August 3–10, 2000

mailbag

Letters to the Editor

by the Readers

Dominican Notes

The City Paper’s investigative report, "The Dominican Connection," (Cover Story, July 28) is already being talked about throughout Europe — from where I write today — and Latin America — from where The Narco News Bulletin reports on the drug war.

A story like "The Dominican Connection" by Howard Altman and Jim Barry restores our faith in authentic journalism. It is well researched, impeccably documented and a super, crackling read on the street-level events of this story of international importance.

At Narco News we have been tracking aspects of this story already. In our analysis, Altman, Barry and the City Paper have opened a story to public and press scrutiny that will continue to grow in size and scope. This story — of how the U.S. government protects major international drug rings — will be bigger to the coming months and years than the Iran-Contra arms-for-drugs scandal was in the 1980s. The City Paper can be proud that it has opened the floodgates to the truth.

That’s because Iran-Contra was about a renegade group of CIA agents and other operatives who allowed cocaine smuggling to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua. The question during Iran-Contra was whether the Reagan-Bush administration looked the other way. The story that Altman and Barry have begun to report is bigger: It involves not a small group of officials, but official U.S. policy enforced at the highest levels. The question with the story has been settled in the first article: The Department of Justice and other agencies officially protected a major drug trafficking operation.

To your readers who are researching this story we recommend the May 15, 2000 Narco News story of the month: "Drug Money in the U.S. Elections," available on the Internet at http://www.narconews.com/USDominican1.html.

When the American people realize that their government is systematically involved in drug trafficking and that drug war corruption, rather than being a series of isolated actions, goes to the highest levels in Washington, drug prohibition will not stand.

We look forward to reading Part II of Altman and Barry’s tour de force of investigative journalism.

Salud y abrazo,

Al Giordano
Publisher
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com/
narconews@hotmail.com

Jury Duty

Daryl Gale’s article (City Beat, "Don’t Speak For Me," July 28) is useful, for its report on the thoughts from the residents of 26th and Oxford. Some of the residents interviewed condemn Jerry Mondesire and Al Sharpton, but they add in the police. They are further blinded by reference to skin color, which caused them to wander unfocused when they found out the police involved in the Jones arrest were primarily black. Joe Fields of T&J Auto Repair gratuitously adds in Lynne Abraham for criticism as a "racist" (there’s an original thought) for "what she did to Judge Frederica Massiah-Jackson." Fields does not grasp how much this city and the surrounding areas (and Fields himself) owe to Lynne Abraham for saving them on two extremely important issues of liberty and freedom: (1) the nomination of Massiah-Jackson and (2) the ballot question of 1997, when the entire concept of the citizen jury was in danger of being overthrown by the influential and the powerfully selfish. On July 20 the Legal Intelligencer reported on the decision by Judge Nigro affirming Lynne Abraham’s point of view, and denying the latest attempt, this time by the "public defender" (of what?) to jettison that priceless citizen ballot approval. That ballot secured for the people (like Fields) a core liberty issue of the citizen jury. Read Judge Nigro’s decision, and you will begin to grasp what was at stake. Why do we have a Bill of Rights, the most precious document known to humanity? To preserve liberty!

Jerry Boris
Philadelphia

Vive La Difference!

Well, the Republican strategy for this election is clear: They will try to obscure the very real differences between them and the Democrats, hiding their real positions so that the election will be decided on the basis of W.’s allegedly cuddly personality. How nice that so many of you at the City Paper are helping them do this, by adopting the smug and cynical pose of being above it all, unwilling to be sullied by supporting either one of them (see, for example, last week’s Tom Tomorrow and How-to-Harry; also, two weeks ago, the Slant "This Fall, Don’t Vote" by Scott Bostwick, in an issue with a cover story on the utterly irrelevant Alan Keyes). Yes, I know it’s great to feel superior, but I have only one question for you: Are you nuts?

Anyone who thinks there is no important difference between Al Gore and G.W. Bush must also think there is no difference between Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia (Bush’s favorite justices). Long after your principled stand has been forgotten, we will be living with the consequences of this election. Sometime in 2003 or so, after what is left of the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, there will be thousands of women in many parts of this country who will be without this fundamental right. I hope all of you who are yawning and saying "Republicrats, blah blah blah, they’re all the same" will think about what you would tell those women in Louisiana and Missouri as they contemplate their new lack of choices. I’m sure they will be very relieved and comforted to hear that you voted for Ralph Nader because you thought there was no difference between Bush and Gore.

At this very moment, I’m watching Dick Cheney on the television. He is very smooth. He is explaining away his votes on South Africa. He just said that he voted against a bill requiring that guns have a little metal in them (for metal detectors) because he thinks this goes against the Second Amendment. And now, even worse, here comes his wife. Cokie just said, "Let’s talk about something fun." Yikes!

Mike Kaplan
Old City