Be Fair to Obama
NIALL O’Dowd’s column “Playing the Race Card” (January 23-29) with a large picture of Senator Barack Obama was unfair. Obama had evoked Dr. Martin Luther King and President John F. Kennedy in the same sentence and same manner that Kennedy had evoked President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he ran for the presidency in 1960. It was Senator Hillary Clinton who played the card by comparing Johnson’s role to King’s role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
O’Dowd seems to have forgotten that Obama’s first appeal to any ethnic group when he announced his candidacy was to Irish America. The Irish Voice published the text last year, which showed a clear insight and support for Irish issues.
Has O’Dowd forgotten that Clinton gave Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams the cold shoulder in March of 2005 when she had a lunch with the four McCartney sisters, who told her that the Republican movement was a criminal gang that murdered people on the streets? Did Clinton stand up for her friend and leader of the peace process at that time?
Did you hear from Clinton when the White House announced on St. Patrick’s Day 2005, “The thuggery and gangsterism must end. That’s why the McCartney sisters have been invited and Mr. Adams has not.”
O’Dowd’s adulation for Clinton is out of line. The candidates have to be evaluated on the basis of their contributions or advocacy of Irish issues. If an Irish forum is held in the future Mr. O’Dowd has no further role to play.
Kevin G. O’RourkeRockville Centre, New York
Cormac’s Voice
WHY do I enjoy the Irish Voice? Cormac MacConnell, Cormac MacConnell, Cormac MacConnell — let me count the ways. I look so forward to my weekly Irish Voice. As I walk down the long driveway to the mailbox to retrieve the paper, my weekly dose, I am filled with anticipation as to what Cormac will convey about the west of Ireland.
He brings everyday thoughts, concerns and experiences together to unfold into a moving picture in which the reader becomes a participant. Be it the woman with the biological clock ticking, the loving wife/mother concerned about infidelity on the part of her husband, or a different take on the birth of Jesus, Cormac’s “West’s Awake” column always elicits some form of emotion.
For the most part I am extremely fortunate to have peered through his window of imagination. He is quite the Celtic bard. I often find myself circling the names of towns on the map of Ireland he has mentioned in his articles, with thoughts of visiting these places in the future.
Another prominent Irish storyteller, Oscar Wilde, said, “Uncertainty is the essence of romance.” Our affection for Cormac grows because of the uncertainty for what the next yarn unveils.
Hats off to Mr. MacConnell, which is way overdue! Let’s hope our paths cross, not just via pen and paper, but along the path less traveled.
And by the way, the Dutch Nation is like a little angel whispering in Cormac’s ear, keeping things always wholesome.
Greg O’Maoilchiarain Morneau Scarborough, Maine
What a Moron!
IF we lived in a world of morons, the number one moron would be Robert O’Sullivan, from Bantry, Co. Cork, as he proved in his letter “He’s No Hero” (February 13-19). In the letter he said, and I paraphrase — John McCain, Republican presidential candidate, was a man who flew bombers over cities and villages in North Vietnam and slaughtered their citizens in cold blood. He’s no hero. It was good that he was shot down and imprisoned so that he was off the streets, like we do with common criminals.
What a man says about another more often than not tells us more about the speaker than the person spoken about. That is the case in this instance.
How dare a foreigner denigrate a single American service man or woman! O’Sullivan’s statement shows him as a smug abstractionist detached from reality.
Men and women who serve in the armed forces of their country don’t make the decision to go to war. Their governments do.
There is no one on the planet — until now — who blames the actual fighting men and women of a country in a war. O’Sullivan stands alone on this and rightly deserves the distinction as first place moron.
If he wants to denigrate anyone on Vietnam he should start with President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who put us there in the first place, and Lyndon Johnson, who continued the war after Kennedy’s assassination.
For someone like O’Sullivan, who lives in a theoretical world, facts don’t matter. The twilight zone of O’Sullivan’s mind is what dominates.
As for him being bored with the American election process, I suggest that if he doesn’t have a remote, to get his butt off the couch and turn off his TV.
For a man who hates America so much, why is he watching in the first place? Could the answer be that morons have no logic?
John RogersVoorhees, New Jersey
Special Interests Rule
WHAT we have now in Ireland, and western society in general, is a virus of corporate greed and vulture capitalism mentality that does and will destroy anything it happens to infect, be it democracy or the very planet itself. We have very powerful, unelected special interest groups that run worldwide corporate conglomerates. They are usurping the power of the people in order to further their profits and long-term strategic interests. Exxon made $40 billion in profit last year, yet the oil companies received billions in taxpayer money through government subsidies.
Our bureaucratic leaders and economic masters push their agendas through the talking head thought police in the media who recklessly regurgitate what the party line is. In Ireland, it’s the justification of a small group of individuals who negotiated the sale of the Corrib off shore natural gas reserve contracts, which practically give away Ireland’s national resources to the oil companies at bargain basement prices.
They also force their egalitarian multicultural ideology upon us, which threatens to overrun Ireland with migrants and eventually destroy our priceless genetic heritage. I guess it’s all good, though, as long as the corporations have access to a steady supply of cheap labor.
Another example of this infection can be seen in the instance of a handful of developers, with the help of their political cronies, who have been allowed to build a highway right through the hallowed ground of ancient Tara. Ireland’s historical and cultural identity be damned!
What’s next? Grind up the Giants Causeway and sell it for road gravel?
Sean RyanAuburn, New York
If Hillary Loses
WHAT will the Irish Voice, and specifically publisher Niall O’Dowd, do if Senator Hillary Clinton loses the nomination to Senator Barack Obama? I quite enjoy the Irish Voice every week, but the cheerleading for Hillary has gotten ridiculous. Mr. O’Dowd has certainly placed all his eggs in her basket. It’s obvious he’ll be devastated if she goes down and goes back to the day job.
I like Hillary, but I would have enjoyed reading more about Senator Obama, too. I think he’s a worthy candidate who has stated his support for the Irish Voice’s top priority, immigration reform. But you’d barely know this from reading the paper week in and week out.
But you better get used to it, Mr. O’Dowd. President O’Bama is looking better and better!
Patrick J. DillonStamford, Connecticut