Nafta Alley
Thanks for publishing Alan Bisbort’s piece on the “Super Corridor” monster highway plan for the U.S.-Canada-Mexico being forced down our throats by the two main corporate-owned political parties, “The Demo-publicans” [“Nafty Business,” Nov. 29, 2007]. NAFTA should frighten any sane person who cares about the business climate of this country, the environment and the giving away of labor, health and safety rights so many have fought so hard to gain for the average person.
Only the Green Parties of the U.S. and Canada have been fighting this corporate sellout, while even so called “liberal” Democrats have caved in to their superbosses who really supply the money to them, while the clueless Republicans think of only the megabusiness world at the expense of small business owners. But where are our federal officials in this mess? Lieberman, Dodd, Kerry and Kennedy on the Senate side?
We Greens plan on fielding Congressional candidates who will fight against these NAFTA, GATT and other trade agreements while promoting local business, labor and environmental standards. Don’t look for help from the Clintons and Al “Nobel Peace Prize winner” Gore, because they were all for NAFTA , GATT and these corporate giveaways! Maybe it’s time to draft the only candidates who did stand up to these mega-sellouts. Check out www.DraftNader.Com or www.runcynthiarun.org (Cynthia McKinney for President).
Tim McKee
Manchester, Conn.
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Plea for Accuracy
I am writing to correct an error in Eesha Williams’s story “A Plea for Justice” (Nov. 22, 2007). In that article Williams states that “all the approximately 30 students admitted to the graduate history program at UMass last year were white.” In fact, in the last academic year the program admitted six students from racial or ethnic minorities out of 54 total admitted students. Two out of those six enrolled this fall and a third deferred admission until next year. The program is actively working to recruit an even more diverse pool of applicants in the future. I regret that Mr. Williams did not contact me to check his facts before the article went to press.
Brian Ogilvie
Graduate Program Director and Associate Professor
History Department, UMass Amherst
Editor’s note: “A Plea for Justice” contained this sentence: “All the approximately 30 students admitted to the graduate history program at UMass last year were white.” This is incorrect. According to UMass spokesman Ed Blaguszewski, in 2006 the program admitted 54 applicants, five of whom were minority students (of 53 admitted in 2007, six were minority students). Most of these 54 did not enroll. In 2006, all 17 students in the class required for new history grad students at UMass Amherst were white. In any case, the grad history program is less diverse than the state (13 percent people of color).
