Letters - The Daily Lobo

Opinion

Letter: American campuses abroad may uphold systemic poverty

April 13

As non-profit and taxpayer-subsidized, American universities look to augment their treasuries by setting up lucrative campuses in the Middle East, but they can be unwittingly supporting autocratic fusions of monarchy and fundamentalist theocracy. For example, New York University has had a campus built in Abu Dhabi with imported South Asian construction workers laboring in the most egregious conditions of imprisoned slavery — this in a city Fortune magazine has called the richest in the world. But both monarchies and fundamentalist theocracies have had zero qualms in building mansions as palaces and Houses of Worship with slaves and indentured servants, whom they deliberately and systematically keep poor.

Opinion

Letter: Darensburg column falls victim to its own argument

April 13

Daily Lobo opinion pieces are unhinged. I recently read an opinion piece in the Daily Lobo. I wish I hadn’t. I swear I checked my calendar twice to make sure it wasn’t April 1, but since the piece was published on April 10, I can only assume that Mr. Darensburg lacks any sense of self-awareness or irony and that he wrote his partisan tirade sincerely.

Opinion

Letter: Case law cited in suspension unconnected to funding issue

April 9

I find the ruling of ASUNM Justice Seth Barany against Sen. Rebecca Hampton, and the Daily Lobo article covering the ruling, disturbing on many levels. First of all, it is irresponsible, dangerous and unacceptable for Justice Barany to incorrectly quote a U.S. Supreme Court case to legitimize a ridiculous decision by ASUNM. Second, the ASUNM law that is cited applies to ASUNM as a whole, not to a single senator.

Opinion

Letter: Injustice in race-baiting and U.S. treatment of Iran

March 30

The Republican letter to Iran stinks. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress also stinks, as does Elie Wiesel’s presence there. The American practice of vilifying Iran, dealing with them unfairly, specifically after it is American President Eisenhower who started their nuclear program, stinks.

Opinion

Letter: Leftists need to stop turning blind eye to reality

March 30

It is quite apparent that some UNM students are rabidly anti-Semitic and possess hatred for the constitutional republic that America is. It should make the reader question why these people want to live in America, unless they are supporting or thinking about seditious activities in order to overthrow the constitutional republic and replace it with a form of socialism. Nobody else is obligated to deal with the mental issues that these people project onto others. For example, claiming that 9/11 was a false flag operation that blames the Jews requires proof. Simply saying or claiming something does not imply the truth. The leftists who claim to value peace and freedom are contradicting themselves at every turn. What peace and freedom are these leftists referring to? Perhaps instead of making false accusations and personal attacks, these leftists should compete for the status of “ultimate victim.” Although leftists hate the notion of competition, they certainly don’t see a problem with a race for ultimate self-victimization. The fabricated versions of reality that these people produce may be associated with smoking too much marijuana or just being intoxicated with the socialist ideology, as they feel self-pity for their own selves, and become resentful and jealous of people who succeed the right way ... yes, the “right way” (no pun intended).

Opinion

Letter: Obama and Saudi Arabia are both in the wrong

March 30

I have heard more than one person say the United States has the best government money can buy. In what would seem to be an unfortunate confirmation of that statement, the Obama administration has recently given its blessing to Saudi Arabia’s recent invasion of Yemen. A popular uprising in Yemen recently sent former president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi into exile, and Saudi Arabia seems hell-bent on shooting and bombing the new Yemeni government into submission.

Opinion

Letter: U.S. nuclear bombs threaten greatest massacres in history

March 30

The U.S. nuclear bombs designed for decades at Sandia and Los Alamos laboratories terrorize many whole nations. U.S. nuclear bombs threaten to incinerate many times more moms, dads and children than Hitler and the Nazis killed in gas ovens, concentration camps and Word War II. U.S. nuclear bombs are prepared to slaughter far more people than all the wars in human history combined. U.S. nuclear bombs are targeted to commit mass murder worldwide — thousands of times larger than the atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001. U.S. nuclear bombs are aimed to massacre far more human beings than all the street gangs, drug dealers, drunk drivers, rapists, deranged spouses, serial killers, Ku Klux Klan and Mafia combined. Even if the U.S. never again drops nuclear bombs on cities, the radioactive and chemical contamination from the making and testing of these weapons can sicken and kill millions of people for thousands of years. Many children will be ravaged by cancers or ruined immunity.

Opinion

Letter: Iran letter reveals who has interest in failure of peace

March 26

The recent letter sent to the Iranian leadership by 47 Republican senators threatening to repeal any peace agreement between the Iranian government and President Obama was quite shocking for an obvious reason. Treason is defined as “betraying one’s country.” Congress has acted at the behest of a foreign government, Israel, in order to betray its president in exchange for generous campaign contributions from Israeli allied special interest groups like AIPAC. If this action is not the very definition of treason, then I would argue that it comes uncomfortably close to crossing that line.

Opinion

Letter: Fear-mongering on oil prices ignores benefits to consumers

March 26

How come our media are mourning on and on and everywhere about how the drop of oil price per barrel is such a serious blow to our economy, and not a drop of relief mentioned on behalf of poor consumers who see lower prices at the pump? It is not just the corporatist media wringing their hands about the loss to profits to “big oil.” They could be expected to whine about how disappointed they are that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has refused to cut down on production so that oil prices can remain high.

Opinion

Letter: Attitudes expressed in letters show need for resolution

March 23

Yay for freedom of speech for revealing yet another bigot. And hurrah that our constitutional rights trump any University-wide resolution. I wonder: does Mr. Ryu’s letter in Friday’s paper qualify legally as hate speech? It certainly defames, mischaracterizes and slanders an entire religious community of millions of adherents. You could argue it threatens, too. It does not provide any support for the contention that the recent University resolution is a bad idea. Although I am not familiar with the specific wording in the resolution, my understanding is that, in the face of a real or perceived threat, students should be protected on a university campus in terms of their right to exercise their religious freedom in a safe and non-hostile environment. It is letters such as Mr. Ryu’s that make the resolution a necessity. The environment in the United States is one laden with fear and hostility towards Islam which, in the United States, is a minority faith. Muslim students, just like any other students, should not have to deal with this.

Opinion

Letter: Students need support in face of misconceptions about Islam

March 23

It has come to my attention that many negative and misleading things about Islam are being published in the Daily Lobo. As per my right to freedom of speech granted to me in the American Constitution, I would like to now respond to these attacks from the American Muslim point of view. First of all, I’d like to point out that lecturing people on what their religion teaches when you are not even a part of that religion is as if I went to a lawyer asking for a medical diagnosis. In Islam we have many different sects and schools of thought. In addition to the Sunni and Shi’a — the two main sects — in Sunni Islam we have four primary schools of thought, or madhebs. These schools of thought are set up to interpret Islamic jurisprudence. We also have many other different interpretations of Islam. So the idea that you can group everyone under “one” Islam is an ignorant attempt to paint all Muslims the same. Similarly, this type of language is actually utilized by terrorist groups in an attempt to make Muslims feel alienated from their societies and recruit them to join these organizations.

Opinion

Letter: Resolution 6S ignores violent history and bigotry of Islam

March 20

First, I’d like to thank David Lynch for showing fairness in publications and allowing fact-based criticisms of Islam to be openly voiced. The opposition to Resolution 6S is important because its intentions were made clear: attempting to treat “Islamophobia” as a hate crime. Allowing Resolution 6S to go unnoticed, unchecked or without consequences would set the precedent for future actions of bigotry to become accepted. It should also be noted that although ASUNM President Rachel Williams insinuated that Resolution 6S was not meant to force anybody into accepting a certain ideology, Resolution 6S and ASUNM urged the UNM administration to openly support the resolution. This goes beyond the realm of the “student body” and is a political attempt to enforce the resolution through UNM staff members. This action is an invitation for UNM staff members to become bigots themselves, as they show favoritism to Muslims and attempt to stigmatize, harass, intimidate or show prejudice against people who voice their anti-Islamic beliefs.

Opinion

Antisemitism is as important an issue as Islamophobia

March 16

With the ASUNM unanimously passing a cautionary resolution urging UNM administration to state their opposition to Islamophobia,

Opinion

'Islamophobia' resolution is attack on free expression

March 16

Editor, I am writing as a concerned citizen who pays taxes that are used to help fund grants and scholarships to the University.

Opinion

Islam is Islam: 'Peaceful' Muslims are not real Muslims

March 16

Editor, The recent passage of Resolution 6S is an infringement on American civil rights. Not only was the definition of "Islamophobia" misrepresented, the claims that there are no contradictions between American values and Islamic values are baseless.

Opinion

Letter: People must address addiction issues before legalizing cannabis

March 5

Your cartoon on March 4 exemplifies how complicated the issue of cannabis legalization has become. To unravel the resulting confusion among users of this drug, there must first be broad agreement among all levels of government that cannabis is physically addictive, with serious consequences such as loss of working memory, cognitive impairment, even schizophrenia, and dangerous withdrawal symptoms like physical aggression.

Opinion

Letter: Shine light on the secrets keeping us in the dark

February 26

Secrecy is largely about shame, fear and guilt. I refuse to live that way. My beloved longtime friend told me in our deep, last conversation two days before his sudden death that he wanted to have first-time sex with me, but not a relationship. He said if I told anyone, he would kill me and maybe kill himself. I did not have sex with him. I want to celebrate sex with a friend, not hide it as a poisonous secret to keep him from killing me or himself. As he left my home that day, he told me “I love you” – maybe the only time since he and I met 39 years earlier. Several days later, I was devastated to hear that he was dead. This was my most heart-wrenching experience of 2011.

Opinion

Letter: Motorcyclists should use helmets, no exceptions

February 26

Editor, There are two helmet laws under consideration in the Legislature. One mandates motorcycle helmets for all.

Opinion

Letter: Music isn't necessarily bad just because it's new

February 26

Jason Darensburg, you recently claimed in your column “Today’s youth are bombarded with bad music” that music today is an implicative mess. I wish to address you on these matters and hopefully change your mind. Your claim falsely implies that because today’s youth has bad music, yesterday’s youth must have had good music. Is it truly honest to think that, for reasons you had not pointed out, music today must be automatically worse than music in the past? Why is it that the use of auto-tune automatically implies that one isn’t fit to sing? What you’re essentially saying is that music in the past is the only means of music, and that if music today does not emulate such archaic music, then it must be implicitly bad. This is stupendously ridiculous.

Opinion

Letter: U.S. does not stand for freedom, justice or democracy

February 23

The United States strongly supports many bloody regimes now: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Pakistan and Mexico. The United States strongly supported many bloody past regimes: El Salvador, Philippines, Guatemala, Haiti, Chile, Iran, South Africa, Argentina and Indonesia. The main goal — worldwide — of the U.S. government is grabbing more wealth, resources and cheap labor by any means necessary, regardless of how many millions are robbed, tortured, starved, imprisoned and murdered.