Letters to the Editor

By Thomas Whittemore

Monorail Expansion

I think it is a really good idea to expand the present monorail system. The monorail is a Seattle landmark along with the Space Needle. The monorail is world renowned. The present system is just not enough (a three minute ride). To make the monorail work it has to go between destinations that would guarantee riders without over extending it too much. I think it would work going between the UW and Safeco Field. Both destinations would guarantee ridership (especially Safeco Field). These two destinations would be able to use right-of-ways already owned by the city. It is time for Seattle to take its place with other world renowned cities, and do it now before the price tag gets any higher.

Dennis Shannon

City Council Should Keep up with Local Issues

Dear Members of the Seattle City Council:

As an "old" liberal and progressive I have a real problem with those who oppose the appearance of Trident submarines in the Puget Sound. Somewhere along the way, modern liberals have lost their ability to think logically when dealing with the military.

While I agree with the liberal-progressive community in failing to see any increased military security in excessive, expensive, redundant and inoperative defense systems, I also believe the United States should be armed to the teeth in a dangerous, hostile world. These are not contradictory positions. They define a common sense middle-ground.

For example, I oppose those monster money wasters--Star Wars and the B-1 bomber. Those money-sucking worthless programs, (along with many other examples), represent solid evidence that the defense industry is the biggest welfare queen in American history.

Having said that, I am also opposed to the modern, politically correct, ideological, knee-jerk pacifist version of what purports to be progressivism.

Regarding the opposition to the Trident submarine making an appearance in the Puget Sound region--did anybody think this through? What are you folks opposing?

Do you believe in unilateral disarmament? If you do hold to that view, there should be a public dialogue on the subject. If you do not hold to that view, are you suggesting we support our shield, but hide it under the bed as if nuclear weapons didn't exist?

Since everybody on the planet knows we have nuclear submarines, who would you be hiding it from? The American people?

Protesting the Trident does send a message. Those messages are: 1) The left-wing of the progressive movement refuses to grow up; 2) Teaching our youth that hypocrisy and double-talk is the language of progressives; 3) Insisting that irrational political correct- ness continues to be the mantra of left-wing coalitions. 4) Attempt- ing to embarrass the personnel who serve on the Trident is accept- able, even though those servicepeople have nothing to do with making defense policy.

(Shades of the punkos [sic] who humiliated returning Vietnam veterans in the 1960s and early 1970s as they left the troop ships in San Francisco. Those combat veterans--some of whom had gone through literal hell--had nothing to do with establishing the policies that embroiled us in that godawful war.)

For real progressives, double-talk and political correctness are abominations. The Trident protest distorts what could be an in-depth dialogue on defense spending. Currently, we spend more on defense than all of the western democracies put together, (and according to the most recent report I read, that includes China and Russia).

Currently, both Gore and Bush support building the discredited Reagan "Star Wars" missile defense system, at an approximate cost of $60 billion. We have already pissed away about $30 billion on the system. And even if it was workable, (and the evidence indicates that is not the case), it is nothing more than a high-tech version of the Maginot Line. (For you younger folks--look it up.)

Biological warfare, chemical warfare, cruise missiles and hand- carried nuclear weapons would completely neutralize the entire system. Building a non-workable missile defense system would be a horrendous waste of taxpayer dollars, as well as establishing another major subsidy for the defense industry--without increasing our national security one whit.

Those are the "national" issues that should be discussed. But, instead, elitist liberals spend their energy on "symbolic" protests that cannot be supported by rational argument. Moreover, these sym- bolic, meaningless protests tend to divide people along anti-military and pro-military lines, destroying any chance of having serious, in- depth dialogues about the use of our military, and the level of readiness the U.S. should maintain.

Dear City Council, there is one final point you should consider: Seattle taxpayers voted you folks into office to deal with city problems and city issues: potholes, schools, police, mass transit, traffic congestion, affordable housing, homelessness, crime, increasing property and sales taxes, to name just a few of our civic problems.

What the hell are you doing injecting yourselves into defense issues, foreign policy issues and military spending issues?

J. R. (Jim) Joelson

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