Support Real Peace for Palestinians
Israel’s attempt to end the so-called moratorium on settlement building in Palestine seen as “unprecedented” by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is nothing but a joke.
America claims it is democratic and is busy exporting its idea of democracy globally while destroying the democratic hopes and actions of people in Third World nations. Specifically, Palestinians democratically elected their own leader who America totally rejects.
America boasts of its humanitarian policies, while imposing the worst human rights abuses in torture and rendition and while it supports the Israeli occupation and human rights abuse of Palestinians killing them and destroying their homes, society and economy. All justified as “protection of sovereignty.”
America expounds its now perpetual “war on terror” while supporting Israel’s terrorist actions on the Palestinian people (not forgetting Iran, Syria, etc.) with a $3 billion-a-year aid packet.
All this done in the name of the American people under the guise of “national security.” This double standard and injustice makes a mockery of what the United States claims to stand for regarding “liberty and justice for all.”
It is time for President Obama and Secretary Clinton to end this charade of their concern for the Palestinian people, stop aiding and abetting Israel in its terrorist actions, and support a real peace agreement for the Palestinians beginning with enforcing the Geneva Convention and international law.
Americans supposedly run their government, so they must bear the responsibility of whatever their government does, including the President and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Speak up America!
Jovita Harrah
Visalia
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Home of the Brave and Land of the Free?
The Guatemalan government gave consent to agencies of the government of the United States to purposefully infect Guatemalan citizens (prison inmates, mental patients and soldiers) with venereal diseases from 1946 to 1948, to see if penicillin worked. The guinea pigs (aka “the experimental subjects”), according to the news, never gave their informed consent. I suppose that this was “just” discovered and that the culprits have all passed away by this point in history.
Don’t you just love the doctrine of State Secrets. Did the leaders of Guatemala accept American bribes to do this? Am I missing something here, but didn’t the Nazis perform medical experimentation on Jews they incarcerated in concentration camps from other Western European countries other than Germany, and jurists like our Justice [Robert H.] Jackson prosecuted Nazi leaders for such crimes against humanity and we then executed them?
When are we going to behave like the great moral nation we claim to be? The home of the brave and land of the free, we claim to be. Or will we keep on deluding ourselves that ignorance is the best part of our patriotism and eliminate the problem of hypocrisy from our collective conscience?
Stephen Smith
Fresno
P.S. Please feel free to print my human rights letter, but I would greatly appreciate it if you would please indicate that after I broadcast it on the Internet, I submitted it to the Fresno Bee and they declined to publish it even though they printed the syndicated article from the Washington Post that reported on Secretary Clinton’s formal apology to the government of Guatemala.
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Kudos for Covering Injustice
I would like to thank the editor for allowing Boston Woodard (at Susanville) to disclose injustice within our prisons. My name is Gloria Delgado, first time in prison, at any prison, but, what I would like to speak about is the reprisal that we face. I am in an administrative segregation unit. Wide release dates were April 2010 and September 2010, but as you can see I am still here.
Reprisal, harassment, punishment, affliction—whatever you want to call it—you pay for it through the above. They (prisons) use whatever they have to try and control your physical, mental, spiritual being. If you allow them, again, you pay for it through the above.
I would again like to thank and commend and honor him [Boston] for the courage to write on injustice for the common people who are subjected to prejudices, discrimination, shameful displays—like for Glen Beaty, a homeless man, properly tired from not sleeping all night.
Just like Ernesto Saavedra said at the Fresno City Council, “The Council represents the interests of the ‘haves’ and not those of the people.” This young man has courage and boldness. He should run for mayor. I think he would win! Just like I get encouragement from the word of God, I get encouragement from the Community Alliance to see that men and women are still struggling together, working together, to help those who cannot help themselves! Thank you!
Gloria Delgado
Chowchilla
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A Voice for the Ignored and Disenfranchised
I’m a son of Fresno and its community. I was born and raised and a proud graduate of Roosevelt High School. I’m currently at Avenal State Prison. One of my fellow prisoners has a copy of the Community Alliance. I would read your publication while on the street and would like to get copies while I’m here. I really appreciate your objective reporting and the old Street Beat style reporting of stories and your views on the local issues that go unreported in our other publications.
I remember the days of the Fresno Guide and a time when I was saving for a bike so I could get a job delivering the paper. At the age of 10—they were the only ones who would allow younger newsboys to work. I know it was local and they had reporters. Gone are those days of bike route deliveries. But in this information age of global awareness, local issues are being lost unless they are viral or sensationalized. So let me thank you for your continued grassroots activism and for being a voice of the ignored and disenfranchised.
Kevin Valentine
Avenal
