TO THE EDITOR: I am responding to William Dauenhauer's letter (April 12) in which he mentions that the Mennonite Central Committee is providing humanitarian aid for the Iraqi people.
Mennonites throughout the United States are collecting relief kits to assist in providing hygiene supplies for those Iraqis who have been displaced due to the recent conflict in their country.
Cincinnati Mennonite Fellowship in Oakley is serving as a collection point for Iraqi relief kits. If you would like to join us in this humanitarian effort, please contact the church.
Ann Nofziger, Pastor, Cincinnati Mennonite Fellowship
---
Dixie Chicks can express their opinion
I am writing about the comments some people have made about the Dixie Chicks.
Some people have forgotten President Bush did not receive the most votes in the presidential election. So more people thought someone would do a better job. I believe in free speech. Don't support someone if you don't agree with them.
Even with their remark they still have the No. 1 country CD and the Dixie Chicks already have made more money than they will be able to spend, unless they waste it.
Meantime, I think this war should have come years ago, and I will always support our troops.
Jimmy Spencer, Kings Mills
---
Sen. Voinovich a 'Daschle Republican'
During the past decade, it was easy to expand government spending and throw in a bunch of little revenue enhancers (taxes). The economy was going so well, few noticed. But some, like Sen. George Voinovich, found that tax money for him to spend was a great boost to his power base. It worked for him in Ohio then. The state budget is a mess today. Now he wants to do the same in the Senate.
The economy has plummeted in the last three years. Unemployment has increased. Jobs are scarce. Many are facing reduced income. Most have greater uncertainty about the future. So many families today can't make it without double income. The financial pain index is increasing.
Voinovich says that he is practicing fiscal discipline when he votes against tax cuts. His fiscal responsibility is dedicated to building his power base, not to the people paying tax bills.
Government spending has grown enormously and the deficit is still at an all-time low relative to the size of our economy. The Wall Street Journal calls him the Daschle Republican. The wolf in sheep's clothing is a tax-and-spender. Contrary to the president and the House of Representatives, Sen. Voinovich is voting to keep taxes high to build his power base; even if it hurts our jobs and our families.
Jack D. Helmer, Westerville
---
America repaid French long ago
Recently, I have been hearing that Americans are indebted to the French for their assistance during the American Revolution.
Whatever debt we owned the French was repaid many-fold ago. Remember World War I and World War II?
Furthermore, England was a French rival and the French wanted to "bloody England's nose" and the colonists were an available instrument. Also, England was tiring of war and the colonists might well have won without the French assistance, which was certainly helpful and welcome.
Richard E. Cooke, Amberly Village
---
U.S consumption is at root of conflict
We can bomb Iraq, or any other country into submission, but we will always have the condition that precipitated these events as long as 4 percent of the U.S. population is using between 60 percent and 80 percent of the world's resources. If we were truly a great country, we would oversee the redistribution of the Earth's bounty so that the family of man might all live comfortably.
Steve Hennessy, Westwood
---
Real volunteer military would not be in Iraq
One of the more predictable and deplorable strategies for stifling dissent is the use of "our honorable troops" as a human shield against the truth. Even the courageous Sen. Tom Daschle was forced to retreat behind a wall of anti-democratic "patriotism" that the poet Alfred Tennyson captured: "Theirs not to make reply / Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die."
Honorable troops? Where is the honor in serving a military that wages wars of opportunity on terms of overwhelming superiority against a desperate enemy? Indeed, where would our military be if, instead of swelling its ranks through bribery and Madison Avenue recruitment techniques, it were truly voluntary? What if it paid no more than the living wage we begrudge the working poor in America? What if it were not the tuition-provider of last resort? What if it were not a revolving door to the lucrative military or corporate complex? Such an army would deserve our support, but then such an army would be much smaller and much more circumspect than the belligerent, resource-guzzling juggernaut that had decimated Iraq.
Daniel Goodman, Batavia
---
'Boondocks' toons are unpatriotic
Aaron McGruder's comic strip Boondocks is unpatriotic, and it gives actors and singers a bad name. If the most patriotic characters McGruder can show are "Flagee" (an American flag) and "Ribbon" (a red, white and blue ribbon), then I think that he doesn't even care about the United States.
Perhaps a more respectable comic should be considered as well, such as Darby Conley's Get Fuzzy or the Pokemon comic that ran for a short while.
Michelle Rotuno Johnson, Fairfield
---
Local government seems unresponsive
Since moving here from California I can tell you I am much more taxed at both the state and local level than I was in California - on both comparable income and property - and for less services.
And government here is less accountable than anywhere I've lived in the US. A three-person county commission? No city council districts? Neither the newspaper or the internet tells how local state officials vote. There are mysterious appointments to political offices by party rather than by elected officials or special elections.
This is not a progressive or up-to-date state, but a one-party theocracy.
It's a sad place.
Fred Silverman, Mount Lookout
---
Student says vigil was not manipulation
I am writing in response to Mike Emerine's letter ("Young manipulated by peace activists" April 16) concerning Cincinnati youth being manipulated by peace activists into attending a Peace Vigil. I am one of the students who attended, and strongly feel that it is an outrageous supposition for anyone to imply that we have been "manipulated" into attending such an event. We are educated, informed young citizens who are more then capable of developing our own beliefs, and acting upon them in a peaceful manner. Our opinions deserve to be heard and acknowledged.
We are not anti-American, as implied by many. We are very proud to be Americans in the sense that we affirm the ideals, values, and goals that this country was built upon. Just as people with many different opinions gather together to voice their beliefs, we also gather in prayer to assert ours. If this right were to be denied to us, where would be the freedoms that our Founding Fathers fought so ardently to defend?
By gathering together in prayer, we recognize the value of every single human life, including the Marines, the soldiers and the Iraqi people. In that same spirit, may we all act together to fashion an America that will not only values every human's life, but respects the opinions and beliefs that give her the vitality and energy for which she is famous.
Jennie Mertens, Finneytown
