Web Letters | The Nation

Debate This!

Double check your math!

While I wholeheartedly agree with the substance of your argument regarding the absence of women's issues in the first presidential debate, if you are going to make an issue of something such as the high rate of imprisonment in the United States, have someone double-check your math. Last time I checked, 743 out of every 100,000 Americans being imprisoned is not equal (not even roughly) to seven out of every 100 Americans (7 percent). Rather, it is roughly 0.7 percent of the population or seven out of every 1,000 Americans. It may simply be a lost zero to some people, but for most proper math is the difference between credibility and hyperbole.

How Low Can Honduras Go?

Corporate interests trump democracy for Obama

The article regarding the continuing human rights violations in Honduras carefully omits that the military coup that replaced the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya has been supported by the Obama administration. The story is interesting. Obama initially condemned the coup, although he did nothing substantive to reverse it. Soon, however, the administration (essentially alone in the world) became a de facto supporter of the coup and the new president Porfirio Lobo installed through rigged elections by the military. The answer to the mysterious change of heart of Mr. Obama was provided by the Wikileaks diplomatic cables that revealed the mounting pressure that was placed on the administration by the US Chamber of Commerce, which wanted to make sure that Zelaya the moderate leftist reformer is kept out of their way of Honduran and US corporate interests. Not the king of change that we hoped for…

Stopped-and-Frisked: 'For Being a F**king Mutt' [VIDEO]

False arrest

In the summer of 2012, I and a friend of mine were on the corner or 118th and Second Avenue around 11 pm, when all of a sudden a blue-and-white (marked unit) with three uniforms went past us and then backed up. The cops got out and asked if they could search us. As I didn’t have anything on me, I said OK, but little did I know that my friend had crack on his person. So when the cops found it on him, the sergeant said to me that I sold it to him—even with my friend telling them that I sold him nothing. The sergeant asked the other officers, “You saw a transaction, right?” and they all said yes. After that they put the cuffs on me and him and the sergeant patted me on my back and said, “Don’t worry, I’ve been doing this for a very long time, you’re being charged with a felony sale. I was like, “What!?” So to the station house I go. Then central booking. And then to see the judge. Then to find out that the DA declined prosecution because there was no proof of a sale at all, no money or drugs were found on me, so they let me go. This happens to me a lot, and I don’t think its right for cops to treat people this way.

Naomi Wolf's 'Vagina': No Carnations, Please, We're Goddesses

Facile criticism misses the point

While I have long admired Katha Pollitt’s writing and her takes on issues central to me, her nasty, unfair, non-substantial, knee-jerk, embarrassing response to Vagina: A New Biography makes me rethink a bit. When a writer for The Daily Beast bests Pollitt, the world is upside down for me. Michelle Goldberg’s response to the book was much more thoughtful and, therefore, reasonable.

As a lifelong feminist, I read Wolf’s book thinking she was sort of brave in some ways, kind of silly in others and, in a way, leaning toward some larger truths about masculine cultural prisms through which all things, sexuality included, still pass. Biology isn’t absolute destiny, of course, but Helen Fisher and Deborah Tannen, also often vilified for their writings, offer us a look at least at the possibility that biology might have something to do with something when it comes to women, men, gender, sex. It seems a bit silly not to give at least a nod in the direction that biology does play into the picture.

The issues of power and patriarchy continue to define women’s experiences in our Western culture. The overwhelming popularity of books such as those in the “Twilight” and “Grey” series, the first of which I trudged through to see what my undergraduates were so taken by and the second of which I am plodding through to see what my peers are so taken by, suggests we have a long way to go. Wolf’s book is another piece of a large puzzle.

Criticism, yes, but what about criticism in the context of something other than “aren’t I clever as a writer”? A kind of feminist piling on has taken place, and that’s disturbing. The New York Times review (and the one in the same issue of The End of Men) were just horrifying. I kept thinking, reading those and Pollitt’s piece, that men ’round the world were forming a circle and yelling “catfight!” With her snarky tone and over-generalized hater response, Pollitt doesn’t add anything to the discussion of why this book and why now. Instead, she just jumps on. Reading her this time was a major disappointment. Picking the lowest-hanging fruit isn’t much of an accomplishment.

Our Lizard-Brain Politics

Quod erat demonstrandum

The author is correct, of course. The primary purpose of education is not to increase one’s wealth and social standing. The problem is that the vast majority of people in America think otherwise; hence, college is not for everyone.

This Week: Stop-and-Frisk. Plus: Progressives and Election 2012.

Reproductive rights is an economic issue

Reproductive rights has been trivialized by placing it in the category of a social issue, i.e., a side, not-so-important issue. However, reproductive rights is an economic issue and it is about time spokespeople frame it this way.

Obviously, unless women can decide whether or when to have children they cannot plan their lives—school, careers etc. This affects their economic prospects and the prospects of their families, men and women. It affects the community and the country. I think this is a powerful message and a different twist in adddressing women’s reproductive rights.

Katrina vanden Heuvel spoke recently on a TV show and did not address the issue this way. Take back our reproductive rights by framing it is a tough-minded way.

Stopped-and-Frisked: 'For Being a F**king Mutt' [VIDEO]

When was violating the constitutional protection against unlawful search and seizure made police policy?

How is the state of New York even justifying these discraceful acts? Who in their right mind created this policy? Most importantly how have New York’s finest become this afraid to do the right thing; to go to the media the ACLU, Facebook?

I wouldn’t value a job that brought shame on our American way of life. I wouldn’t stay quiet in a sea of corruption. How did these police officers do this and continue to do the Gestapo induction?

It’s clear that the poor and ethnic populations have once again been made to suffer extreme indignities because the ones running the department want the revenue, the numbers, some delusional status. What it boils down to is, the people we trust to protect and serve the best interest of the public are the lowest kind of filth there is.

I want those responsible to have very public trials, extended prison terms and possibly the death sentence. The people who created this stop-and-frisk policy knew they were violating people’s constitutional and civil rights. They knew it was against the very foundation that our country was built on. They just up and decided that they could trample all over the Constition and that it didn’t apply to those persons (read 85 percent minority) that they stopped without any probable cause, you know that little thing mentioned in the Fourth Amendment, so let me refresh the memory of these individuals that are sworn to “protect and serve” what they should have been taught in fourth or fifth grade. The Fourth Amendment says,

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Now the question is how to stop this and prevent it from ever happening again.

If one is not part of the solution, one is part of the problem.

There needs to be policymakers with groups of private citazens to contribute and oversee our government officials. The policies they make and the city, state and local departments need to be held accountable on a weekly or monthly basis. The groups who run the audit are regular people. People who desire a better government.

We the people in order to form a perfect union…

Re-Elect the President

Endorsing the lesser of two evils is still endorsing evil

Wow. The Nation is completely morally bankrupt. How on earth could you possibly endorse a candidate about whom you write this:

To his credit, Obama presided over the end of the Iraq War and is bringing the war in Afghanistan to a close. But there is no denying this president’s spinal collapse when it comes to defending core civil liberties. Obama promised to close Guantánamo, then reversed himself. He did not end military tribunals and restore the rule of law for terror suspects. He launched a drone war that is killing civilians and fueling a backlash against the United States throughout the Muslim world. And he has not rolled back the imperial presidency of George W. Bush, as he promised; indeed, in some instances, more power has been concentrated in the White House by a president who now reserves the right to extrajudicially assassinate US citizens.

Maybe you are not morally bankrupt. Maybe you are completely insane. This is really hard to fathom. Your entire editorial basically says that by fighting tooth and nail various constituencies were able to obtain quarter-measures and lip service from this corporatist president, and therefore you endorse him strongly. What is going through your minds?

We have been choosing the lesser of two evils in this country for at least the last thirty years. Where has that gotten us? We now have a Democratic Party that is far to the right of Richard Nixon. Every time you cast a vote for a right-wing Democrat, you give the party permission to move even further to the right. How much more can the people stand? The destruction of civil liberties and the collapse of the economy is here. It is far past time to own our power and vote for someone who is on our side. There is such a candidate this year: Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party.

Obama's re-election is all but assured. The only thing we can do to help ourselves is to vote for Dr. Stein and send a message that the people are awakening and this situation will no longer be tolerated.

I'm Not a 'Mother First'

Mother and Woman: United for Real Equality

Valenti criticizes the split conception (à la Cartesian dualism) of “mother first,” but then makes the same conceptual error in proposing “woman first.” Conceptual splitting (the philosophical foundation and rationale for things like war and genocide, racialism and nationalism, and Valenti’s brand of feminism) pits one “separate” part against its false opposite and encourages a dead end search for the ultimate Real. When we “split” woman from mother and pit identity against identity, mothers' rights against children's rights, etc.—someone loses. From a relational meta-theoretical perspective (the philosophical foundation and rationale for social justice, I might add), woman and mother are fused and reciprocally interactive parts of a whole (identity/system) that cannot be meaningfully ordered. Their fusion means that devaluing “mother” counterproductively devalues “woman.” To transcend the oppression that women (and others) experience, we need to transcend split conceptions—even those espoused by well-meaning feminists—and find ways of living that honor the whole (person/relationship, etc.).

Re-Elect the President

The Thing to Fear… Is Obama Himself

The biggest impediment to the re-election of Barack Obama is Obama himself. His poor debate performance was self-destruction on a epic scale. He presented no vision for a second term and no defense of his first term or rebuttal of the false or distorted allegations asserted by Romney. John McCain self-destructed with his untimely endorsement of the “fundamentally sound” American economy that collapsed two days later. Obama’s debate disaster will resonate with voters until Election Day.

Nevertheless this election is critical because (as a letter to The New York Times succintly put it): "I fear President Obama, if re-elected, will not accomplish his goals; and I also fear that if Romney is elected he will."

The Republicans and accomodating Democrats have a history of delivering the tax and other legislation that their paymasters request. And there have been consequences. The steep decline in tax rates for the wealthy, particularly for those living on capital gains and dividends, have failed to produce economic growth but wildly succeeded in enriching the wealthy and establishing an American aristocracy. The Republicans have a perfect cover story to justify their upward redistribution of wealth: we must not burden our children with the massive deficit our entitlement society has created. The American people have accepted that line, and the Romney/Ryan ticket is ready to deliver on that promise.

A Republican Congress abetted by spineless Democrats and a White House occupied by Mitt Romney will breathe live into that NYT reader’s fear: Mr. Romney will be successful in advancing his agenda. Taxes will go down, and so will the American Dream for the vast majority of our citizens.