(December 14, 2009)
[Want your letters to be published? Then, please include your first and last names and your city and state of residence. Also, please, enter in the subject line of your e-mail "Letter to the Editor," and specify the article or the subject on which you are commenting.] A Swans trip from France to Boonville: Graham Lea's FRENCH BREAD: The Baguette Versus Pain de Campagne To the Editor: What a journey! I opened my e-mail from Frenchpropertyshares, then to an article on French bread to the French corner and find myself back to Boonville, CA, the home of one of my favorite newspapers, the AVA. I never heard of the Swans Web site but you can be sure that I will pass it on to my friends here in Sonoma and will check on it for current essays and commentaries. Thanks. Gerry Orme Sonoma, California, USA - December 2, 2009 ********** The constitutionality of US debts for Americans under the age of 18 To the Editor: (I've sent the following to Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union with copy to many organizations and media outfits.) I am endeavoring to find out if 75 million American Citizens under the age of 18 have a right to approach the Supreme Court with a case based on the following: The legally binding dimensions of our commitments to the Public Debt and unfunded entitlements is now so enormous it has become a burden of such unreasonable and overwhelming size it would be unfair and immoral to pass it on to our children. Since this burden will become a lifetime hardship for entire generations of future citizens, and was done without their knowledge or approval, steps should be taken to determine if this injustice violates the intent and spirit of the Constitution. If you do not have any comments to offer, could you advise any authority qualified to comment on whether or not this endeavor has any options that are worth pursuing? Sincerely, G. R. Vince Johnson, Veteran WWII and Korea Aumsville, Oregon, USA - December 12, 2009 ********** A response to Mr. Denis Perkovic's last letter on the The Balkans and Yugoslavia Dear Sir: I have read hundreds of letters blaming one side or the other, like this one from Mr. Perkovic. It is not about the terrible things that all three sides supposedly did. We know what they did, and what they defended. We need to understand why they did it and whose interest was served by all this, and why was it not stopped, since this is the only way towards reconciliation. If people really knew the truth, the war would have been stopped before it even started. Mr. Perkovic does not see any responsibility for the Croatian side, and he is magnanimous in saying that if he was given a gun today he would not harm any Serbs. Well, Mr. Perkovic, even mentioning guns sickens me. To him it seems one side is all bad and the other side all good and yet there is blame and shame in equal measure on all sides. I have read extensively on this issue, both from scholarly articles and nonsense from people like Ed Vulliamy who fabricated hundreds of events from the wars in Yugoslavia. It is Vulliamy, writing for The Guardian newspaper from London, England, who fabricated reports on the "red flags" about the Serbian rape and concentration camps that Mr. Perkovic, Amnesty International, the Women's movement, and the Jewish Wiesenthal Institute believed -- which we now know were fabrications. The spin and the fabrication were mixed with a bit that all sides did it was in, but in Vulliamy's articles the blame stopped at Milosevic's and the Serbian doorstep when on that doorstep all ethnic minorities from the combat zones were protected and provided with refuge. I would like to ask Mr. Perkovic why would Mr. Milosevic go outside of Serbia to do harm to Croats and Muslims when he did not touch the 150, 000 Croats and the million Muslims who lived in Serbia and still live there today? Mr. Perkovic believes in the Serbian culpability because he was personally affected -- so he looks at this to blame, as most of us would if we experienced a personal tragedy caused by one group in this conflict. It takes a special character to go beyond personal and enter the world of objectivity. Mr. Perkovic is silent on many massacres and issues from fifty years of Croatian terrorism against unity of the federation, and for him the complicity in its breakup is water under the bridge. One can understand his Croatian silence because the rebirth of SS divisions and concentration camps of the past are not complimentary and for him silence means it just did not happen. Mr. Perkovic sees Croatian history through silence of its past and through manipulation of the present in the way many see the world. We are manipulated by great powers, which speak through an invisible government of propaganda that subdues and limits our political imagination and ensures we are always right when we are silent. It is important for Mr. Perkovic to understand that the breakup of Yugoslavia was the training ground for the Middle East and Afghanistan. If he cannot see beyond the personal tragedy then he cannot see the truth in any writing, be it American, Croat, Serb, or Muslim, not that there is absolute truth in any of the writing. Wars, Mr. Perkovic, to paraphrase Churchill, are not fought to confer a compliment but to gain an advantage. It is this that Mr. Perkovic needs to understand and at the same time ask who gained an advantage from this war, who was prepared for it, who benefited and who paid for that benefit. Milosevic wanted to save a united Yugoslavia, but the Great Powers that put it together at Versailles in the first place, destroyed it with NATO and Rambouillet. I ask Mr. Perkovic who owns the new roads in Croatia, the tourist industry, insurance, telecommunication, energy, and so on? It's the same multinationals that own them in Bosnia and Serbia. Oil and power, Mr. Perkovic, were the driving forces as the "United States aggressively expand into the distant Balkans" and into the Middle East -- as the Project for the New American Century called for. (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/New_World_Order/PNAC_Exposed.html) Yugoslavia bled for this project and young American conscripts are bleeding for this project so that oil will flow from Central Asia. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/24/oil-pipelines-are-the-new_n_178715.html) I had hoped that Obama would end this bleeding but I knew from the day he appointed Biden as his running mate and Clinton as his foreign secretary that the bleeding would continue. Mr. Perkovic needs to understand that there was no war prior to 1990 in Yugoslavia; there was no fear of ethnic fratricide until those who wanted an advantage set it in motion using Mr. Perkovic's silence, and possibly support, to achieve it. Mr. Perkovic is looking from one side because propaganda has become more sophisticated and he is convinced that the tribunal at The Hague is justice because it satisfies his emotional need. The Hague Tribunal is not justice for the Serbs, the Croats, or the Muslims. It is simply a Wild West lynching. If it was just then it would also be just for the Americans who do not recognize it for their own nationals. The rules of jurisprudence of this court would not stand the test of the rule of law, independence, and due process in any court of the NATO nations. Mr. Perkovic is looking at this event through his pain, through the checkered flag, and through the illusion of propaganda. How many people must die for that illusion and for him to break his silence? And how many wars and fatherless children do you need to see before we say STOP, this is not who we are? We are people, Mr. Perkovic, who happen to be Croat, Serb, and Muslim by accident of birth and history. If we were born in India we would worship cows, but now we do what those who filled our heads with nonsense in the church and the mosque and in the cradle want us to do and think. To Mr. Perkovic only Croats are victims and those killed by the KLA and the Ustasa are unworthy victims. This is hypocrisy, Mr. Perkovic. I believe in standing for justice in human affairs since our apathy is responsible for Tudjman, Izetbegovic, and Milosevic. If we had made justice the guiding principle in our life we would not have had the Balkan Wars, Middle East, or Afghanistan. Walter Trkla Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada - December 1, 2009 ********** Message to Ken Freeland regarding For Whom The Bell Tolls: Ward Churchill's On the Justice of Roosting Chickens Dear Sir, I found out about Ward Churchill's book and will buy it. Without reading it, I already know the contents because I own a similar book. This book was written by Karl Heinz Deschner from Germany in 1993. Unfortunately, there is no translation. I would like to discuss some special point with you. As I am using not my E-Mail now, I would appreciate very much to hear from you in order to discuss a special idea. Be so kind to write to Wilfried.Schuler AT gmx.de I am located near Frankfurt am Main. With my very best regards, Wilfried Schuler Frankfurt, Germany - December 9, 2009 ********** We appreciate and welcome your comments. Please, enter in the subject line of your e-mail "letter to the editor," and specify the article or the subject you are commenting on at the beginning of your e-mail. Also, ***PLEASE,*** sign your e-mail with your name ***AND*** add your city, state, country, address, and phone number. If we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country. Send your comments to the Editor. (Letters may be shortened and edited.) |