Letters to the editor July 16

Sunday won't be the same anymore

| The New Mexican

7/15/2008 - 7/16/08

I t's a tragedy that I'm not going to have my Sunday magazine anymore! It's my most funnest part of the Sunday paper. I loved your Travel section, I missed the movie masochist when you removed that. All in all, it was just really fun.

When newspapers are completely dry, they're boring. What you added was some yumminess. The Sunday paper will be nothing like it was without it. Your topic on events for the week always created my agenda for fun things to do with my family and friends. I'll sincerely be missing Sunday magazine.

Tobi Wilde
Santa Fe

I understand that the economy is rough right now and belts need to be tightened, but isn't that a reason to keep some part of the paper that gives you a reason to laugh and to which you can look forward each week? The New Mexican, I hate to say, doesn't need to carry more local news. That's almost all it is.

I have to go to the Web for up-to-date national news or buy the Times. You've taken away most of the Sunday comics and now this. What will happen to the news of the weird that I snicker over? Please don't take away the Sunday part of our paper!

Lynne Livingston
Santa Fe

Don't be distracted
Bill Stewart is running the big con on The New Mexican's readership. In "Progress in Iraq," his July 5 column, he argues that the "surge" has worked sufficiently well that we — and Barack Obama — must not leave Iraq and abandon some very small hard-won gains. Stewart does not consider any of the evidence and reasoning which is contrary to his feel-good view about the current state in Iraq and the reasons for and importance of the diminished post-surge death toll.

But that isn't the main point. The con is to get us to focus on the details of the post-surge situation and to ignore the entire background to the war and the occupation, namely the dishonesty by which we were brought into Iraq, the world view which justifies the action, and the incompetence of the occupation.

Merrill Ring
Santa Fe

Prediction, not tenet
Paul Hibbert's July 9 letter, "Tantamount to theft," in which he opposes the transfer tax, is troublesome. Karl Marx's basic philosophy is not, as he states, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." It is Marx's prediction of how things will work after "the revolution."

Marx's "basic philosophy" is an analysis of history and social change. Marx says that capitalism is a necessary step in the process of social evolution which ends in a collective ownership of wealth. It's the workers' labor is that is ultimately responsible for the creation of profit, hence wealth. It's not the character of the wealthy or of the poor that creates poverty or wealth, but rather the structure of the economy and its stage in the historical process that creates disparity, injustice and deprivation.

There is an inevitability that owners, or capitalists, will develop an ideology of self interest. This ideology creates and perpetuates social class conflict, resulting in revolution.

Lenny Tischler
Santa Fe

I want to take issue with the implication in Paul Hibbert's letter that low-income people do not exhibit "hard work, ambition, good judgment and planning." It is an insult to those of us who work in public service areas and are paid low salaries for our efforts.

Many of us have degrees (I have two master's degrees) and/or have professional training. We serve our communities as teachers, nurses, librarians, spiritual leaders, hospitality workers, counselors, social workers, police officers, firefighters etc. Some of us work in these professions and still have to take a second or third job to make ends meet.

Perhaps we use "poor judgment" in choosing to help the people of Santa Fe. It would be interesting to see how well the community would do without us. Clean, safe, affordable housing would be a nice way to say "thank you."

Sandra Hareld
Santa Fe

They also serve
We have a linguistic history of equating "service" with being in the military: "service members," "in the service," "serving one's country."

On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I spent some time at the Marine Corps Iwo Jima Memorial and other monuments to our fighters, pondering that term.

It struck me that many others also "serve," but without bearing arms. I hope that, as president, Barack Obama will continue to call on all of us to live lives of service to our country beyond the military.

And, perhaps, we can create one more monument on the National Mall honoring one more group, without whose dedicated, unflagging service, our democracy cannot exist: our teachers.

Lorraine Goldman
Santa Fe