In the Public Interest

As a high school student, I came across an observation by Abraham Lincoln who said that “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.” Today “public sentiment” would be called “public opinion.” Over the years, I have been astonished at how less than one percent of the citizenry, backed by the “public…

Last month when Florida postal worker, Doug Hughes, landed his tiny aircraft, known as a gyrocopter, on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol with 535 letters addressed to every member of Congress, the conversation should have been about his desperate message. Instead, his letter to each Senator and Representative arguing for an end to the…

Suddenly, the mass media is writing about or televising the conditions in West Baltimore. Conditions that Washington Post columnist, Eugene Robinson, summarized as decades long “suffocating poverty, dysfunction and despair.” Suddenly, reporters and camera teams are discovering Baltimore’s inner city—crumbling or abandoned housing; mass unemployment; too many merchants gouging the locals (the poor pay more);…

May 1, 2015 President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Obama: You have taken a strong across-the-board position favoring the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) nearing completion and scheduled for a fast track clearance vote in the Congress. Indeed, you have descended admirably from your presidential perch to take…

The pro-big business President Barack Obama and his corporate allies are starting their campaign to manipulate and pressure Congress to ram through the “pull-down-on-America” Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade and foreign investment treaty between twelve nations (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam). The first skirmish…

Following the heavy coverage of AIPAC’s (the virulently pro-Israeli government lobby) multi-day annual Washington convention in March, the mainstream media might have been interested for once in covering alternative viewpoints like those discussed at the April 10th conference “The Israel Lobby: Is it Good for the US? Is it Good for Israel?” (Israellobbyus.org). Fairness and…

April 13, 2015 Richard H. Anderson CEO, Delta Airlines P.O. Box 20980 Department 980 Atlanta, GA 30320-2980 Dear Mr. Anderson, We have received communications from people within your company expressing concerns about your aging MD-80 aircraft fleet. As you know, Delta is a principal user of this McDonnell Douglas aircraft. We understand that the FAA,…

April 8, 2015 President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Obama, I am enclosing a copy of Return to Sender: Unanswered Letters to the President 2001-2015 (Seven Stories Press), which contains over 100 letters that I sent to you and President George W. Bush (from 2001 to…

Ashraf Ghani, the thoughtful new president of Afghanistan, came to Washington last week and the trip probably met his expectations. He wanted to thank the United States for “defending freedom” in his country and he did this more profusely than any foreign leader in recent history. He thanked the Congress, President Obama, the generals, the…

When the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has its annual howling convention in the Washington, DC area, the mainstream mass media expands its coverage like an accordion from the weeks leading up to the gathering to the analysis of the aftermath. Why? Because a demanding CPAC summons all the Republican contenders for the presidential nomination…