Editor,
I commend you on publishing the two letters on May 2 by Juan Carlos Holmes and Isaac Padilla. They allow us to recognize that the student population, unlike ASUNM, understands the predicaments of our times and sees the need to actively participate in politics, as they affect students directly.
There are important lessons to be learned from the moral, political and economic bankruptcy of this administration, as everyone can't stop wondering how a nation so proud of its democracy and piety could have reached such a low point.
With the presidency, the judiciary and the Congress under firm Republican control together with the support of a compliant corporate media, the new administration feels encouraged in the pursuit of its imperial goals.
Fundamentalist religious ideologues and politicians will always feel compelled to reconstruct reality to suit their narrow-minded worldview. Under Bush, science is no longer empirical. Government scientists have been pressured to withhold scientific evidence. Government Web sites and pronouncements have been purged of scientific findings about climate change, human sexuality, AIDS research, pollution and the like.
Demagogues will kindle the fire of fear with the stick of security to promote a futile war with the false promise of peace. For those resenting criticism, the ultimate goal is to bring into line all political, judicial and economic functions with the government ideology. Domestic spying, detention without charge, kidnapping, disappearance, renditions to secret torture chambers abroad, abolition of habeas corpus and the repeated fascist excesses by a rampaging police complete the Republican vision of a totalitarian state.
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As long as such policies define America, anti-Americanism will persist. The majority of Republicans in Congress still stand behind Bush's imperial policies. The majority of Democrats in Congress have also assisted Bush in his crimes against the world.
If politicians refuse to admit that the invasion of Iraq is pure aggression, the senseless slaughter in that country will continue. If we do not learn from these mistakes, then American soldiers would indeed have fought and died for nothing.
Just as Germany had to be de-Nazified after World War II, the United States needs to be de-Republicanized, but by its own popular initiative in the style of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. South African Bishop Desmond Tutu made this clear when he was in this country. When people from all echelons of life responsible for this dire state agree to come to terms with their fatal mistakes, the country may finally begin its long-awaited process of healing for the sins of the past and the present.
Joachim L. Oberst
UNM faculty
