Where Have We Been?
Editor:

Browsing your editorial in the Denver Urban Spectrum December 2006 edition, I was struck by the irony of some of some your observations.
Under the heading Republicans vs Democrats, you suggest that Republicans deserve their "do" for the list of Cabinet members from African-American and Spanish-speaking communities. Does the clamour for symbolic representation among some sections of these communities outweigh any sense of basic principle and human rights.
It does not take rocket science to know that Ms. Rice and Mr. Powell (at least he has had second thoughts) have aligned themselves with some of the most chilling frameworks of deliberate deception , systematic mass murder and devastation that the world has seen for some time. And Alberto Gonzales who provided the "justification" for torture that is banned by international law and that has resulted in such spectacular and continuing outrages such as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Gharib. Do these remind you in any way of the targeted mass incarceration of and brutalities against people from low-income communities, of lynch mobs, chain gangs and something called the "peculiar institution".
And under Middle East and War you write: "Generation after generation in the Middle East, there is hatred, death, destruction, terrorism and war all based primarily on religion"
As the editor of a secular magazine, one would expect you to base your conceptions of the ordinary facts of world history on texts and discourses that are not imprisoned in the perspectives that arise from religious finishing schools and the fictions of nickel and dime TV preachers. If you were instead to examine credible academic history texts you would find that perhaps most if not all of the violence can be traced to Big Power designs on Middle Eastern  and increasingly African societies because of that obscure little liquid that fuels your SUVs and the catastrophic obsessions of that true American religion called consumerism.
It is reasonable to expect that the Denver Urban Spectrum is capable a different kind of journalism.
Cyrus Ptolemon
Research Archive
Denver, CO

Editor’s response: There is nothing symbolic about the power or positions of Secretary of State, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or Attorney General of the United States.  And symbolic or otherwise, the intent was to show the appointments made to various positions of authority by Republicans on a national level. Assuming Democrats make similar appointments whenever they return to the White House, Republicans/conservatives would most likely rail against whatever liberal stance they make take.  As for the Middle East, granted that the apportionment of various countries by colonial or wartime victors, especially after WW I, created animosity and arbitrary borders, however Shiite vs. Sunni is not about oil, Zionism vs. the Palestinian Liberation Army is not about oil, nor is the President of Iran calling for the annihilation of Israel about oil. No matter your thoughts on oil, killing based on one’s belief in God, or their interpretation of what God wants, should be abhorrent to any spiritual being. 

Israel and its USA funded Mid-East Plantation
Editor:

Rocky Mountain News Editorial Editor Vincent Carroll and radio talk show host Craig Silverman, are missing the boat with their Dec. 7 article, "Carter's recklessness".  President Carter chose the title of his new book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid", to capture the world's attention, regarding the inhumane treatment that Palestinians are being subjected to in Israel.  Americans have empowered Israelis with very sophisticated weapons, including nuclear weapons, so they can control all of the Arab countries in the Middle East. This is a copycat scam, similar to how blacks were enslaved in America, and kept in slavery. You a take a few whites armed to the teeth, to control the masses of people, of color.  America is just as guilty of trying to colonialize the Mid-East, as the British, French, and Italians were in their failed attempts.
Sixty two years ago, America first showed its racial and religious hate for Muslims, when black Muslim, Elijah Muhammad, founder, Nation of Islam, was sentenced to three years in prison, simply because he sought a WWII conscientious objector draft-deferment. 18 years later, they sentenced his son, Wallace D. Muhammad, to three years in prison for seeking the same draft-deferment. Along comes Muhammad Ali. MA Gov. Mitt Romney, owes black Americans three years in prison, because when Vietnam broke-out, he broke for his international Mormon mission, without notifying Ali.
Blacks nationally, despite our own history of being subjected to inhuman treatment (stripped of our religion, language, customs, and our women-folk being bred like cattle) in America for centuries, has shown no compassion for Arabs or Muslims. Bush (pimp of oppression) in his personal Iraq-NAM war, is making his own statement with regards to exterminating Muslims. He delivered them his version of democracy with cruise-missiles, torturing, lynching by water-boarding, and "white phosphorus" laced projectiles (munitions), which burns through flesh and bones. Bush has murdered more than 140K Muslims, which surpasses both Saddam and the Butcher of Beirut, Ariel Sharon (30K).
No member of the Congressional Black Caucus, or civil rights leaders like Rev. Jesse Jackson/Rev. Al Sharpton, has dared to address America's participation in the slaughter of Palestinians. They just may be justified in their moot-ness, because ex-Denver Bronco/columnist Reggie Rivers and U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinley criticized Israel, and Rivers lost his radio-talk show and McKinley is being run out of congress. The NAACP and the rest of the national black community, cut and ran on Rivers and McKinley, similar to a scene out of a 1920's black slave "bug-eyed" exploitation movie.

Barbara A. Shufford
Centennial, CO