Backtalk
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.
Desperately Seeking Site
Hello Eat the State!
I have been a loyal reader ever since I discovered your site about half a
year ago. All of the writing is fantastic and I so much appreciate there
being honest media compared to what you see flashed in our faces at a
constant rate just about everywhere.
Around the same time I found your site I discovered another. It was
somewhat
of a pay site but it had all these internal documents of large companies
such
as AOL and Time Warner. It was called internaldocuments.com or something
like
that. I've searched endlessly, so now I turn to you., do you happen to know
this site or anyone who could probably point me in the right direction?
This
was such a great site. I was hoping you could help me out.
Thanks,
Conor, via e-mail at DoyleReacts@aol.com.
Ed. reply: Readers?
Police State Chronicles
ETS!,
Tonight at 12:45 AM I witnessed two police men drag a man out of City
Market
Grocery on Capitol Hill. "I was jaywalking", he said as he walked by in
custody. "Was he stealing?" I asked the clerk. "No, Jaywalking."
"Yeah," said the other clerk, "The city needs money so they're arresting
people for jaywalking."
The man was not given a ticket or a warning, he was being taken away in
handcuffs.
I can't imagine that it's cost efficient keep police on the payroll to
arrest
people for looking both ways before crossing the street, and then crossing,
rather than waiting for a light to tell them there are no cars coming-ever!
Especially not during the middle of the night. Surely they have better
things
to do.
Anonymous, via e-mail
Depleted Uranium
ETS!,
Anybody who knows anybody who's in the military -- make it your job to make
sure that they know everything there is to know about D.U., depleted
uranium. Also make sure that any young person considering joining up
for a job, education, travel, etc. knows about D.U.
Almost everyone will know someone who knows someone who knows someone...and
we have to get the word out. The government surely won't.
And by the time they've finished their tour of duty, the Bushites may have
succeeded in cutting veterans' medical benefits. Let them know this, too.
Among all the "heartwarming" pictures of returning troops greeting their
much-missed loved ones with hugs and kisses -- what was missing from that
picture? The gays and lesbians serving in the military, embracing their
smae-
sex partners-- that's what. Because of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy
--
they can't.
This administration really knows how to "support our troops"!
Barbara Tomlinson, Seattle
G.P. comments: Look next issue (I hope) for an extensive issue on both
depleted and un-depleted uranium; munitions used by U.S. forces in
Afghanistan and, more recently, Iraq have apparently tended to use pure
rather than depleted uranium. And preliminary clinic data from Afghanistan
--
necessarily spotty -- suggests the health effects upon Afghan civilians in
war zones are far more devastating even than the effects were from D.U.
upon
Iraqis after 1991. US soldiers are affected, too, of course -- but they, at
least, have access to money and Western medicine, and they had a choice
about
being in a war zone in the first place.
All in all, it's a terrifying issue, and one that desperately needs more
attention.
Land of the Free
Dear Eat the State!,
Do unto others what you would have others do unto you.
How can you call this liberation? If a recent article in the Observer is
telling the truth, I find it truly appalling that we can do such things.
Would we want our enemies to treat our pow's in this fashion?
The article is at www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,963176,00.html.
Never in the history of past wars has any combatant done that to enemy
prisoners. I'm truly ashamed that our so-called civilized country can
torture
prisoners in this fashion hooded, bound and gagged. The poor creatures must
get so disoriented, not knowing where they are, what day it is, what time
it
is, what month it is, what year it is, or what planet they are on, or
whether
they are here or in the hereafter, which may have been the intention of
whoever devised this unusual and cruel treatment. The only countries in the
world that are doing it, are (a) US against the Afghan Arabs and the
Iraqis,
and (b) Israel against the Palestinians.
Whatever happened to humane behavior?
Sincerely,
Maxwell Scherwyn, Renton
John, We Forwarded This to Your Boss
ETS!,
I don't like Madonna's music, don't listen to the Dixie Chicks and have
never
heard or seen Dannie Glover or Tim Robbins, and I think we did the right
thing in getting rid of Saddam Hussein. However, when I hear that the Bush
Administration and/or the Republican Party has threatened the livelihood of
these people by contacting their employers or people with whom they have
contracts by implying that dire consequences will accrue for supporting
people who speak up against the government, I sense something very wrong.
In
fact this is frightening.
I fought for our country's freedom in Korea. We may not like what other
people say but THEY HAVE A CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED RIGHT TO SAY
WHATEVER
THEY WISH.
What if I say something that is not approved by our government? They do
not
have the right to contact my employer and threaten them with a loss of
government contracts unless they fire me.
I thought that one of the reasons that Saddam was so evil was because he
denied the Iraqis free speech. What happened to our right of free
speech (including that of Madonna, the Dixie Chicks, Tim Robbins, etc.)?
John T. Vickers, Jr., Lafayette LA
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