Letters to The Ethical Spectacle

Bush's Port Deal?

Oh pulleeze! The problem I find with such nonsense as illustrated by Meg Bannerji's editorial is, the "port deal" has nothing to do with "port security."

Port security is handled by a number of US agencies...Cost Guard, Customs, Port Authority, local police, Homeland Security...all these agencies are responsible for "port security" regardless of the contract for running the daily traffic and operations. Isn't it curious that those so opposed to this didn't seem concerned by China getting the LA Port operation contract during Clinton-2? With all the political conspiracy BS being spewed, one would almost think Halliburton had gotten the contract.

A legitimate criticism might be the fact that even after all the hoopla about "port security" over the past 5 years, still only about 5% of containers being offloaded from ships in our ports are actually physically inspected.

The real truth is, Bush simply followed the advice of his staff regarding support for DP World's acquisition of the contract to operate the ports. All this conspiracy BS regarding his sinister "plot" to have his "oil buddies" get the contract is Cindy Sheehan/tin-foil hat nonsense.

It's likely not going to happen anyway, but the sad part of that is that all the hysterical opposition (like Meg's silly piece) generated against it is based on lies and mis-information about the actual contract. I will say that Bush has mis-handled the political end of the issue...He can thank some pretty worthless political advisors for not collaring him and telling him that this will be demagogued in such a way that he can't come out looking good, regardless of the facts.

Bob Wilson

whomever wrote George Orwell was Wrong clearly did not understand what they were talking about. Animal Farm is a SATIRICAL novel on the Russian revolution, to show where it had gone wrong. George Orwell was PRO-SOCIALISM and wrote animal farm so that everyone could see that the Soviet Union was not a true Socialist State. If you had read the prefix to the novel you would have read ' I write this book against communism a it was developed in Russia, BUT FOR SOCIALISM AS I UNDERSTAND IT.'

please know what you are talking about before you publish it to the internet.

Emma

In response to On Lying:

I'm very interested in your views and opinions about the following topics: Adultery.......and Stealing.

Adultery involves lying as you said. But could you explain a little more why adultery is wrong?

Also, what about stealing?

You said that when a person lies, he is stealing your time.

So what is it about stealing that is so wrong?

I'm trying to find answers. If you could help, I would appreciate that very much.

Thanks.

Rajasa

I ran across your website while during a Google search for information about, of all things, Zyklon B.

I suppose that you would not have much time, or inclination, to tidy your essays up, but being an editor by (sometime) trade, I can't pass over two minor solecisms in your essay God vs. God.

The first is in the mention of the philosopher A. J. Ayer (no "s"), who is always referred to that way, by initials (as was, I gather, the custom for British acamedicians at the time) and not as "Alfred". (His intimates apparently called him "Freddie.")

The second is in the passage, "... if God is everywhere, then He is nowhere, because he cancels himself out like the same number added on one side of an equation and subtracted on the other."

I think what you meant (and thus should have said) was, "... the same number added to or substracted from both sides of an equation."

I have devoted a good deal of this morning to reading your essays, and am enjoying them very much -- by which I mean to say am enjoying your writing, not what you are writing about, but I suppose that is a bit like saying one wished there were no physicians because there were no illness, or (more in your line) no lawyers because everyone always got along. That isn't the sort of world we live in, which is, I take it, part of your point.

Thank you for writing your thoughts and publishing them.

Sincerely,
Windsor Viney

Thanks very much for publishing Part 2 of my opinion on confronting terrorism (albeit a couple days late). A year ago at this time, I was just writing the first draft of the whole long piece, and now it's great to have it all available to a reading public.

I also wanted to mention that I enjoy your site. I checked out "Bush's Port Deal" by Meg Bannerji and "Sharia Law Comes West" by Evan Maloney. Both were good choice of yours to publish. At first I was just as shocked as most Americans by President Bush's transferral of six US ports to DP World in the UAE; but after reading the first article, I understood it a little better. The opinion piece on the Mohammed cartoons is also well-written, even though I think there was another, better reason for the media to hide those drawings: respect for religion. That's not what drove them to do it, but in a perfect world the media never propagates material offensive to anyone's religious beliefs--for that reason, not for fear of violence.

Sincerely,
Justin Soutar

A complete waste of money.

I told my friends to avoid that movie so I related the scene to them.

Alejo