The drive for profit vs. American values
Re: “The way of Hollerith,” March 12 John Aloysius Farrell column.
This column brought back two memories from my past. First, I worked on an IBM Hollerith machine at the University of Michigan for a short time, volunteering to help a grad student with his project, and so I am somewhat familiar with its capabilities. The Nazis in the 1930s could actually create a file on everyone in Germany, later in all of Europe, and as with all statistics, slant and interpret them as they saw fit to meet their ends. I don’t recall IBM saying they felt any responsibility for the results.
This triggered my mind to associate this type of surveillance with our own government’s program of profiling, wiretapping, etc., to create the aura of paranoia described in Laurence Britt’s 14 characteristics of fascism (look it up on the Internet.) Our government says it’s necessary for national security; so did Hitler’s.
I also thought of a poster I saw two years ago in the Resistance and Deportation Museum located in the former Gestapo headquarters in Lyon, France. It was produced by the Germans in 1940 after the surrender and read “Ford is With Us,” encouraging the French workers into a state of compliance. The Renault family had sabotaged their auto factories. Henry Ford, though, was a strictly a businessman motivated by profits; he preferred to build trucks in France for the German army.
Farrell’s column, I believe, is asking us to take a look at American businesses and how they operate. Is the drive for profit so great that corporate America is willing to undermine American values and human rights and even generate wars as a means to that end?
Henry R. Buslepp, Pagosa Springs
Death of Iraqi civilians after U.S. attack
Re: “U.S. raid for alleged fugitive kills up to 13 near Baghdad,” March 16 news story.
The story on the Iraqi women and children who died so the U.S. military could kill one “insurgent collaborator” and capture another helped me to formulate some questions I’ve had all along: Why is the death of one insurgent more valuable to our military than the lives of as many as 13 innocents in the area? Doesn’t this smell of a culture of death? If there’s an “Oops, We Made a Mistake” category, we can put these babies’ and their mommas’ deaths in it, along with the whole war.
Susan Williams, Lakewood
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While reading Thursday’s newspaper, I came across a picture of dead women and children along with this article. I find this appalling and disrespectful. Showing any person who has died – by American hands or not – is vulgar, rude and downright inconsiderate.
Katrina Zerbe, Aurora
Neighborhood caucuses next Tuesday
Please attend your neighborhood caucus next Tuesday. We Colorado citizens have benefited from our caucus/assembly system since it was created as part of the Teddy Roosevelt-era progressive reforms in 1912.
The League of Women Voters has said that our wonderful Colorado neighborhood caucus, held every two years, is where the voice of the average person makes the most difference, yet most people have never attended. A survey done a couple of years ago indicated that only 8 percent of the people in Colorado have even heard of it.
At 7 p.m. Tuesday, Colorado will next hold these statewide neighborhood meetings for the purpose of getting candidates onto the primary ballot and discussing issues.
The location of each of the 6,000-some neighborhood caucuses can be found through the major political party of choice: the Democrats at 303-623-4762 or www.coloradodems.org; the Republicans at 303-758-3333 or www.cologop.org.
A citizens’ rally for the Colorado caucus will be held on Monday at noon on the west steps of the state Capitol. Join us to show your support for and to learn more about this important Colorado institution.
John Wren, Denver
Criticism of Feingold
Re: “Allard’s linking of senator, terror ‘out of bounds,”‘ March 16 news story.
Did Sen. Wayne Allard learn nothing in veterinarian school? Mad horses need to be controlled, and when they escape from the paddock, you go after the horse, not the cowboy trying to restrain it!
Instead of criticizing Sen. Russ Feingold by repeating the tired old Republican spin that anyone who dares criticize our president is helping the terrorists, Allard should be fulfilling his constitutional duty to see that the executive branch follows the law.
Truth be told, Feingold is taking an extremely moderate action in proposing only a censure, not a full impeachment. George W. Bush’s actions far exceed anything that President Nixon did.
George Brazill, Colorado Springs
Oil and gas leasing
Re: “Oil and gas leasing moving too quickly,” March 12 editorial.
The Post’s editorial misses the boat. Many federal leases are bought by small independents, or even individual geologists, hoping to develop a new play. Most of these ideas never pan out. For example, last year’s discovery by Wolverine Resources of a potential billion-barrel oil field in western Utah occurred in an area that saw more than 50 dry holes drilled over the past decade. Thank goodness we still have risk-takers willing to invest in federal leases for the right to spend more money seeking domestic oil and gas.
In another article in the same issue (“Bush to look West when replacing Interior’s Norton”), The Post reported that retiring Interior Secretary Gale Norton presided over a 17 percent increase in natural-gas production from federal lands. Given that U.S. gas wells are declining at a 25 percent annual rate, this is good news for consumers. Can you imagine what the price increase from last fall’s hurricanes would have been without this positive return from leasing and drilling on federal lands? The Post can argue that the years spent developing – and litigating – resource management plans, environmental impact statements, geographic area plans, lease sale stipulations, and drilling permit conditions is moving too fast, but U.S. consumers may beg to differ.
Ken Wonstolen, Denver
The writer is senior vice president and general counsel for the Colorado Oil & Gas Association.
Placement of TV towers for metro area
After viewing TV ads showing how misguided, inconsiderate and unfair the Canyon Area Residents for the Environment group and the Golden City Council are to the Lake Cedar Group – which owns and operates the TV towers above Golden – and to the residents of the Front Range, it’s difficult to understand how anyone could be against the installation of a digital tower (or the continued presence of multiple towers) on the mountain.
Resident CARE engineers/scientists who live in the area also have some interesting videos – but how likely is it that any of the mass media outlets will allow these videos to be shown to the public?
Instead of Lookout Mountain, let’s find a permanent site that would be acceptable to, and healthy for, all Front Range residents. If the presence of those towers is so innocuous, and emits so little harmful radiation, why aren’t they placed on some tall hills or buildings in the Denver area (surely, they are not all in the DIA flight path), as they are in some other large metropolitan areas?
This situation is a prime example of a large conglomerate, which can better afford legal and media representation, enforcing its will over a small community.
R. Kiefer, Arvada
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