Letters

Free the Cuban five
The recent political trial last year in Miami of five Cuban patriots resulted in a total breakdown in communication.

Forty years of an inhuman criminal blockade has not destroyed the spirit of the Cuban Revolution. In reality, the threat to U.S. security will not come from a people like the people of Cuba. It is inspired through nationalist hatred and prejudice from the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) in Miami, Fla.

Introducing chemical and biological agents on Cuban territory, interfering with Cuban airspace, bombing tourist hotels in Havana, kidnapping innocent Cuban children, intimidating government officials through subversive legislation as Torricelli (1992); Helms-Burton (1996); Cuban Adjustment Act (1966) and ignoring U.S./Cuban Migration Agreements are public knowledge.

Initiative for recognition of Cuban sovereignty and the right to count all votes during elections are two sides of the same democratic coin.

But the war against terrorism can be won in the United States by a battle against violence first. Call the White House to demand freedom for the five Cubans.

Richard GrasslAuburn WA

Somalia and Sudan are targets
In Sarah Staggs’ article, “Building U.S. peace movement is crucial,” Iraq, Palestine, and Columbia are listed as places in immediate danger of U.S. attack. Please, let us not forget Somalia and Sudan, both focal points of U.S. militarism for a number of years. Bush the Senior attempted to occupy Somalia, Clinton bombed the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, and both countries suffer continuing problems as a result of these actions. U.S. helicopters currently fly low over Somalia, mapping targets.

Rick GantlyBoston MA

Auto corps. vs. environment
Here we are again and still fighting a war caused ultimately by Middle Eastern oil. So what are all the car companies pushing? You guessed it: big gas-guzzling SUVs. They must think most Americans are stupid, like we don’t already realize that we should conserve oil in every possible way: recycling, carpooling, developing hybrid cars, finding alternative energy sources (coal, shale oil, nuclear, hydroelectric and solar among others), and simply using less of the damn stuff.

My response: friends don’t let friends buy SUVs.

It looks like our do-nothing congress has finally proposed mileage-requirements for SUVs. It is high time they did this. I hope it is going to be something serious, not ‘must get 5 miles per gallon by the year 2050!

J KyleNew York NY

Unionize Temps!
Numerically a growing number of non and semi-skilled temp workers remain locked in and forced to subsist on dead-end minimum wage and low paying scale jobs. Which offer no medical insurance, comparable pay, job security or other fringe benefits that make work rewarding.

Blue-collar temps more than any other urgently need the unwavering support, collective bargaining power and progressive leadership of a strong labor union to help unionize and lead their fight for more economic parity. Furthermore full union representation will also help safeguard their collective interest and ensure that their basic economic necessities of life are met under more favorable working conditions.

Shakir MuhammadAlexandria VA

No intervention in Philippines
I am writing to express my opposition to the Bush administration’s expansion of the war against Afghanistan to the Philippines. By putting 650 “advisors” on the ground to combat so-called “bandit” groups there, the Bush administration clearly is trying to regenerate cold-war-style warfare.

In the Philippines political and community leaders have questioned its legality, have accused the Macapagal Arroyo government of using the “war on terrorism” to go after her political enemies in the people’s and working class movements (aside from the “bandits”) and polls show that most people there oppose it. Her new found love for U.S. military interventionism goes against the last 15 or 16 years of victories against U.S. puppet and militarist regimes that the Filipino people have so steadfastly opposed.

Even U.S. politicians such as Sen. Brownback (R-Kans.) has openly called the Philippines “the next target.” If so, how many people do the Republicans plan to kill there? I hope progressive people in the U.S. can gather momentum to oppose what is already being referred to as the new Vietnam!

Joel WendlandYpsilanti MI