CAP Member Blogs

Waiting for society to evolve

Wednesday, May 7, 2007

Re “Lull’s over – U.S. execution dates mount,” May 3: Let’s hope that one day very soon our society will have evolved to look at state-sponsored murder for the barbaric practice it is, much like we now abhor slavery.

Stephen Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, predicted, “There will be more executions than people have the stomach for.” That is a sad statement of how we may get there.

In the words of Gandhi, “Let us be the change we want to see in others,” and stop using violence to bring about nonviolence.

- Christine Hamel, Sacramento

Cheney comes calling

04/13/08 Sacramento Bee

Re “Cheney coming here on Friday,” April 8: Vice President Dick Cheney, that sinister and secretive architect of seven years of catastrophic policy, was among us again, this time on behalf of his clone in Congress, Rep. Dan Lungren, D-Gold River. The favor is not unearned. Lungren has unswervingly supported Cheney’s neocon agenda – the invasion and unending occupation of Iraq, the advancement of certain powerful corporate interests to the detriment of the American people, and the step-by-step dismantling of our democracy: torture, warrantless spying, secret prisons, denial of habeas corpus and due process, even the use of the Department of Justice as a political cudgel.

There was a fine appropriateness in our lawbreaker-in-chief coming to aid our former California attorney general, who – despite his study of law – has shown himself contemptuous not just of international law but of domestic laws such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and especially of that great instrument that is the law of the land, the Constitution.

In the past, Cheney similarly came to help Republican Rep. John Doolittle (now fallen into disgrace) of Roseville and Richard Pombo (dispatched by voters in the last elections) of Tracy. There would be a sweet justice and symmetry in seeing Lungren removed from Congress in the fall by an awakened and justifiably enraged electorate.

- Jane O’Donnell, Orangevale

Is torture honorable?

http://www.sacbee.com/326/story/323525-p2.html
August 2007

Re “Contrast Dems to GOP,” letter, Aug. 9: David Davidson claims that President Clinton’s impeachment “put our country through a traumatic experience.” Clinton did not put the country through a traumatic experience. It was the Republican-controlled House led by Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay.

The impeachment charges against Clinton pale in comparison to the high crimes and misdemeanors perpetrated against our democracy and our Constitution by George W. Bush—illegal wiretapping, torture, rendition, indefinite detention without habeas corpus and the Iraq war, to name a few.

If the letter writer believes that his party “thinks that the highest office is deserving of honor far above the desire to hold that office,” then he needs to re-examine his definition of honor, and I implore him to put his love of country before his love of party.

- Cathlyn Daly, Elk Grove

The Moral Issue

June 21, 2005

The Bee claims the memo is hardly proof of President Bush’s duplicity. Seven meeting minutes have been leaked, all of them explicitly implicating the duplicity of both British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Bush.

There is something greater than love of party. There is love of country. This is not a partisan issue; it is a moral issue.

As Richard Clarke and others have testified, the intelligence wasn’t bad. It was manufactured to give Bush an alibi to go to war.

Our brave soldiers will continue to be maimed and killed, all based on lies and a media that perpetuate the deceit, however subtle it may be.

Shame on all of you.

- Cathlyn Daly, Sacramento

Liberal Bias?

June 2005

Re June 17: Everytime I read a letter that says The Bee has a liberal
bias I wonder “what planet is this reader from?”

Case in point, the June 17 article “ ‘Downing Street memo’ spotlighted in
Congress.”

The opening statement was that “House Democrats opposed to the war...”
gathered when in fact it was not only Democrats but representatives of
military familes, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson (served under President
George H.W. Bush) CIA analyst Ray McGovern and constitutional attorney
John Bonifa, among others.

There were 122 congressional signatures (not “about 100"), and 560,000
signatures from U.S. citizens on the petition.

The Downing Street memos are in truth actual minutes of several different
meetings that took place within Tony Blair’s Cabinet and cited direct
conversations and quotes from Bush’s cabinet.

The media blackout of this story is a frightening example of the media’s
control over what will be reported/revealed to the American people and a
despicable display of the levels they will go to to protect this
administration.

How many more soldiers have to die or be maimed before the American public
opens their eyes and demands accountability and an end to this unjust war?

Cathlyn Daly, Elk Grove