Veterans richly deserve to be honored on Nov. 11 each year in recognition of their sacrifices in service to our country. Unfortunately, too many continue to bear enormous undeserved costs from their service. We hear about the scourge of PTSD and homelessness, for example, but less recognized is the unimaginable suffering borne by thousands of veterans from a broken promise.
Immigrants serving in the military were promised an expedited pathway to citizenship, but for thousands of our fellow veterans, that promise remains unfulfilled because of needless and difficult obstacles placed in that path. Being deprived of their rightful citizenship has meant loss of Social Security, federal health care, and all the other rights and privileges citizenship bestows. Moreover, without citizenship protection, thousands of immigrant service men and women are subjected to deplorable treatment, including illegal deportation.
Our Hollandale American Legion Post 510 has drafted a resolution urging members of Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation (1) to vote in support of the Veterans Service Recognition Act, a bill currently before Congress that would assist immigrant veterans to obtain their rightful citizenship status, and (2) to advocate forcefully for immigrant service veterans illegally facing deportation and help bring home those already deported.
Let us all work to rectify the broken promise to immigrant service men and women.
JOHN SIMONSON, Mineral Point, Wis.
Editor's Note: The House passed the Veterans Service Recognition Act (HR 7946) Dec. 6 on a largely party-line 220-208 vote, sending it to the Senate, where Republicans are likely to block it with three weeks left in the congressional session.
The front page headline (12/15/22 TPP) was, of course, too good to be true. "The Rural Turnaround" on an article by Robert Kuttner referred to a few points on the election spread, achieved at the cost of much smart hard work in the election and had nothing at all to do with the "turnaround" we need, which is economic change. We are once again reminded that the people who carelessly play with things and break things, (the Clintons, as well as others) have neither the knowledge nor the inclination to fix what they have destroyed.
`As long as the Democrats are the party of liberals only, they will fail, and continue to damage people in the process.
JIM VANDERPOL, Kerkhoven, Minn.
Robert Kuttner’s story about the Rural Turnaround [12/15/22 TPP] had a lot of good ideas but he didn’t mention climate change. Rural people love the land and the animals on it. They should get some help from the federal government to help save the world. They should be encouraged to build check dams to store flood water, replenish their aquifers, and get them through droughts. They should get photobioreactors so they can grow oil from algae to replace fossil fuels. They could get help producing methane and alcohol from manure and agricultural waste to make DME (dimethyl ether) to run all of their equipment that is 96% cleaner than diesel. They should receive help to sequester carbon and rebuild the soil using no-till regenerative agriculture. They should get help using agrivoltaics. They need infrastructure to distribute power from windmills and PV panels mounted high so they can still grow food and run livestock under them. Instead of being forced to sell out to agribusinesses, rural farmers could be the next energy tycoons. Reversing Climate change will require rural America, and that will require Democratic help.
JERRY BRULE, Eugene Ore.
I was very pleased to see that Ted Rall included the following "demand" in his 12/1/22 TPP article, "Here's What a Progressive Platform Looks Like": "Leadership to Ban the Most Frightening Weapons.” The Biden Administration has failed to provide that leadership by continuing the insane US policy to launch a first nuclear strike and spending billions more on intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads on Trident submarines.
Now more than ever, we need to prevent nuclear war and work at the community level to achieve this. As JFK said in 1961, "Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us."
One way to do this is to endorse “Back from the Brink.” Their platform and advocacy tools to start organizing at the community level can be found at: preventnuclearwar.org/endorse/
KATHLEEN WELCH, PhD, MPH, Phoenixville, Pa.
We must face these facts about Russia's war against Ukraine:
1. While Russia is losing ground previously taken from Ukraine, it is overwhelming Ukrainians with massive attacks on power and water infrastructure.
2. Ukrainians are absorbing these blows with resilience and courage, but their endurance has limits.
3. Russia has more offensive weapons, including cheap drones, than Ukraine's expensive defense weapons.
4. While we provide Ukraine's defensive weapons, our supplies are running low.
5. China is backing Russia's proxy war against us to deplete our ability to defend other places interesting to China.
6. Ukraine is a far better proxy client than Afghanistan was; its troops are loyal and hard-fighting; American weapons aren't being siphoned into enemy hands.
7. Russia must be forced to withdraw back to its original borders before our war supplies are depleted.
8. We must allow Ukraine to use our weapons offensively, to knock out Russian supply lines, military storage depots, command posts, and launching platforms.
BRUCE JOFFE, Piedmont, Calif.
Thom Hartmann hit the nail on the head with his article, “Is most of America’s inflation due to monopolies, price-gouging and oil barons fleecing us?” [12/1/22 TPP.]
During my 87 years, I have voted in every election. The greedy conglomerate corporations that cause inflation never appear on the ballot. In other words, Americans cannot vote for the greedy corporations that run the country.
Bernie Sanders once said, “Lobbying in Washington is legalized bribery.” Obscenely rich corporations that are not elected by voters bribe legislators to pass laws in their favor. The working poor do not have the money to bribe legislators. If this is a democracy, the moon is made out of green cheese!
GILBERT A. RUBIO, San Diego, Calif.
How disgraceful that the state of Georgia has enacted a law against offering water to people who are waiting in line to vote. (See “Make America great, at last,” by Amy Goodman [12/1/22 TPP])
Many Americans insist that ours is a “Christian nation.” Let’s consider, however, that giving water to those who suffer thirst is not an exclusive Christian virtue – but rather a universal moral obligation that has existed since time immemorial. Egyptologists have deciphered this question on a 5,000-year-old hieroglyph which the god Osiris asked all those yearning to enter heaven: “Hast thou made anyone weep?” (i.e., suffer)
And this is what Jesus said in Matthew 25:34-40: “Come, ye blessed of my Father … for I was … thirsty, and ye gave me drink … “
Then shall the righteous answer him; “Lord, when saw we you thirsty and gave thee drink?”
“Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brothers,” he said, “you have done it unto me.”
How, then, can those Georgia lawmakers hope to convince anyone that they are Christians … or even endowed with common decency?
DAVID QUINTERO, Monrovia, Calif.
Many people, apparently including Frank Lingo [see his column, “To Reduce Climate Chaos, Eat Less Meat,” 12/1/22 TPP], believe that cattle are unique emitters of greenhouse gases. In fact, all organisms that ingest grass and tree leaves — from elephants down to termites — produce CO2 and methane. Carbon dioxide is the inevitable result of the digestion of carbohydrates, which is what constitutes the cellulose in grass and tree leaves. In addition, because of the metabolism of certain microorganisms in these animals’ digestive systems, methane is also released.
Greenhouse gases are, therefore, the product of grasslands and forests as well as the animals and organisms that feed upon them. It would be a nice notion that by suppressing bovines, the problem of greenhouse gas emissions would go away, but it will not.
For that matter “… that it takes humongous amounts of water to grow that much grain and to water the animals…” is not an argument that explains anything at all. It rains — or does not rain — on the just and the unjust alike. Yes, parts of this country and the world are suffering drought, very possibly as a result of climate change. It does not follow that a farmer should not take advantage of rainfall to grow corn or water livestock. That would be simply nonsensical.
According to The Economist magazine, the worldwide annual production of cereal grains is 3 billion metric tons. This means that for every person on this world, there is 825 pounds of grain. Some cultures, particularly those with high levels of poverty, consume cereals directly. The more affluent prefer to consume some of their cereal allotment through the intermediary of having fed it to an animal.
There is no question that there is a huge disparity between the diet of the affluent and that of the poor. But the core issue is the inequality in the global distribution of wealth. There could be adequate food for everyone if governments were not corrupt and corporations did not have global monopolies. When a vegetarian chooses to not eat meat, they are making a personal choice, not a statement of solidarity with the world’s poor nor one that results in a reduction in greenhouse gasses.
GILLES STOCKTON, Grass Range, Mont.
I see some value in Trump’s announced candidacy. Although there’s no chance at all of his winning a general election, his knowledge of the Florida governor’s shortcomings should be allowed to be revealed and be widely known. DeSantis is somebody I don’t like! I wouldn’t describe him as an “honorable” man. The GOP’s ranks do have some individuals with character, but DeSantis is not one of them.
Republicans appear sufficiently wounded for the 2024 election. That’s all to the good.
WILLIAM A. MONTGOMERY, Cincinnati, Ohio
Just about everyone knows that Socrates drank hemlock, in accordance with his legal condemnation of corrupting youth. What is less known is he wasn’t required to poison himself. He had alternatives.
Old fellow that he was, he could have opted for 20 years in exile, and spent his twilight years in peace. And he could, even in those ancient days, appeal his sentence — and continue to live in Athens, both legally and long.
Our current trouble is an unaccountable increase in suicide among the young, the strong, the healthy. And the despair includes more veterans and law-enforcement personnel.
It isn’t heresy to me to indulge in a sort of personal priestcraft, and confer contrite absolution to one’s mostly innocent soul.
WILLIAM DAUENHAUER, Willowick, Ohio
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2023
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us