ETS! encourages comments, feedback, tips, corrections, and info! Please keep them as concise as possible so we can print as many different voices as possible: ETS!, P.O. Box 85541, Seattle WA 98145, or e-mail ets@scn.org.

Re: Appeasing The Dictators (ETS!, 4/10/02)

ETS!

Germans did not simply roll over for the Nazis, any more or any less than we do for our own government. Most of the population did little or nothing about the government's actions, but all people are by majority passive, including in our own society. Our Congress is no less ready to submit to a questionably-legal leader. Potential resistance comes from a minority.

Beginning in 1933, the Nazi government, having full records on the free thinking and free-living Weimar society, quickly locked up all potential resistance. Dachau was originally built to hold "politically deviant" Germans. It was, after all, the Nazis who proclaimed Weimer to be decadent, and their opinion is still accepted.

The Germans did to Europe what the rest of Europe and the United States had been doing to colored peoples. It was perfectly acceptable, or at least conceivable, to make war on, exterminate, or enslave colored people. No one in Spain has ever paid reparations for Native American slave labor.

Belgium has not paid for the handless and footless of the Congo. The Germans, however, made a major mistake: what they did is not permissible, when done to white people. We must always remember the distinction, and act upon it.

The French were allowed to colonize Morocco. You are not allowed to colonize the French. The Americans were allowed to starve and kill off their native peoples, enslave blacks, and marginalize Irish, Chinese and Jews. We are none of us allowed, at least now that we have the Nazi example, to kill off Jews (thank God).

We now believe that one can attack in their homes neither Jews (considered "white," whatever that means) nor Palestinians ("Arabs").

It's taken a long time, but at least this time, we're trying to see it from both sides. This time, everybody on both sides is human. And you Can't Do That to any of them.

Donna Barr, via e-mail

Rapid Positive Change

In spite of all of the horrific images that we have been exposed to recently, it appears that the response from the Human Community to these events is rapidly changing our world in the most positive of ways ever thought. We have all been witness to the many acts of kindness, love, concern and community both on the local level, and the international.

Well, I was watching a segment on the news last night that was talking about how all of these images were going to affect the marketing images that we all are bombarded with ever day--it seems that these images of community are going to become part of our everyday life--yes, they are in the process of "rewriting" our commercials to incorporate these positive images of community.

I just thought that this would be welcome news for all of those that have been working for many years on building the global community. As they say, "If the People Will Lead, Sooner or Later the Leaders Will Follow" !!!!

W. Stephen Hoop, via e-mail

Bring Back Marx

Yours truly,

Milton A. Poulos, McCleary WA

Don't Support Genocide

ETS!

I know where the power is, and it is with people, not corporations, the rich. I absolutely refuse to support America in this genocide. Every holiday America has, I will fast the day, remember those killed down through history, being killed now, and those that will be killed. I will buy nothing, support no one in this. If told happy Thanksgiving, etc., I will tell them to tell that to the people they kill. It is us; we are responsible for things this bad. It is us who can make it stop. Dropping bombs and food shows how small the human mind and soul has chosen to shrink.

I refuse to support coffee houses, etc., etc. The reason people charge four or five dollars for coffee is because people pay that. It is an idea of status in this country. Every American needs to look at their own behaviors, what they wear, eat, how they live, etc., etc. We were not born stupid.

Pull your money out in all areas. See where the real power is.

Carolyn DeVita, Seattle

Carcinogenic Crowd Control

Increasing concern has been expressed that the various chemicals and other materials used to suppress demonstrators during the WTO meetings in November 1999 may have been/are carcinogenic.

Often it takes years for the effects of carcinogens to manifest themselves and still longer for them to become fatal. My wife eventually died of cancer resulting from far-earlier exposure to too much arsenic (thus I was especially angry when Bush tried to raise the acceptable limits of arsenic in the environment).

Does anyone have any indication (or better, evidence) that any of the chemicals used against the anti-WTO demonstrators may have been/are causing cancer or other illnesses?? If so, could you please let me know, care of PO Box 85541, Seattle, WA, 98145.

Thank You,

Dr. Winfield Hutton, Seattle

Tomchick Good

I heard Maria Tomchick with Mike McCormick on the ETS! segment of Mind Over Matters on KEXP this (20-Apr) morning. I really appreciated her command of the facts and her ability to work in that format. I hope she will continue to appear there. To me she seemed very effective on the air. Thanks for all your hard work. It matters a lot.

Allen Henkins, via e-mail

Attachments Bad

ETS!

Thanks for existing. I learn quite a lot from your paper and your broadcasts on KEXP. Keep up the good work. Perhaps you can use the attached.

W. Russ Payne, via email

TS replies: Thanks for the feedback, Russ. We couldn't use the attached files, unfortunately, because we aren't equipped to handle attachments at our ets@scn.org account. You couldn't have known we were so backwards, of course, but since it's a common problem for us I wanted to make a note of it. To all our esteemed readers: the info you send is our food, but please paste everything (articles included) as text into the body of an e-mail. That way we can digest it easier.

Baffled by Our History

Is there an organizing principle of any kind behind your column "Reclaim Our History"? Recounting the trivial, perhaps? Reviving socialist romantic episodes? The column seems a little heavy on the latter, but the inclusion of Edgar Allen Poe's drinking escapades and slave revolt history certainly eliminates socialist romanticism as the sole purpose of the column. I'm baffled.

Jeffrey Cox, via e-mail

Perhaps Latin American leftists find Poe's plight ironic: being forced by a gang of political hacks to drink too much, and then vote, over and over again, for some horrible candidate until it finally killed him. Death by forced voting. Imagine that.