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  2004-12-05 Sharanksy-reader reaction


Harrison Weblog

2004 blog

 

 

Readers tell views of Sharansky's

take on dictators and peace

Jewishsightseeing.com, Dec. 5, 2004

tell us your opinion sdheritage@cox.net 

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(Most recent letters will be added at the top)

Within his commentary on "Sharansky's thesis: dictatorships, by nature, are enemies of peace" Don Harrison manages to say: "Their central thesis is that dictatorships almost invariably employ the same survival tool to prop themselves up.  They divert their populace’s attention from inadequacies at home by creation of a state of high anxiety about some 'enemy.'"

What I find interesting about this comment is the failure to recognise that the American people themselves have been 'had' by the Bush administration in exactly the same way - demonstrating that in the USA a dictatorship of the right wing, "born again" Christian minority has taken charge.

People's attention has been diverted from inadequacies at home, like inadequate health care (the USA is ranked last to second last among all English speaking countries), inadequacies in education, inadequacies in the provision of affordable housing, inadequacies indeed in virtually everything needed to support life and communal well being. This lack can be juxtaposed against the more than adequate funding of the military which has been marshaled to divert the attention of the population at home by the creation of a state of high anxiety about a very specific enemy - "terrorism", a catch phrase that takes in everyone it seems, whose interests do not support the interests of the cartel within the US government, that is currently running things.

Readers would be amazed to read the manifesto of their ruling oligarchy on the web pages of PNAC "The Project for the New American Century" at http://www.newamericancentury.org/aboutpnac.htm  The group of people in PNAC include
Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer. William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz,Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen, Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George WeigelPaul Wolfowitz.

Wake up America and smell the roses - preferably not those growing in the White House's Rose Garden. By all of the criteria in Sharansky's thesis, America is now an enemy of peace.
—Peter Garas, Gordon, Australia