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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 1, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
MUMIA AND CENSORSHIP
Fred Goldstein's article in WW (May 11, 2000) entitled
"Why They Censor the `Voice of the Voiceless'" was great.
You're correct: Most of the major networks censored Mumia's
address at the Antioch graduation, including many of those
that had shown (often hostile) interest in it in the four
weeks preceding the event. Strange .
I know because I did over 50 interviews in three weeks
with all the major networks as the chief student
coordinator and spokesperson for that event. The coverage,
although often reactionary, was nevertheless all over the
country. So what happened when the big day came? A
whiteout.
It's as if there was a collective decision in the
capitalist media that this was getting too big, too
organized, and that it should be ignored, suppressed,
censored. So you hit it on the money. I too take it as one
of the signs that the movement is growing again.
Teishan Latner
Antioch class of 2000
Antioch, Ohio
WW FOR PRISONERS
I have just finished reading the latest issue of Workers
World and as always I will pass it on to other prisoners
and engage them in conversation as to the content of your
paper, as opposed to that of the corporate owned and
controlled media.
I would like to thank you all for keeping me on your
mailing list, and extend a warm and strong May Day abrazo
to each and every one of you.
Tom Manning
For the December 16th Committee
Springfield, Mo.
LOS ALAMOS FIRE
Our federal officials--Pete Domenici, Heather Wilson, Bill
Richardson, Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall--who have for years
thrown billions of our tax dollars into the nuclear war
labs like Los Alamos, are now desperately trying to
scapegoat low-level park service officials and powerless
environmentalists for the fire in Los Alamos which has done
so much human and political damage.
These politicians are desperate to reopen Los Alamos in a
weakened condition because the fire which was unleashed by
rambunctious climatic changes has exposed the fact that
there is no intellectual rationale for the continued
existence of the nuclear labs nor the risks associated with
them any longer.
The world is getting hotter and the weather as a result is
unpredictable--new lakes in the Australian desert, long dry
hot nights in our desert when it should be cool, winds of
extreme strength. We have had global conferences and most
agree on this.
New Mexico's nuclear club of politicians want us to think
more cows and logging in the forests would have prevented
this. They even repeated Ronald Reagan's ridiculous claim
that trees are the greatest polluters of radiation. They
treat the public as if we were ignorant and only they know
the facts. In reality, it is political leadership at the
top who is to blame for this crisis, not the rangers out in
the forests working with reduced budgets and manpower.
Like at Chernobyl the federal officials have tried to
downplay the seriousness of the radiation releases
generated by the fire. The governor and the lab officials
rushed to tell us everything was normal even as the fire
raged out of control and as tests showed levels of
radiation at 10 times the norm. Significantly, they did no
real-time isotopic analysis of the cloud plume, even though
they do this routinely over China and Russia all the time
with sniffer planes. They gave no warnings to pregnant
women to evacuate, like at Chernobyl, which should have
been a minimum human care action.
The billions that will be wasted on rebuilding the lab
could have gone a long way to providing quality education
and health care to all New Mexicans. What a loss.
Our federal officials have sacrificed untold numbers of
people to future health risks just so they could avoid a
possible evacuation of northern New Mexico's cities and
rural areas, which would reveal how serious was the
situation. It was Los Alamos which injected plutonium into
live humans to see how people would die. None of our
Congressional delegation has taken action against the Nazis
who ran these experiments, and now they endanger the public
at large by keeping the nuclear labs open.
Robert Anderson
New Mexico
ACCURATE INFO ON CUBA
Just want to say...
Thanks for the great website with updated and accurate
information about Cuba. As you already know, one must be
very diligent in the search for information regarding Cuba.
Even if one has an opposing view about life and politics on
the island, it's a rarity to hear intellectually
comparative discussion about Cuba or it's history. I find
this unfortunate since the information is out there for all
to see. However, pockets of the society (although
decreasing) are much too comfortable adopting that which is
too frequently reported from Little Havana.
Keep up the good work!!!
Andrea Steward
Via the Internet
- END -
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