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Petty Shot
Regardless of your personal feelings about how Ms. [Susan] Key relates to your reporters or to people in general, it is unfair that you end this [Ear, 14.23] rumor-based snippet by saying, “We sincerely hope the door doesn’t hit you on the way out.”
Over the years, as we have watched downtown Knoxville grow and blossom, the Keys have been right in there investing time, money, and sweat. From their early days down in the Old City to these last few years on the Market Square, they have been ceaseless in their efforts to improve downtown Knoxville to everyone’s benefit, not just their own.
Maybe you should be asking yourselves why they have decided to move on? You should at least restrain your pettiness in regards to your interactions with Ms. Key, if not balance it with an acknowledgement of her contributions.
Donna Kimble and Cissy Pirkle
Knoxville
Damn a ‘Blue Dog,’ Anyway
As a former resident of Tennessee and especially Knoxville, I try to keep up with your paper each week on the Internet.
Your [June 3] article on Harold Ford’s crypto-Republican vote-getting strategy, however, leaves me very concerned. This strategy of trying to out-Right Wing the GOP is based on a faulty assumption: that liberal, leftist, black, labor union members, etc., have no place else to go except the Democratic Party. Thus, any attempts to woo ultra conservatives from the GOP won’t threaten the Democratic nominee’s voter base with progressive constituents, so this argument goes.
The only thing wrong with this theory is that progressives don’t always allow conservative Democrats to take their votes for granted. Congressman [Jim] Cooper learned this the hard way 10 years ago when he tried to woo conservatives away from Fred Thompson by supporting NAFTA, the death penalty, and other issues dear to the Right’s agenda. Cooper not only lost but lost big because liberals, labor, blacks, environmentalists, saw through his scheme and either stayed home on election day or voted Republican or Independent out of spite toward Cooper. Moreover, Cooper’s loss of the vote by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party was not offset in any way by new conservative votes. The conservatives chose to remain Republican no matter how far to the right Cooper bent over backwards for them.
This same fate happened to Ray Blanton’s abortive Senate race in 1972 against Howard Baker, Jr. (In fact, Howard Baker actually stole a huge chunk of the liberal vote from Blanton), and to [Jim] Sasser’s bid for a fourth term [in the Senate]. When Sasser failed to use the Ted Kennedy strategy of being proud of his earlier liberal votes, he alienated many liberals into staying home.
Ford’s plans to privatize Social Security could alienate the Senior Citizen block, and his other overtures to the GOP could further alienate the Democratic Party’s vitally needed core base from him in any future statewide election he should make—and it would serve him right.
As a disgruntled leftist voter who supported Ralph Nader’s candidacy (and who might do so again this year), I am fed up with these “blue dog” or New Democrat types who have hi-jacked the Democratic Party and who take my vote for granted just because of their party label. Progressive voters made a big mistake in 1996 when they allowed New Democrat Bill Clinton to take their vote without earning it.
Progressives need to send a message to “New” Democrats like Harold Ford, Jr.
William R. Delzell
Springfield, Mass.
UT: Back Clean Energy
The spring semester of 2004 at the University of Tennessee reflected an important point in the initiative and actions of the student body.
In support of the Clean Energy Initiative led by SPEAK (Students Promoting Environmental Action in Knoxville) in collaboration with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, students and faculty have clearly shown their interest in helping the University of Tennessee create a cleaner tomorrow through support of a student fee that will generate over $400,000 a year in funds to put towards clean energy production.
Over 4,000 students voted for the student referendum in March, but apparently to no avail. UT Vice President Phil Scheurer and Chancellor Loren Crabtree have already refused to support the proposal, regardless of the benefits it will have towards the respiratory health of the citizens in the Southeastern United States, the ecological stability it will provide to the Appalachian Mountains and surrounding watersheds, and the environmentally progressive status that will be given to UT.
Considering that the University will soon be having an entire semester dedicated to environmental awareness and a clean energy conference in February, I am disappointed that certain individuals in influential positions have decided to convey their selfish and contradictory opinions at the expense of many. These individuals should reflect rationality and respectable decisions, but they have done just the opposite concerning this matter. I hope that Knoxville’s citizens will take the opportunity to show their support for this student-led initiative by contacting the university and various media sources, so that everyone can reap the benefits of clean energy production.
Jon Paul Plumlee
UT junior in environmental studies
Knoxville
World Domination
This is an open letter to the anti-war movement in Knoxville.
The events over the last two-and-a-half years and the actions of the Bush administration have been shocking. They have invaded and conquered two countries—first Afghanistan and then Iraq. They have threatened Iran, Syria, North Korea and others. They are also insisting they have the right to launch pre-emptive wars and topple governments at will.
Within the United States, they have unleashed new armies of police spies and wiretappers. They have fired up their fundamentalist “culture wars” demanding permanent bans on gay marriage and sending federal agents to study abortion records. They have promoted religious dogmas as “traditional values” to be imposed on everyone. They have rounded up immigrants, militarized borders, threatened dissidents, and denied lawyers to government captives. It now seems appropriate to state some obvious conclusions from all that has happened.
1.) They said the war was for weapons of mass destruction—but none have been found.
2.) They said the war was about terrorism—but no ties to Al-Qaida were ever found.
3.) They said the war was to remove Saddam Hussein’s regime—but now they are elevating Saddam’s former generals to be new warlords in areas of resistance.
4.) They said the war was to bring “freedom and democracy” to Iraq—but it has brought a brutal occupation of house to house searches, shutting down newspapers, postponing and controlling elections, and jailing people for expressing opposition.
5.) They said the war was to end mass graves—but Bush’s troops sent hundreds of Iraqi people in Fallujah to mass graves.
6.) And they said the war was about ending “torture chambers and rape cells”—but now we all know that U.S. military intelligence and the C.I.A. took over the regime’s prisons to carry out torture and rape.
So can we now all talk about the real causes of this long-planned war? This has been a mighty capitalist grab to dominate the Persian Gulf and the oil arteries of the world. This has been, most importantly, a naked push to dominate the whole world at gun point—starting with this very weakened, resource-rich, and highly strategic country of Iraq.
Richard Anderson
Knoxville
June 10, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 24
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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