Letters for June 1, 2006

Land of the free?
I shudder at the demise of George W. Bush from, and the ascendancy of Hillary Clinton to, the presidency. It seems to be a Hobson’s choice with no clear alternative of returning our nation to the independence it once enjoyed under the Founding Fathers.

At age 78, I have lived through many presidencies starting with Franklin Roosevelt. I could never understand the steady drift away from national independence during both Democratic and Republican administrations. Then I bought the book Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time by Carroll Quigley and found out why this is going on.

It is not by happenstance. In fact, it follows a design advocated by Quigley. The late Georgetown University professor explained, “The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.”

In addition to this, Quigley argued, there is one other benefit to having two political parties, each with the same program. Should either party become corrupt or un-enterprising while in office, “Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”

Now I can understand why Democrat Jimmy Carter gave away our Panama Canal to be followed by Republican Ronald Reagan, who ran up our national debt.

I can understand why Republican George H. W. Bush told us that we are in a New World Order and why he then ceded his campaign to Democrat Bill Clinton, who then gave away our weapons technology to the Communist Chinese, and gave them the management to the Panama Canal.

Now we have Republican Bush moving to merge our nation with the North American continent, while Democrat Clinton will pretend to rescue us from this fate.

And always, there seems to be the same outfit in the background subtly and covertly steering us into less freedom and independence.

I think the solution is for the American people to understand this process before anything can be done.

Frank M. Pelteson
Las Vegas

Woody on Jim
Re “Do it again” (News, May 25):

Corrections
Re “Survivor” (15 Minutes, May 25)

Sue Wagner’s oral history is being published by the University of Nevada Oral History Program, not the University of Nevada Press.

Re “Check the date” (News, May 25)

The web page that monitors and scrutinizes the conduct of credit card issuing corporations was stated as CreditRatings.com. It should have been www.CardRatings.com.

Re “Sea trials” (Foodfinds, May 25)

The telephone number given for Blue Trout was incorrect. The correct number is 348-8811.