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.

Cuba and King County

On August 21, King County Councilmember Kathy Lambert of Woodinville filed a motion (#2002-0361.61) that would forbid King County from establishing any people-to-people relations with Cuba and other countries on the US State Department's list of terrorist states. We expect this motion to come up for a vote sometime in October. Please make your voice heard by contacting your King County Councilmember and urging them to vote NO! on Lambert's motion. It's time we exposed the real terrorists!

Action Steps: 1) Phone your own King County Councilmember and leave them a message opposing this motion. Let them know that you would like to RESPOND to your call. Councilmembers' names and phone numbers are listed at www.metrokc.gov/mkcc/Members/members.htm

For More Information: Contact LELO's EveryWoman's Movement for Cuba at (206) 860-1400 ext. 4 or Melinda Rector (425) 825-33638

In solidarity,

Thomas W. Warner (Secretary Seattle/Cuba Friendship Committee)

Communist Dribble!

Dear ETS!,

Your push for "social" programs and discussion of taxes (I-77 article) to help low income families is anti-capitalist and anti-American, being that we are a capitalist giant.

You certainly belong in Seattle. I left liberal hell two years ago and constantly remind people that although the mountains are beautiful and the convenience of the ocean a giant plus, the liberalism ruins it for everyone.

Taxes are through the roof and the corrupt politicians use the idiocy of organizations like yourself to constantly promulgate additional taxation against the hard working citizens.

Likewise, environmental lunatics that are often also calling for such social equality, contradict themselves by putting the trees and fish above the welfare of hard working people trying to make a living off the land. I'm all for protecting our environment, but only so much that the benefits outweigh the costs. What excited me more than anything is how liberal-environmental nuts preach about Kyoto and other arrangements that put all of the burden on the United States, citing our "material consumption" and inherent pollution.

Unfortunately for the masters of junk science, other nations that consume and produce less are doing more to harm our so-called "fragile" Earth than the good ole' U.S.A. Kyoto, and other one-world United Nations sponsored initiatives are drafted to attack the economy of the United States and ever advance the push for "social-equality", AKA, communism. The elite, some of which are living right in Olympia, use your ignorance of the real agenda to advance their issues. They fabricate agendas and you champion them.

For example, remember "the ozone layer"? Wasn't it going to be depleted by our polluting ways and endanger us all with cancer? Well, it turned out that after a think [sic] called "scientific study" that the ozone layer actually heals itself and the good ole' fragile Earth is much stronger and capable than we gave her credit for. Then again, that's usually how it goes. What's more fascinating is how the liberals dropped their ozone agenda and started running with "global warming". Rather than face the facts and admit they were wrong, they jumped from bandwagon "A" to bandwagon "B".

Regards,

Jeramy Fishel

TS Replies: If it's the I-77 article that I wrote you're referring to, I thought I took a pro-free market approach and argued against the espresso tax in question. Since I failed the first time, I'll try again--I think the espresso tax is badly designed and a distraction from the real problems with funding for education. I think the best way to help poor children with espresso purchases is to buy, and insist on buying, "Fair Trade," coffee, that guarantees a fair, livable wage to the coffee farmers.

Egregious Error Re: E. Till

On your "reclaim our history" page you state that Emmett Till was from Detroit--he was from Chicago ... please fact check better ... there are several important reasons why this needs to be accurate, not the least of which was the role the Chicago Defender (African American Newspaper in Chicago) played in letting the world know.

Tom Morrissey

TS Responds: Thanks for the heads up, our readers are often our sharpest, (if easily irritated) fact checkers. Our apologies to Chicago, history, and the memory of E. Till.

Very Interesting Site

I am an old rabble-rouser now living on the southern Oregon coast. I really like your site. I have one question that I am asking everyone. Why is it that people are blindly believing the chicken hawk we have for a psuedo leader. Every time he drops a little in the polls then suddenly there is another terrorist alert. Shrub, Cheney and the gang of thieves are so blatant in their abuses. I wonder if there is any way that the Northwest can just secede from the US.

Thanks for listening,

Maggie Bagon, via e-mail (Socialist, Wobbly, poverty/welfare rights activist)

Dear ETS!,

I first read your issue with the article on Steven Hatfill and was immediately blown away, wondering why there has not been more of that kind of coverage in the mainstream media. Being 59, a vet and having teethed at Cal Berkeley on the GI bill in the '60s I am coming to the conclusion that in many respects the public is being manipulated by propaganda techniques in the media. Somewhere recently I read that in a quote by Joseph Goebbels: Tell the people they are under attack. Keep repeating this and say that anyone who does not support the program is unpatriotic. (I am paraphrasing).

I was at first a little dubious about your sources, but I verified them on the web. I am curious as to whether you can suggest any other "alternative" investigative links, whether they be hard copy or electronic. The Town Hall meeting on the media emphasized the fact that the media is increasingly catering to a lower intellectual class of people. Therefore, demonizing adversaries as was done in Cold War and Vietnam scenarios is easily possible. I would also like suggestions on any book that has been written on this subject.

Yo' from Ballard.

Yours truly,

Richard D. Vincent

TS Responds: Some of my favorite alternative news sources are Real Change Newspaper and the Washington Free Press, both of which are available in Seattle. On the web I like www.prorev.com, www.narconews.com, www.indymedia.org and www.alternet.org. That should be enough to start.

Two Kinds of Justice

Why is Noelle Bush sitting in a rehab center while other drug-law violators are rotting in prison? The answer is obvious: because her father happens to be a hypocritical politician who believes in one standard of justice for his family and another standard for yours.

Police were called to the Center for Drug Free Living recently after employees reported finding a "white, rock-like substance" believed to be crack cocaine in Noelle Bush's shoe. The 25-year-old daughter of the Republican governor of Florida wasn't immediately arrested, police say, because clinic supervisors refused to cooperate with police and wanted the matter handled "in house."

Gov. Bush, whose daughter has had previous drug violations, told the Associated Press: "This is a private issue as it relates to my daughter and myself and my wife. The road to recovery is a rocky one for a lot of people that have this kind of problem."

Using that same logic, Gov. Bush should grant every nonviolent drug offender in the Florida state prison system a full and immediate pardon so that they can join his daughter on the road to recovery.

If you would like to send the First Brother a little reminder about the double standard between his home front and the battle front in Florida's War on Drugs, he can be reached at FL_Governor@myflorida.com.

Respectfully,

Matt McCally, Burien, WA

Why do they hate us?

Which is more shocking? Our country's ignorance of most of the world or our ignorance of our impact on that world? Over and over one hears the question being asked: Why do they hate us? In the aftermath of the devastating attacks of September 11th, many people in the United States expressed a desire to learn something about, and better understand, Islam and its adherents. People bought books, attended lectures, watched TV specials. But as we approach the one year anniversary of the horrific tragedy, how much fundamental change have we really experienced?

Perhaps George W Bush is a fitting president for a country so disinterested in the world and our footprint upon it. He truly reflects an astounding lack of intellectual curiosity on the part of so many in the United States. The grief and anger of 9/11 were commodified, packaged in red, white, and blue, and sold on our so-called free market. Shallowness sells well on the television, whether it be politics, patriotism, or more tangible products such as hamburgers and SUVs.

If we can hope to ever stop asking why so many hate us, we will have to expend less time and energy on consuming goods and thinking about how much we as a country have suffered, and more of it looking at how we live. For so long the United States has led a selfish, hedonistic lifestyle, even when compared with other wealthy, democratic countries. As long as we use an obscenely disproportionate share of the earth's non-renewable natural resources, and generate an equally disproportionate share of the pollution and waste, the question will continue to be heard. As long as we find it acceptable that millions of people are kept in poverty and under tyranny so that we can continue to pay too little for food and gasoline (regardless of how expensive we think they are), the question will continue to be heard. As long as our president continues to thumb his nose at the people around the world who are concerned about our environment, undermining all attempts at collective, global change in defense of the earth, the question will echo in our ears: Why do they hate us? Think about it. The answer is quite clear.

Russ Kevin Childers, Seattle

Eat the Airwaves

Hear Eat the State! political commentary on Mind Over Matters every Saturday morning from 8:30 to 9:00 on KEXP 90.3 FM. If we can get up that early, the least you can do is turn on your radio and listen! If you can't - you can listen to archived programs on the web.