Showing the Abuses of Empire
Bravo to Charlotte Burns for her excellent guest column on our free Friday night films in the Valley Advocate (“Friday Nights with Frances,” Letters, February 6, 2014). I would like to add to the column: it is not a Frances Crowe film series but a Northampton Committee to Stop War outreach educational program, started 10 years ago when DVDs were beginning to be easily available. We started with Bush’s Brain and followed with films exposing how war was made acceptable because we were not given the truth. Then we began to show what folks were doing nonviolently to change society. A Force More Powerful told of the civil rights movement, Ghandi in India, the United Democratic Front in South Africa. All our films are listed on our website, Northamptoncommittee.org.
We hope soon to find a new community space where we can continue to show the abuses of empire and peoples’ resistance. We are deeply appreciative of the Media Education Foundation for its support and for Sut Jhally’s gift to us of the projector and screen “wherever we find a new community space.” The Northampton Committee to Stop War began at the time of the first Gulf War and continues its vigil every Saturday morning in Northampton in front of the Court House, 11 a.m. to noon.
Exodus 21:24, Not Romans 12:19
Regarding the column on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to seek the death penalty for accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (“Death Penalty Test Case,” February 13, 2014): as the Bible says, an eye for an eye. I believe in God and I also believe if this person is found guilty, he should be put to death. I don’t believe this less-than-a-human-being should be kept alive with our tax dollars when so many of our people have suffered in so many ways.
Hail, Seeger!
Reagan, Bush and Cheney were assholes (and stupid ). But Pete Seeger was a truly great American!
Cleaner Air for a Penny per Gallon
Passenger vehicles are a major source of emissions causing dirty, unhealthy air. This dirty air can trigger asthma attacks, stunt a child’s developing lungs and cause heart attacks. This is why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must finalize its Motor Vehicle Emission and Fuel Standards proposal as promised this February. The proposal includes reducing the sulfur content in the gasoline we use to fuel our cars and trucks. This simple change would yield the air quality improvement equivalent to taking 33 million cars off the road. This would remove the emissions equivalent from more than all the cars in the states of Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington combined.
I applaud Congressman Jim McGovern for supporting these standards. Rep. McGovern signed a letter urging the EPA to submit the standards to the White House for final review, which it did Jan. 24. I now urge President Barack Obama to move quickly to approve this common-sense public health safeguard and resist the temptation to allow further delays.Once the EPA’s proposal is implemented, tens of thousands of asthma attacks and missed school and workdays will be avoided every year. The cost? Only a penny more per gallon of gasoline.
