Editor,
It seems our priorities are all mixed up. I was disturbed by the display found in the local businesses requesting money for fireworks. At a time when there is genocide occurring in Darfur and 24,000 people dying each day in the world due to a lack of food, water and medical care I find the request for money for fireworks to be absurd. We should be donating whatever surplus funds we have to stop the unnecessary deaths of millions of people in the world.
Instead of using our money to employ guards and to build a 700 mile long fence costing $2.2 billion (KR Washington Bureau) to keep the working poor out of the U.S. I suggest we open our borders and allow the Mexicans to enjoy the resources we took from them and now enjoy ourselves. Instead of worrying about the legality of people coming from Mexico to work in our fields I suggest we instead worry about the legality of our actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Instead of spending $2,600 million a day (Democracy Now, 5-19-06) occupying Iraq and trying to kill the insurgents I suggest we give the money to Iraqi construction companies to rebuild their country we helped destroy. In short, instead of using violence, as symbolized by the solicited fireworks, I suggest we start using nonviolence I suggest we make nonviolence our priority, and we will all be better off.
The President was right condemning the axis of evil. The problem is that he got the wrong axis. It is not Iraq, Iran and N. Korea. It is ignorance, poverty and war.
Don Timmerman