TheSalt LakeTribune OPINION MONDAY, NOVEMBER19, 2001 OUR VIEW Red Cross Comes Around The American Red Cross should be congratulated. It has come to its nd decided to use all of the it has collected through its specially created Liberty Fund to aid the families hurt as a result of the Sept. 11 . terrorist 4 Sinceit cr Fundafter the Sept. 11 att Red Crosshas collected $543 million a phenomenal sumthat has come from people from all walks oflife sharing a commondesire and need to help the families of those killed and injuredin thet rist attacks. ‘The agency first came underscrutiny when families reported not re ceiving any aid or only nall amounts, Red Cross officials com pounded problems for themselves whenthey announced that a significant portion some $200 million criticism and anger at a congres- AND NOW, WITH THE FOURTH QUARTER ECONOMIC FORECAST sional hearing concerning the con- duct of charities in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. By creating the Liberty Fund after the Sept. 11 attacks and touting it as the vehicle to receive contributions on behalfof the victims,the Red Cross ledcitizens to believe that their donations were not business as usual, but something special to help the ter- rorvictims.Thefact that the furid has collected so muchis evidenceboth of thecitizenry’s altruismbut especially of its need to take action and do something important and meaningful in responsetothe attacks. Fortunately, Red ss. Officials haverealized all this. Their assuri ill be of the fundscollected would be 1 to finance ancillary or unrelated activities. Fox News’Bill O'Reilly fi issues with the agency's dec s The NewYork Times followed suitand Red Crossofficials ran into a wall of 'y to goadits leaders, but s important is that the charity’s leadership has madetheright decision adecision that can help the Red Cross regain the full confidence and supportofthe citizenry. Balance of Power Supreme Court Justice Stephen reyer told a New York University month that the rise in the publi 's trust of the federal govSept, 11 should ¢ ernment since the court to sions favoring. federal power. its recent de ate sovereignty over uponthemselves the capricious role of upholding or striking down laws according to the sentiments of the times, Breyerand his fellow activists are overstepping their constitutional limits and usurping the powersof the legislative branch. Th Evenif you agree with the ends he hopes to accomplish, the means by which he seeks to achieve them should be troubling. The Supreme Court is empowered to gauge the constitutionality of | not their popularity. If thecourt's activist branch either liberal orcoi ative is al lowedtoeffectively re-write the Constitution based on pollster-detected whims, the stability the country has enjoyed for 225 years will belost. If the Constitution needs amending, the Jong and laborious process to do so nd should be followed. If B ight that the public is ready to cede states’ rights to thefed eral government, then Cong should start the process to repeal the Tenth Amendment. But by taking n't an issueof conservative vs. liberal; it’s the stability of “the THE PUBLIC FORUM Impressive Readers I just spent several days in Ogden, visiting with family. While there, I had occasion to read The Salt Lake Tribune every day and was tremendously impressed with the character of the letters published in the Public Forum. It seemed that, withoutfail, could not pass constitutional muster. He understood the ifnportanceof respecting the balance of powers upon appeared that there were noneofthe type I see so often here, where some closed mind of sub-standard intelli- whichthis country was founded, and hechidedtheactivists with whomhe gence is blowing off steam on some '@ Because of the volumeof mail received, not all submissions are topic, usually political. published. served for upsetting that balance. NowI acknowledge that there is more than little reason why Cali- Conservatives’ might have had a hard time relating to Burger’s polities, but many at least held grudging admirationfor| urisprudence. He understood and accepted his limited role in government, which unfortuseems a foreign concept to ac- s such as Breyer, ANOTHER VIEW Safety Is Fewer Missiles followed by 2% days at the Bush ranch in Texas, was supposed to cement the friendship betweenthe two.Mostly,it did. Bush ignored the far right and treated Putin as a partner to be consulted. Thedividends camefast andbig* no more negotiators haggling for years about the explosive power of nuclear warheads. Bush and Putin boldly agreed to reducethestockpile of warheads by abouttwo-thirds over adecade. Their reasonsfor wantingtoslash missile forces, however, are quite different. Moscow cannotafford to keep maintaining andtesting them. The Bush administration, however, wants to movefomoffensive to defensive weaponry anational missile defense.It believes that by cutting the missile force, the United States can demonstrate to Russia and China thatits actions are purely defensive. Putin wasn’t buying, at least not yet. Despite the hopes of the Bushadministration, he would notalter the 1972 ABM Treaty, which forbids development of a nationwide antiballistic missile system. Armscontrol ana- lysts say that Putin won't raise a fuss if the administration skirts the edges ofthe treaty. The Russiansfigure that no one knows whethertesting will actually lead to anything; they intend to maketheir real stand if a system can ever be deployed. Meanwhile, the United States wouldsink billions into what's likely to be a rat hole. Thisis fine from the Russian perspective, but not from America’s. The United States should not be wasting increasingly scarce resources on the 21st century's version of the Maginot Line. Instead, it should spenda little more to help Russia keeptrack ofand decommission its nuclear stockpile; last month Congress rejected spending an additional $131 million to help accomplish that. Putin clearly wants to movefroma lingering Cold War mentality to alliance with the West. Oneof the most important changesis a willingness to work with NATO on commonpolicies against terrorism and weaponsproliferation. This is an amazing contrast with the threatening noises Russia was making until recently about NATO andits expansion into the Baltic states. Bush's aim should be to lock in Russian cooperation as quickly as possible so that Putin’s successors cannot reverse any changes. Missile defense is a mirage. Effective cooperation with Russiais not. The Los Angeles Times TheSalt LakeTribune UTAH'S INDEPENDENT VOICESINCE 1871 PAST PUBLISHERS John F. Fitzpatrick (1924-1960) John W.Gallivan (1960-1983) Jerry O'Brien (1983-1994) PUBLISHER Dominic Welch EDITOR James BE, Shelledy EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR Randy C,Frisch ‘THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, 143 8. MAIN ST, SALT LAKE CITY , 4011 Y daytimetelephone numbers. Information other than your name and the city in which you live are kept letters, carefully written on some subject.that needed illumination. It they were thoughtful, considerate fornia has been referred to as “The LandofFruits and Nuts,” but I will not believe that Utah’s population is significantly more intelligent than California's. For example, I understand the state of Utah, with more than 2 mil- confidential. @ Keep it short. Concise letters developing a single theme are more likely to be published. @ Please type and double space. @ Letters are condensed and edited. ; , ™ Mail to Public Forum, The Salt Lake Tribune, P.O. Box 67, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110 @ Our fax numberis (801) 257-8950. @ Our e-mail address is letters@ sitrib.com. Rodeo Cruelty lion population, is going into debt$1.3 handful of fat cats are expected to rakein the lion’s share of the profits of Russia. The White Housemeeting, Public Forum, please include your full name, signature, address and rule of law” vs. the unsettling vagaries of “the rule of man.” Former Chief ice Warren Burgerwas socially eral, yet he rejected liberal outcomes if the means to those ends billion to put on the Olympics when a President Bush pulled out all the stops for President Vladimir V. Putin We WelcomeLetters Corporate Welfare @ Whensubmitting letters to the — assuming there are profits. So I conclude your excellent letters are mainly due to your editorial policy. I wish that I had a clear statement of Jerry Parker (Forum, Nov. 2) may be sure “animals in the rodeo string are among the most pampered in the world,” but [have seen an animal that was not pampered at a rodeo. I went to rodeos as a’child and didn’t give much thoughtto whatthe animals were go- that policy soI might useit to argue to ing through. I went back to a rodeo mypaperthat there is a muchbetter about 10 years ago and took my daughter. What we saw in the calf- wayto go. OLIVER R. BRASHER WalnutCreek,Calif. Q One-Sided Patriotism Molly Ivins’ “Patriotism Police roping event was disturbing. The calf ran out, the cowboy on horseback followed, the rope went around thecalf’s neck, the calf was yanked upinto the air and did a complete backward flip in the air and then. landed hard onits side. I was bothered by this and asked my dad(alifelong dairy farmer) the next day: “Doesn't it hurt the calf to have it pulled upby its neck like that?” His answerto me: “You're damned right it does.” Not all animals are “pampered”at a rodeo. I haven't been toa rodeo since and neverwill go again. I was shocked to learn that while our nation wasreeling from the anthrax threat, and few people were paying attention, the U.S. House’ of ‘Representatives voted to give gigantic tax rebatesto our country’s largest corporations. Theyvoted to repeal the “Alternative Minimum Tax”on cor-porations, which normally requires companiesto payat least some tax, no matter how many loopholes they can find. The repeal would allow many companies to pay zero U.S. income tax in perpetuity — a loss of more than $12 billion in revenue next year alone. The repeal is rétroactive, so companies would get rebates ofall theAlternative Minimum Tax they have paid for the past/15 years. The economic stimulus package passed by the House includes: $1.4 billion for IBM;$833 millionfor General Motors; $671 million for General Electric; $572 million for Chevron Texaco; $254 million for Enron. The House pagsed the bill on a vir- tual party-line vote, ending the spirit of bipartisan cooperation in Congress. The House also voted to allow corporations td continue to stash their profits overseas as a tax shelter, by extending an existing loophole. This “stimulus? would actually send moneyoutofthe U.S. economy. The right approach to stimulusis to put more money in the hands of everyday people who need it most — by extending health insurance benefits and unemploymentbenefits, for example. People living on the edge will spend the new moneyquickly on consumer goods, so it circulates through the economy, benefiting everyone, Helping people would make economic sense. Givingbillions in tax breaks to America’s biggest corporations doesn’t. Find Media Not Sufficiently Onesided for Their Taste” (Tribune, Nov. 11) hit the nail on the head. The United States maywell be the greatest nation, but it’s not perfect, and its MARGITH MAUGHAN leaders — including President Bush BETTY R. STEARNS Salt Lake City — are notinfallible. Too much blind Sandy a patriotism would prove a mistake, a and I hope the American people rememberthatan objective media often proves to be the only watchdog with any weight that actually resides in Social Reconciliation Works the hands of the commoncitizen. The commentary by Kathleen even Osama bin Laden. There is a We mustalwayshear both sidesof the story, so that we may do what's Parker(Tribune, Oct. 21) is appalling namefor such an attitude: cultural right — an action not always synony- for its superficiality. I am not a ha- arrogance. Richard Gere, as a practicing Budmouswith what our governmenttells bitual reader of The Tribune, and was us is American. If our legacy was to only visiting the United States for a dhist, said something whichis part follow politicians like sheep, then week, after which I returned to my and parcel of the Buddhist philosowe'dstill be an extension of England home in Italy with a lump in my phy. It is the same philosophy that throat: my beloved United States of guided thelife of Mohandas Kharamwith an infallible king. I wantthe United States to win this America,or at least part ofit, still chat Gandhi, the liberator of India. Your sarcasm on Mr. Gere’s words is battle, but I don’t want our academia wasn't getting the point. I come from a country that has therefore entirely gratuitous. to be censured because they speak You should be aware,..'s. Parker, their mind abouta foreign policy that been plagued by terrorism during maywell have aided in landing us in most of the 1970s and early 1980s. that the United States is a nation that, this situation.I also wanta president Thank goodness wegotridof it, and while accounting for 4 percent of the world’s population, gobbles down 36 who defines the term “lengthy cam- wedid so because the whole country paign” (because the shadow of Viet- refused to give in to a retaliatory percentof the world’s oil and gas renam tells us that can be a bad thing). 1 frenzy, and committed instead to a sources. Six thousand children die in want people to understand that all policy of social reconciliation called one morning arouiid the world, not those gung-hosailors on the news are “pardonism,” whereby those terror- only “thanks to us,” but thanks in scared to appear anything but posi- ists who renounced violence and part to a policy of supremacy which tive because the Uniform Code of turned in their accomplices were often calls for. abysive and exploitpartially pardoned, To Bible- ative strategic optiéns. Whichin turn wielding bigots whostill live by the generate hatred, Great results cin be achieved by their commander-in-chief foolish or “eye-for-an-eye” philosophy, that might soundlike heresy, But it did little means. Startby powering down cruel. your air conditiqning, Ms. Parker, Let's not fly our flags in ignorance. save our country from terrorism. Ms, Parker, there are such things andget rid ofthatSUV.It will do the Weare in controlof this country, but as Ivins says, this should not be as right (or wrong) acts or thoughts, world good. Yoy see, a venomous viewed’ as black and white. And butthere are no such things as moral tongue and a passable spelling is not an “opinion there’s nothing unpatriotic about (or immoral) peoples, cultures or re- all it takes to ligions, Hence,there is no such thing thrower” into an /opinion maker.” facing facts. as moral superiority. We certainly do not incarnate it, Nobody incarnates ALBERD MARIO DELOGU good, as nobody incarnates evil. Not Cagliari, Italy DAVID JOHNSON Salt Lake City J