lebanon, it is waging a war of genocide on innocent Lebanese civilians. Your vote is just one way in which the United States is losing its credibility on a global scale. While civilized nations around the world are condemning Israel for its collective punishment of the Lebanese people, an act which is prohibited by the Geneva Convention, you and the rest of the U.S. Congress are parading your collective disdain for the rule of law.

In addition, your public pronouncement that now is not the time to begin impeachment proceedings is also revolting. By publicly stating that your reelection in November is a more important point of focus than holding an illegal and corrupt regime to the standards of law set forth by our Constitution you show that, while you may try to bill yourself as a champion of the people, you are, for all intents and purposes, just another politician trying to keep his job.

I have no doubt that you will win in November, sir, and certainly you are a better choice than Rich Tarrant, but I am tired of choosing between the lesser of evils. I want the opportunity to cast my vote for a person who is truly looking out for the people by protecting our Constitution and our freedoms.

By falling into lockstep with the Bush administration on both of these issues, you are aligning yourself and our great state with policies that, in the long run, weaken our Constitution, our freedoms, and our standing within the global community. I believe you will win in November, but it will be without my assistance or vote.
Pat Peters
Middlebury

Bernie fights for vets

After reading a few newspapers from around Vermont, I’ve read some letters to the editor concerning Congressman Sanders’ voting record and his position on veterans’ rights and benefits. Quite often, these letters speak not only of untruthful statements but also comments that I’m sure are personally hurtful.

First, I’d like to say to all veterans and other concerned Vermonters that Congressman Sanders has never to my knowledge voted no to any bill or law that would enhance a veteran’s rights or benefits. If Bernie voted no on a veterans’ bill or issue, you can be assured that it had faulty amendments or riders that would in the long term do more harm than good for veterans.

Second, I’d like to state just a few of Congressman Sanders’ achievements for veterans. The complete list is much too lengthy for this letter, but if you get in touch with Bernie’s office they will get a complete list off to you.

1996: increased funding to help veterans’ benefit appeals

1996: co-sponsored a bill that enacted one of the largest increases in G.I. benefits in U.S. history

1997: co-sponsored a 19-month investigation into Gulf War illness

1998: helped pass a law that required a study of Gulf War illness

1998: helped pass legislation to give vets better access to their military records

1999: supported Veterans Rural Health Care bill

2000: created a law to honor Vietnam veterans

2000: co-sponsored a law that makes the V.A. help veterans by providing assistance for claims

2003: reversed the Bush policy of prohibiting the V.A. from reaching out to veterans about benefits

Being a disabled veteran, I’m very grateful for all the laws and benefits that Congressman Sanders (soon to be Sen. Sanders) has fought tirelessly to get for all veterans. I get to use some of those benefits every day of my life and don’t know where I’d be without them or without Bernie in there fighting for us.

It’s hard to dislike someone who fights for you, no matter what, and we all know that nothing or no one can beat experience.
Robert Bartlett
Bennington

Jeffords should support asbestos reform

Our asbestos claims system is in shambles. How else could you describe a system where people who aren’t even sick recieve from the court system thousands — even millions — in compensation while U.S. veterans suffering from asbestos-related illnesses are denied access to compensation?

Thousands of veterans who were exposed to asbestos while in the military are now being diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases like asbestosis and the deadly mesothelioma. During and after World War II, asbestos was commonly used in all kinds of military construction, including shipbuilding, for insulation and fireproofing.

Unfortunately, sick veterans have severely limited avenues to compensation. They are barred from suing the federal government, and therefore must seek out the companies that provided the military with asbestos. But most of those companies have gone bankrupt, and this leaves sick veterans with very few options for getting compensation.

Our Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, understands the severe shortcomings of our asbestos litigation system. He’s well aware of the long waits sick victims must endure before getting a court date, the overwhelming number of cases pending, and the hurdles veterans must clear in order to get compensation. That’s why he has been steadfast in his efforts to pass the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution (FAIR) Act. As a veteran, I thank him for all his hard work on this critical bill.

The FAIR Act would set up a no-fault victims’ compensation fund financed by defendant companies and their insurers. No tax dollars would be used. All truly sick victims would be able to draw compensation from this fund, and the sickest victims would receive their compensation on an expedited basis.

Without this vital bill, veterans will continue to be left out in the cold.

I’m sure Sen. Jim Jeffords, a Navy veteran, also understands the importance of asbestos litigation reform for sick veterans. The men and women who served in our armed forces deserve to be treated with respect. It is clear the current system is failing veterans as well as many thousands of sick civilians. The solution is long overdue. Time is running out. I urge Sen. Jeffords to join Sen. Leahy in his fight to bring this critical bill back to the Senate floor.
James H. Lane
Past State Commander
Vermont Department of the Veterans of Foreign Wars

Every reason to be alarmed

From Brattleboro to Baghdad, our leadership is broken. U.S. politicians are seemingly insensitive unless or until hit in the face by folks who care. The difference is that no one seems to care about Baghdad.

There’s a $592 million U.S. embassy under construction, by Halliburton no less, with imported workers. Upon completion in 2007, 8,000 people will work there. The “embassy” will include 21 buildings, 619 apartments, restaurants, shops, a pool and a gym, a beauty salon, a movie theater, and a nightclub.

Tom Brokaw’s Al Gore look-alike documentary on global warming was peppered with car ads. (If that particular oxymoron was An Inconvenient Truth, I didn’t quite get the joke.) And when The New York Times Magazine last Sunday spoke of renewed enthusiasm for nuclear power, the problem of waste storage was mentioned only obliquely.

In Aspen recently, Sir Richard Dearlove (former head of Britain’s MI-6) spoke about the status quo in Guantanamo. He reminded us that “terrorism is an extreme form of political communication.” In response, we should “hold to the moral high ground” and to our “best traditions.” We don’t want to “end up amplifying the message that terrorists are trying to convey.”

By way of summary, Bob Herbert wrote eloquently in the Times, “There is every reason to be alarmed about the wretched road that Bush, Cheney et al. are speeding along. It is as if they were following a route deliberately designed to undermine a great nation.

“A lot of Americans are like spoiled rich kids who take their wealth for granted. Too many of us have forgotten — or never learned — the real value of American ideals. Too many are standing silently by as Mr. Bush and his cronies engage in the kind of tyrannical and uncivilized behavior that has brought so much misery — and ultimately ruin — to previous societies.”
Alan O. Dann
Marlboro

The answer is conservation

World population is due to increase significantly in the first 50 years of the 21st century, yet we as one human family cannot afford to emit more carbon-based emissions than we do now.

Helen Caldicott, in her soon to be released Nuclear Power is not the Answer to Global Warming, states that ”if global electricity production were converted to nuclear power, there only would be a three-year supply of accessible uranium to fuel the reactors.” Clearly this is no solution.

Our answers lie in conservation. This means using less, buying less, getting by with less. Our answers lie in efficiency measures. This means spending a bit more now to buy more efficient appliances to decrease one’s energy use for the long term. Our answers lie in renewables. Wind, solar, biomass, or hydro leave no waste product that must be stored and guarded for thousands of years. And yes, all options have some downsides. We must face facts.
Gary Sachs
Brattleboro

Is murder necessary?

A stunning insight into the mind of a ruler who blithely countenances the sacrifice of thousands of innocents upon the altar of war was revealed by George W. Bush recently when, referring to Israel’s rain of terror upon the Lebanese who have literally no connection, except the accident of geography, with Hezbollah’s rain of terror upon Israel, proclaimed the true doctrine of the exceedingly evil administration occupying our govenment with the statement, “Sometimes it requires tragic situations to help bring clarity in the international community.”

A “tragic situation,” or “tragedy” may be defined as “a terrible injustice.” Your president thinks, as a matter of policy, that “terrible injustice” is sometimes “required.” The murder of children is on occasion “required.” The use and abuse of the young, inculcated to kill, which is why they are called “infantry,” is likewise often “required.” Those they indiscriminantly murder, whether civilians, mothers, the little 4-year-old Lebanese girl whose body has no head, is sometimes “required.” Competing monsters are thus enabled to hold the world hostage in terror of their next act.

The quote reveals the “principle” behind the mindset that answers that most terrible of rhetorical questions, which has stopped millions of good people from necessary investigation: How could our government have attacked its own country on 9/11?

There can be no more excuses for hiding under the bed while the cancer metasticizes unaddressed. Evidence of the official mindset has been revealed by its perpetrators’ figurehead. The evidence of the government’s orchestration of 9/11 is as mountainous as the science proving it is incontrovertible. Last week, Daniel Ellsburg announced his own conviction that the government has lied to us about 9/11.

The propaganda of 9/11 forced us to accept that a terrorist attack disidentified as coming from a certain oil-rich region allows wanton murder of innocent bystanders. This is mafia politics, the drive-by war. It will end only when a critical mass awakens to the fact that we, too, were and are targets of traitors on a global rampage to “protect” us.
Craig Hill
Montpelier
Editor’s note: Craig Hill is a Democratic primary candidate for U.S. Senate.

Others go barefoot

Your July 28 story on Ron Zaleski’s Appalachian Trail (AT) hike for veterans states that “if he succeeds he would be the first person to do the hike this way.”

I’m not sure if this is true as I think the “Barefoot Sisters” hiked the AT this way. I think they wore boots on some sections and then later did those same sections barefooted.

As Barefoot Hikers reported, “Isis and Jackrabbit hiked the entire Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia — and back! They completed almost all of the hike barefoot. Check out my tribute to the tough-soled pair who earned the nickname ‘The Barefoot Sisters.’ One of the sisters is now writing a book about the experience.”
Randal Inman
Charlotte, NC

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