To the Editor:
A line in Allen Ginsberg’s poem Capitol Air, “Truth may be hard to find, but falsehood is easy” relates to the traditional party politics of today, especially if you put faith in one political party over the other. Take for instance, the Democratic Party’s routine performance during recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearings, for President Bush’s nominee for the new position of national intelligence chief, former Ambassador to Iraq and Honduras, John Negroponte. Instead of serving as a political and moral force against the reactionary neo-con tide of the Bush administration and Republican Party, their actions sounded the death knell for their party’s political ambitions and reputation as the loyal opposition party. First of all, it took a courageous human rights activist to confront Mr. Negroponte from the audience, with a question Senate Democrat committee members refused to touch, Negroponte’s documented collaboration with CIA-sponsored Honduran paramilitary “death squads,” responsible for the murder, kidnap and torture of hundreds and thousands of innocent Central Americans civilians, including US religious missionaries. To digress, Negroponte must be held accountable for his decisions and actions, indirectly covering up and collaborating with human rights abusers, not before a committee of fawning Senators, but instead an international criminal court. To proceed to the next point, the mushy style of Democrat Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon in questioning Negroponte, only within the context of the mid-80s, leaving out the Reagan administration’s covert murderous war on the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and popular socialist liberation movement of El Salvador and Honduras, demonstrates how much the Democrats want to hold on to their conservative status, in contrast to the more progressive party base’s faith in new party chairman Howard Dean, who in recent press events is moving more and more toward a pro military industrial complex and national security state posture, in lock step with the Bush administration’s plans to develop burgeoning new intelligence operations. Given the points raised, the time is ripe for all concerned and thoughtful citizens of this republic to turn their faith toward social protest, the anti-war peace movement, and alternative political party options for social and economic change instead of two-party politics beholden to similar foreign policy agendas albeit somewhat dissimilar domestic agendas.

Seth A Price

(published as letter to the editor in the Bridgewater State College student newspaper THE COMMENT)

thank you

Good piece on Hunter S. Thompson and his influence on American culture….