Chicago Tribune, June 17, 2009

Dear Editor,

It is astonishing that the human mind is capable of sustaining utter denial of reality for 40 years. Some members of the Fraternal Order of Police hope to exploit their 40 year reunion to rewrite the history of the 1968 police riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. It is deeply ironic that the main news story today is the violent police tactics being used in Iran to suppress dissent over their recent election.

It is hard to overstate the impact of the Chicago police riots on subsequent events in US history. Seeing non-violent demonstrators brutally beaten (along with reporters who happened to be nearby) shocked the Nation. Americans saw what a police state looks like, in their own country. Millions of youth witnessed the hypocrisy of official abuse of power at the very nexus of democracy, a political convention. Almost overnight, millions of moderates were transformed into hardcore radicals. The outrage over Mayor Daley’s violent suppression of free speech galvanized opposition to traditional Democrats, weakening Humphry’s support, and ultimately allowing the future criminal Richard Nixon, to win the election with only 43.4% of the popular vote.

We should not be surprised at the flagrant abuses of the democratic process in Iran and elsewhere, when many Americans seem incapable of grasping the meaning of freedom and democracy in their own country.

We commend the Tribune for conducting thorough investigative journalism to reveal corruption in the preferential admission of a few dozen well-connected students to the University of Illinois. True investigative journalism is almost dead, and this is a serious loss for our democracy, as Benjamin Franklin might have observed. However, we are puzzled by the extent of coverage of this relatively small issue. In contrast, a few years ago, a Tribune series revealed the innocence of many death row inmates in Illinois. This groundbreaking investigation led to then-Governor Ryan’s revolutionary ban on capital punishment in our state, which saved many innocent lives.

We wish the Tribune had investigated the blatantly false WMD claims that led us into a disastrous war in Iraq, or the vote counting fraud that led to two disastrous terms by G.W. Bush. Persistent investigation might have revealed who Dick Cheney invited to his secret meetings where US energy policy was written by Enron and oil company executives. Today there are more important and more worthy issues that could be investigated and given blanket coverage.

How about revealing why Congress refuses to give Americans what three-quarters of us want: national health insurance? You could publish lists of every Representative and Senator, along with the amount of campaign “contributions” they have taken from health insurance companies. You could make detailed comparisons of the cost vs. quality of health care in the US, so your readers could see that we pay more and get worse health care than 3 dozen other industrialized countries. You could report the $200,000 per year spent on every Senator and Representative by lobbyists for health insurance companies.

The Tribune could have a real impact on the quality of life in America! The Tribune could be relevant! The Tribune could be a force for good!

Dear Amy,

Not a question; just a response:

I just read your column printed in the September 16 issue of my Tribune, and I was appalled to read your answer to the 14-year-old who took disagreement with your stating that chewing gum during the Olympics is rude. I agree with you on the chewing gum matter, but answering a young teen with a snippy “Of course I’m in a position to judge. We all are.” has hereby reduced my respect for your advice to nil.

Imagine the courage it takes a youngster to write in to a big newspaper – probably the first time in her life – and then imagine the self-doubt and embarrassment she might feel getting such a coarse response from someone she clearly admires enough to read regularly.

Why would you choose to run your response to this particular question if not to prove to the world how arrogant (or perhaps insecure) you are, that you choose to pick on teenagers publicly? Was the letter bag getting empty? (If so, why you would try to alienate a loyal reader is beyond me.) You had already run your response to the original letter, so running it again, just to get in a dig at a child’s expense, is pitiful. Gum-chewing at Olympic medals ceremonies is not a national emergency that requires two separate columns to be addressed. I am equally saddened that the Tribune syndicate offered no editorial guidance for you to tone it down.

If you are still feeling sorry for yourself, feel free to run my letter, with some new snide jabs against me for daring to speak up for a 14-year-old. Maybe it makes you feel better to pick on people who lack the authority of national readership that you have. Just know that we lowly readers still have the power to draw silly mustaches on your picture in our newspapers.

Sincerely,

Daughter Proton

Chicago Tribune
Voice of the People

re: “Too young for the No. 1 job?” by Steven G. Calabresi

Dear Voice of the People:

Mr. Calabresi makes a valiant effort to slam Obama’s youth, but it is a weak argument.  For all their youth, the three youngest Presidents, Teddy Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Bill Clinton, all had highly successful Presidencies.  The argument that they made errors due to inexperience must be examined by comparing whether older Presidents were error-free.  No one would make that argument – it is absurd.  Let’s consider the oldest previous President, Ronald Reagan.  Reagan was admired by many, but his main legacy was transforming the Republican Party from fiscal conservatism to the Party of reckless spending and borrowing to produce record deficits.  During his second term, the aging Reagan was sadly afflicted with Alzheimer’s, had to be coached by his wife like a puppet, and became simply an impotent figurehead, with policy being made behind the scenes by unnamed puppeteers.

Calabresi makes a few other, even weaker arguments; “A hallmark of youthfulness, as all parents know, can be falling in with the wrong sort of friends.”  Let’s examine the friends of that experienced candidate, John McCain.  To start with, his economic advisor Phil Gramm, who was fired when he incautiously revealed McCain’s economic philosophy (that unemployed Americans whose homes were foreclosed on are simply whiners), was also the chief engineer of the deregulation that caused the mortgage crisis and skyrocketing gas prices (due to energy speculation that once was illegal).  McCain called Gramm “the smartest economist and political strategist he knows.”  McCain’s campaign is staffed with dozens of lobbyists, only a few of the most scandalous of whom have been fired to date.

“Another hallmark of youthfulness is not keeping your promises,” says Calabresi.  One need only look at the issues that McCain has flip-flopped on since he switched from being a so-called maverick to becoming a GW Bush clone when he decided to run for President.  He switched from (1) pro-choice to anti-choice, (2) criticizing Jerry Falwell to snuggling up to him, (3) opposing Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy to thinking they are great, (4) opposing torture to shockingly thinking torture is a fine tool for Americans to use, (5) McCain took contributions from Enron crook Charles Keating, then supported campaign finance reform, then switched back again, (6) FISA, the second amendment, gay marriage, Iran, Iraq, welfare reform, NAFTA, etc.

The most telling argument in this debate is simply this.  McCain (like Clinton, when she was still in the race) keeps adopting Obama’s political positions when he sees how popular they are with the American people.  Obama was the candidate of “change” so McCain (a 30-year entrenched DC politician) also became the candidate of change!  In McCain’s case, this could only mean that he keeps changing his position!  Obama supports energy independence and renewable energy, so McCain (despite voting 95% of the time for Bush’s anti-environmental policies) suddenly turns green (in his case, from envy).  Obama makes a speech about the importance of fighting terrorism where the terrorists are, in Afghanistan, instead of Iraq, where they never were.  Suddenly McCain wants to send three divisions into Afghanistan!  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and McCain evidently agrees that Obama is better equipped to be President.

National media coverage of the recent raid at the Texas compound has revealed as much about “ourselves” as about the FLDS polygamist sect.

Child abuse, domestic violence, and rape are wrong: they are some of the greatest evils a society ever knows. Yet, too often, the coverage of the raid has focused not on the abuse but on the “peculiar” culture of the people. The clothing (“long pastel dresses,” according to an April 7 Chicago Tribune article) is not the point; child abuse and misogyny are the point, and distractions confuse that important moral lesson. Both the sect members and our voyeuristic culture need to understand that. People should not be humiliated for what clothing they wear; they should be tried and punished for what harm they cause.

It is well worth questioning whether a government that does not protect its children from poverty, toxic toys, and manipulative commercial advertising, has learned any lesson from this raid. Will we recommit ourselves to helping all children escape the evils of child abuse? Is this raid to help the children or is it to soothe the smug consciences of mainstream citizens who fear “deviants?” It is also worth questioning whether a national spotlight on this sect discourages such violence, or pushes similar instances of abuse further underground.

Also illuminating is that commentary on the raid has emphasized the “Latter-Day Saints” half of the church’s name, and not the “Fundamentalist” half. While some of the community’s beliefs may come from the LDS tradition, it is the fundamentalist style of the faith that encourages a closed community structure and intolerance to other perspectives. Fundamentalism is not unique to LDS communities, and facing the dangers of this belief system in the wider Christian community may be harder than further marginalizing LDS and Mormon believers.

Chicago Tribune

Dear Voice of the People:

The most alarming aspect of the demise of Governor Spitzer is the extent to which the FBI used wiretapped phone conversations and email surveillance to entrap him in the bogus charge of interstate commerce violations. This is the real reason the Bush Administration wants to have unlimited ability to snoop on American citizens. Their goal is to destroy Democrats, not terrorists. If Bush wanted to eavesdrop on a suspected terrorist, he could easily get a warrant to do so, retroactively if necessary. But because his goal is to attack political opponents who have nothing to do with terrorism, a wiretap is harder to justify. This is why Bush is working so hard to have unlimited power to violate the freedom of law-abiding patriotic Americans.

re: Dennis Byrne “Snubbing cancer study will only hurt women,” October 22, 2007

Dear Voice of the People,

Dennis Byrne bemoans the lack of publicity surrounding a study published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JAPS), which reports the startling conclusion that abortion causes cancer. He does admit that this conclusion is contradicted by the vast majority of existing medical research. The journal that published the results that Byrne prefers over reality has a distinctive name. I recalled hearing it for the first time two weeks ago, when I received an unsolicited reprint (in full color on glossy paper) of another study they published. This was a study that concluded that global warming is a myth, that “there is no reason to limit human production of CO2 [carbon dioxide], CH4 [methane], and other minor greenhouse gases.” I was surprised that a study of atmospheric science would be published in what sounds like a medical journal. So I checked the standard National Institutes of Health database of medical literature, PubMed, and discovered that the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is not included in its list of peer-reviewed medical journals. This was not too surprising, because not a single peer-reviewed publication has ever disputed the reality of global warming caused by human activity.
Byrne now cites a second “scientific study” that concludes against all other scientific evidence that the radical conservative opposition to abortion is supported by science. This coincidence raises questions about the legitimacy of the journal. Checking the JAPS website reveals a clear political perspective. It includes a bold Press Release “Doctors Applaud SCHIP Veto” and you can download a speech by Ronald Reagan given to the AAPS in 1978. To be fair, AAPS did oppose the rapid passage of the Homeland Security Act in 2001, because “We want to join in urging the government not to make haste to destroy our country just to keep our adversaries from doing it first.”
The bottom line is that this journal is not a legitimate peer-reviewed medical research journal. There are hundreds of legitimate peer-reviewed medical journals. If a study is so poorly conducted that it cannot be published in any real journal, there is no reason to consider its results worth the paper they are printed on. However, Dennis Byrne is willing to accept as a legitimate scientist any charlatan who agrees with his politics.

Sincerely,

Tom DeCoursey, Ph.D.
833 S. Scoville
Oak Park, IL 60304-1408