TO THE EDITOR
one to question the priorities of a police force
that chooses to molest the citizens who rely on it
for security. We call this “biting the hand that
feeds.” Will INET follow the path of its prede-
cessor, LINT? That team was dropped like a bad
habit once their corruption started stinkin’ up
the place. Or is this the shape of things to come?
Chris Hallett
Eugene
WHITE-NECKS
Sorry, but Bobbie Willis’ cover story (4/3)
only superficially dealt with racism in Eugene.
But when I re-read it, and she said, “It was the
first time I’d ever felt that the color of my skin
could be a problem,” that really made me laugh.
Where has she been living all of her life?
Granted, the opinions of Jones, Mays, Gary, and
Cook expressed some everyday occurrences that
happen to black and minorities in Eugene, but
there are deeper grounds that hatred stands on in
this community, and I don’t say it is so-called
red-necks from Springfield, but liberal white-
necks right here in the Emerald city.
Jerry Harris
Eugene
FLAWED SYSTEM
The divisive, unoriginal, and utterly boring
“Nader vs. Gore” argument that Michael Lane
rehashes (4/3) becomes completely irrelevant
when you consider that, quite simply, if we had
preferential voting, then Bush would not be in
office right now.
The Democrats can cry me a river, because
they don’t support instant run-off, as do all the
other left-of-Republican parties that haven’t
cynically abandoned our corrupt election system
in the first place. Obviously, this is because if we
did rank our candidates, the Democrats would
lose a lot of power to the Greens. And in that
light, I hold all those stymieing effective elec-
toral reforms such as this to be almost as culpa-
ble for the current state of the presidency as I do
the sorry souls who actually voted for His Royal
Madness. Oh, how I long for the days when the
majority of “liberals” don’t vote, lobby, and
wring their hands pining for the “really, really
bad” over the “truly horrific!”
Scott Michael Perey
Eugene
CURIOUS
Just wondering: Is it possible that those
flag-burners and self-styled anarchists are re-
ally right wing agents provacateurs hiding
their identities behind masks and black clothes,
while they try to discredit the peace move-
ment?
Has anybody seen a rush to the recruiting
offices by any of those young, healthy pro-war
demonstrators — or are they just content to let
others fight George II’s oil war, while they
stand on the sidelines and cheer?
Jim Estes
Deadwood
ASHAMED OF U.S.
I’m embarrassed. Embarrassed to live here
in this great country of ours, embarrassed to con-
sider even visiting anywhere else. I’m ashamed
because I so strongly believe in freedom of ex-
pression, equal opportunity for all — the very
precious rights for which our nation stands.
And, while we Americans hold these truths
to be self-evident, they are disappearing from
our reach at an alarming rate, piece by piece,
day by day as our government legislates PA-
TRIOT Acts, Homeland Security and military
spending into ever higher national debt with
total disregard for its own people. People, even
veterans, in need of health care, food, homes,
education and more are being neglected, never
mind those sent off to war to give their lives or
at the very least to sacrifice physical and mental
health, peace and well-being. All of us are the
expendable ones, linked to expendable broth-
ers, sisters, mothers, fathers and children in
Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else the muscle
of American politic should flex next.
We are the losers in fear and conflict, for we
are all inextricably bound together. Each bomb
that’s dropped, radioactive or not, each shot,
each weapon raised, each fire, breaks a heart
and destroys a part of the world that we all
share – water, earth and air.
I’m embarrassed that our government just
doesn’t care.
Jennifer Gusset
Eugene
BOMB IRAQ
I suggest that the U.S. government immedi-
ately begin bombarding Iraq with millions of
packages of food, clothing, medical supplies,
water purification equipment, etc., using the
U.S. government’s military delivery system al-
ready in place.
Helen Woodford
Eugene
RIGHT TO BE OFFENDED
Let me see if I understand correctly. Your
publication is hounded by complaints about ads
in the publication that some people consider
too offensive because of the pictures. This is
the same group of people that usually blames
the conservatives for controlling or censoring
the media.
Then in EW 3/6, pg. 5, you run an ad that says
“F—k war” and you did not publish a single
complaint the following week. The hypocrisy of
this is too obvious to expound upon.
Free speech is one of the foundations of this
country. That means we have the right to be of-
fended. I support your publication’s decision to
run both kinds of ads. For all of the people that
write to complain about the ads, I ask them to
refer to three facts. First, they can purchase
enough ads to make it unnecessary to run the ads
that offend them. Second, they can pay the sub-
scription price of your publication and get enough
friends to purchase a subscription to make it un-
necessary to run ads. Third, they can quit using
the services that they find offensive, as advertis-
ers only continue to pay for ads that bring results.
Albert Massaro
Eugene
CLEAN UP RIVERS
I think the mayor or anybody else who is in
charge should not let people dump things in
rivers. It doesn’t only affect fish and other crea-
tures down there. It also affects human. The
poisonous things that people put into rivers get
into the fish’s body. The fisherman catch the
fish, go home, cook it and then share it with
their family. This is how the poisons from
things that are dumped into rivers get into our
bodies. If they catch the polluted fish, people
can get sick — and it’s not their fault.
It doesn’t just affect fish and humans; it also
affects animals that come to take a drink. They
get sick. So, I don’t think we should sit around
and do nothing. I think we should do something
about polluting rivers. I think we should make
the world more healthy by fixing this problem.
Rivers aren’t the only things that affect hu-
mans and other animals. Factories also put bad
APRIL 24, 2003 5