Editor's note: Comments that were delivered with name and address. You can write letters to the ed as well: Either email them to npt@epmediagroup.com with name and contact info (not for publication, but to verify the sender).
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Dear President: Stand up and Fight!
I worked to help Obama get elected in both the primary and the general election. After Bush & Cheney he seemed like such a breath of fresh air. Remember the outrage Obama felt when his mother was dying of cancer, yet she had to spend much of her time fighting with health insurance companies?
I thought we were electing a leader. A dragon slayer. A strong man with a lot of energy who would defend the little guy against the greed and insensitivity of the powerful and wealthy interests. Especially against the health insurance companies. A guy who could be a street fighter (coming from the Chicago political scene), and also someone who was well rounded, educated, and articulate.
He said that he would end the wars, end torture, and get universal health care implemented. At least that is what I heard.
Now after just a few months in office I am beginning to have some real doubts. Ronald Reagan also spoke with a very reasonable and reassuring voice. I am starting to get worried that Obama is not much more than a sweet talking con man. Not at all what he pretended to be. He appears to be afflicted with male hypogonadism. This is also referred to as a testosterone deficiency, or in street language NO BALLS.
His obsession with compromise is beginning to look distinctly like brown nosing. He appears be weak and ready to give up strongly held moral beliefs in a heart beat. I think maybe he is afraid of a getting in a fight. A bit of a sissy or a coward.
So instead of him being a dragon slayer and defender of the little guy, he appears to rapidly be turning into a tool of the health insurance companies and Wall Street. Very mild health insurance reform and cost containment, rather than supporting a single payer system with universal coverage. Where is your moral outrage Mr. Obama? Have you forgotten about your own mother?
Stand up and fight!
Maybe you will lose. That is possible. But that would be a whole lot better than just buckling under to the evil crooks at the health insurance companies without first giving it your very best fight.
Paul Garland
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Torture – Illegal, immoral, and it does NOT work
Nothing distresses me more than the thought of US citizens committing torture – it is illegal, immoral and it does NOT work.
The Geneva Conventions protect US servicemen and servicewomen from inhumane treatment. As a signatory to the agreement, the US has confirmed that torture is illegal. By violating the accord, we put our own service members at risk.
If you can justify torture as a means to obtain information, you say the ends justify the means, after which you can justify any heinous act if it benefits you. If we use the tools of our enemies, we become our own enemies.
You will get information when you torture someone, BUT the information you gain has no reliability. Through torture we got the false information about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Those lies sent us to war in Iraq where we have lost more lives than we lost in 9 / 11. End torture now - it does not work!
Judy Ackerman
Retired Veteran
