American Theocracy Revisited

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinion/american-theocracy-revisited.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=douthat&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 11:31 AM
Subject: re: American Theocracy Revisited
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Mr. Douthat urges us to take comfort in the record of Republicans past who have betrayed their campaign rhetoric and their backers' hopes once in office. I am not comforted. That is no way to run a republic. Our form of government requires that voters choose a leader with the expectation that she/he will act as they would have wanted on unforeseen issues years after the election campaign.  Although campaign rhetoric corresponds only very imperfectly to a leader's future performance, it is the information we have.  If we are to ignore the rhetoric, our elections would be mere beauty contests.

Barry Haskell Levine

Why Is That a Secret?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/opinion/why-is-that-a-secret.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=why%20is%20that%20a%20secrect&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 10:22 AM
Subject: re: Why Is That a Secret?
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   In any form of government, the sovereign needs to know what is going on.  A monarch can play his cards close to his chest or share them with a privy council, but for a democracy to work, the People need to know the issues and the outcomes.  Tactically, there will always be exceptions (e.g. troop movements) that have to be secret for a time. But a government that reflexively hides matters from the People is a government that is undercutting democracy.

Barry Haskell Levine

How Democrats Hurt Jobs

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/opinion/nocera-how-democrats-hurt-job-creation.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=nocera&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 7:43 PM
Subject: re: How Democrats Hurt Jobs
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

     In the eighteenth century, Adam Smith taught us how nations and people can build wealth by letting resources, labor and capital flow to the demand. By the turn of the twentieth century however it was clear that a brutish fundamentalist adherence to such free-markets spurred a race to the bottom, in which states and nations compete to offer the laxest regulations industry.  In the twenty-first century, Americans largely agree that child-labor laws, workplace safety laws, sick-leave and collective bargaining are good things. It is entirely proper that our federal government should enforce these values.  It's hard enough to maintain our standards against the international race to the bottom. We don't need to be running that race among our United States.

Barry Haskell Levine

The Wrong Idea

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/opinion/austerity-is-the-wrong-idea.html?_r=1&hp

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 9:40 AM
Subject: re: The Wrong Idea
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Two constituencies keep the debate in Washington focused on deficits even as the People are focused on jobs. The first are creditors (read "bankers") who don't want borrowers (read "us") paying back out debts in inflated dollars. The second are GOP strategists who are cynically prolonging the recession because Obama would be unbeatable in 2012 if he were to preside over an economic recovery.  Thomas Jefferson foresaw that in time, a government would grow to serve such elites rather than the People. That's why we have a Second Amendment.

Barry Haskell Levine

Attacks in Iraq Heighten Political Tensions

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/world/middleeast/17iraq.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=attacks%20in%20iraq%20heighten%20political%20tension&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 11:15 AM
Subject: re: Attacks in Iraq Heighten Political Tensions
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Since the day we first underwrote the Awakening Councils, the Iraqi Sectarian Civil War has merely been on hiatus.  Everyone there knows it will erupt the day the Yankees are no longer imposing calm. We will try to delay and to disguise that day, but the American people have no stomach to occupy Iraq indefinitely as we already occupy Germany, Japan and South Korea.  One day, one of these attacks will show that we are no longer on patrol; that day, the Civil War goes hot.

Barry Levine

Palestinians and the U.N.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/opinion/palestinians-and-the-un.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=palestinians%20and%20the%20UN&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 7:56 AM
Subject: re: Palestinians and the U.N.
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  In 1947 the UN voted to create three entities from what had been the British Mandate in Palestine: one Jewish state, one Arab state and an International Enclave of Jerusalem. The proto-Israelis said "yes", the proto-Palestinians said "no" and no one spoke for Jerusalem. After the dust settled and the dead were buried, the Israelis had a state, Jordan had seized Jerusalem and the Palestinians were stateless.  When Palestinians look backwards, they see this as a failure; when they look forward they aspire to a state like the state the Jews have. Their Right to National Self-Determination is as just as anyone else's. Starting again with a UN vote follows the precedent to get there.

Barry Levine