Making demands of abortion protesters
Abortion should be legal, but it should also be the last resort. When I was trying to decide whether or not to have one, clinic workers did not advise me of other options. Adoption pamphlets should be provided, as well as advice on where to get help from social services if the pregnant woman is poor.
I have protested not against abortion but against wars (Vietnam and Iraq). I’ve stood in prayer vigils during Desert Storm, prayed/protested with people of all beliefs against Rocky Flats in the 1980s, and other important issues. But I’ve never gone to Congress to lobby regarding those causes, so, per letter-writer Anne Speck’s opinion (July 23), I should not have been allowed to speak my mind.
Speck demands that abortion protesters offer homes to unwanted babies. Should all protesters be required to go further than using their First Amendment rights? Must anti-war protesters be required to bring wounded Iraqi war veterans to live in our homes before we are allowed to protest that war?
Dixie Elder, Longmont
Division of labor: Unions’ split from AFL-CIO
Re: “Key unions quit AFL-CIO,” July 26 business news story.
It remains to be seen whether the decision of some of labor’s most active unions to leave the AFL-CIO will help rebuild the movement. However, it may send a signal to Democrats that they can no longer take labor’s vote for granted.
The Labor-Management Relations Act (aka the Taft-Hartley Act) was passed in 1947. It amended the Wagner Act, and the two laws have handcuffed the American labor movement ever since by putting restrictions on how unions can organize. Since that time, Democrats have taken the AFL-CIO’s money, and have done little to reverse this legislation. Even during the days of a Democratically controlled House and Senate, rhetoric did not match action. Even in our own 1st Congressional District, Rep. Diana DeGette has taken labor money for 10 years, yet has not once introduced a bill to roll back Taft-Hartley.
Maybe now that these unions have split, they will look away from a party that has taken their cash and votes and produced little. Maybe now they should consider supporting parties like the Green Party that are committed to reversing the anti-labor legislative legacy of the 20th century.
Rick VanWie, Denver
The writer is co-chair of the Denver Green Party.
…
Watching the split of the Teamsters and Service Employees International Union from the AFL-CIO and the statements from presidents of each organization only underscores how far off-base are all of these “extinguished” gentlemen. To quote Teamsters President James P. Hoffa: “In our view, we must have more union members in order to change the political climate that is undermining workers’ rights in this country.”
What a crock! The ability of unions to change anything in this country is long gone. Union influence on election outcomes is ancient history. The days of these unions increasing their membership are over and as long as they continue to throw their lot in with the Democratic Party, they are throwing their money into a bottomless well. After 60 years of steadfastly throwing their lot in with the Democrats, is this all they have to show for it?
Peter B. Snyder, Broomfield
Comparing Tancredo critics to Ward Churchill
Re: “Protesters’ message at Capitol: ‘Tancredo does not speak for me,”‘ July 26 news story.
Rep. Tom Tancredo’s spokesman, Will Adams, says, “Congressman Tancredo shouldn’t be concerned when he is attacked by 100 Ward Churchill types.”
Ward Churchill, after making outrageous remarks to a group of conscientious objectors concerning fragging military officers as a legitimate protest, said, “I neither advocated nor suggested to anyone, anything. … I asked them to think about where they stood on things.”
Tancredo, after taking heat for suggesting the U.S. bomb Islamic holy sites as a possible retaliation for a (theoretical) terrorist attack in the U.S., said, “I’m not suggesting we do it,” but it was time to hold “a good discussion on this issue … you cannot simply take things off the table because they are uncomfortable to talk about.”
I’d say Tom Tancredo is a lot closer to a “Ward Churchill type” than any of the protesters, making offensive, indefensible statements to garner attention and then denying any personal responsibility. I just wish they’d both grow up.
David Montgomery, Englewood
Perverted care system
Re: “Out of jail, they can’t get health care,” July 27 Jim Spencer column.
Jim Spencer’s column on a former Colorado inmate’s search for medical care paints a dismal picture of how our society’s medical system has devolved to the lowest common denominator. When it is too late and will almost certainly do you no good, then – in a moment of twisted compassion – we will provide health care to those who need it most.
We in the United States have a national health care system. There is universal care for everyone. The question is, when will you get it? For too many people, the system works like this: Only after denying you care when it could make a difference, humiliating you in your independent search for an organization or charitable group that will help you, while putting you through needless pain and suffering, only then you will finally get care. You will likely die an early, preventable death. And only then, during the end game, will the taxpayers pay the bill.
Some system of national health care.
David Velasco, Highlands Ranch
Judging Supreme Court nominee Roberts
Re: “Open the book on Roberts,” July 26 editorial.
I agree that the Senate needs to learn more about Judge John G. Roberts Jr., the nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, before its members vote on his confirmation. The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings will provide that opportunity, and the thousands of pages of documents the committee already has received will help shape the hearing.
However, your premise that the memos and documents Roberts wrote while working for the solicitor general will shed light on his personal and ideological beliefs is just wrong. Those papers are covered by attorney-client privilege. But just as importantly, such work doesn’t reflect an attorney’s personal ideology.
If Roberts is the brilliant attorney virtually everyone says he is (and I agree with them), then his writings will reflect his clients’ ideologies, philosophies and positions, rather than his own. Thus, these papers would tell us little about him.
Gary Hoover, Centennial
Molestation allegation
Re: “Breaking his long silence,” July 26 news story.
In the July 26 Denver Post, you chose to put a 30-year-old, unsubstantiated allegation against an ex-Roman Catholic priest on the front page. If someone had come to you and said, “I have a story about a Baptist minister who no longer preaches molesting me 30 years ago,” would you have printed the story on the front page, let alone at all? If someone came to you and told you that 30 years ago while living in a commune in the Rocky Mountains near Boulder, the visiting Buddhist lama that their mother adored visited them in the middle of the night instead, would you put that story on the front page?
I have a neighbor who told me a few weeks ago that he would never let his sons near a Catholic priest, as if child-molesting priests were lurking around every corner. That is the impression he gets from the daily newspaper. You and I know he should be more concerned with a thousand other things like, for instance, his sons getting drafted to go to war in Iraq.
People die in Iraq every day. It’s real. It’s substantiated. Print that on the front page. Don’t let us forget what is happening right now: a real tragedy involving thousands of men, women and children.
Lucy S. Lowrey, Boulder
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