Send your letters to the Free Press, PMB #178, 1463 E Republican ST, Seattle WA 98112, or email WAfreepress@gmail.com. Keep them short. Longer letters will be edited down. Letters do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Free Press. Letters which respond to Free Press articles will be given precedence.
Campaign Finance Reform vs. Monica Lewinsky Due to the extensive media coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky situation, the significance of the Senate failing to pass the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill was almost totally overlooked. This is an extremely sad statement for our democracy. Even though the overwhelming majority of Americans would like to mitigate the influence of money in politics, and McCain-Feingold would have been a major step in that direction, somehow many of our elected politicians seem intent on maintaining the current system, instead focusing their energies on other areas they think can generate more political hay, such as the Clinton-Lewinsky situation. Although I am not from your state, I do believe this issue to be critical to restoring our faith in our government, and would like to point out to your readers that your Senator Slade Gorton voted against McCain-Feingold. This is a clear indication that Senator Gorton is for the current system, which as evidenced by current events, has shown that it is in dire need of fixing.
Clifford Tong
Seattle Sells Kids to Coke It is indeed tragic that the Seattle School District is economically desperate, not unlike many single parents. In times of economic desperation, people become extremely vulnerable to exploitation. What if single parents, in their economic desperation, chose to sell access to their children in ways that would damage their children's health and undermine academic achievement? How harshly they would be judged, and rightly so. The Seattle School District voted on October 7 to sell to the Coca-Cola corporation access to our children. The School Board endorsed soda-consumption by children during the school day as a way of generating revenue. (The School District is allowing each school the option to sell soda 24 hours per day). Irrefutable evidence strongly states that drinking caffeinated sugar-water encourages hyperactivity and anxiety disorders among children, which, of course, does much to enhance educational achievement. Their vote was not just about selling Coke to children. It was primarily about selling our children to Coke. The School Board said that is willing to renegotiate the Coke contract if it conflicts with any new advertising policy that is adopted. A sham process skewered the results of the citizens' committee's recommendations for a new advertising policy to the School Board. Before any new policy it is adopted, full and public hearings must be held. While it is unlikely that the School Board will not challenge its new "sugar daddy," many outraged parents and students are certainly willing to do so.
Sarah T. Luthens
Remember the Maine! One hundred years ago, on Tuesday, February 15, 1898, the battleship Main was blown up, killing or mortally wounding 267 enlisted men, approximately four-fifths of the 329 people on board. The incident resulted in a war cry in the mainstream press, and the beginning of the Spanish-American War. Although monuments in Seattle and elsewhere commemorate the loss of US lives (see accompanying photo), it is now widely suspected by historians that the explosion was in fact orchestrated by the US as a pretext for starting the war. Lives were lost, as was a battleship which took seven years to build and that cost two and a half million dollars in 1890. This was the cost of getting public sentiment aroused for a war in which the United States "won" the Phillipines, Puerto Rico and Cuba as colonies.
John Ruhland
In Memory of Irv Pollack Irwin Pollack passed away in Seattle in October. He consistently supported and encouraged progressive causes in the Seattle area. He was a caring, grandfatherly presence who didn't resort to "When I was your age...." He had the too-rare charm of being politically outspoken without alienating people. Irv, we'll miss our conversations with you in the bus, at parties, at progressive theater productions, and at the many other places we met you. |