LETTERS: Media share blame for public apathy

To the editor:

I think the “Disengaged public” editorial in the Jan. 2 Review-Journal misses the point. It laments the fact that only 37 percent of the public thinks that what the mainstream media put out is very important. Maybe they’re right. But maybe the mainstream media bear some culpability.

The U.S. has about 320 million people. Yet some 320 people blocking streets and looting stores get the headlines for weeks, even months. That’s one one-thousandth of 1 percent of the population. Why should they have a greater say on public policy than me? Even if the protests grow to 3,500, that’s minuscule.

Yes, we have a constitutional right to speak. But we don’t have a constitutional obligation to listen. Don’t those in the media think our $18 trillion debt (and growing) is important? What are the options and trade-offs on that subject? The federal debt and other major issues affect a large share of the population, and the media need to put some focus on those issues.

Let’s have a conversation on the difficult choices that are really important to a large percentage of us.

CHARLES GOULD

LAS VEGAS

Drones vs. interrogation

To the editor:

Regarding Mark Lewsader’s letter, he justified the use of drones by President Barack Obama, and in the same breath stated that enhanced interrogation methods used by the CIA during presidency of George W. Bush were torture (“Difference between drones, torture? One is illegal,” Jan. 2 Review-Journal). Mr. Lewsader supported his position by stating that under the Geneva Conventions, the interrogation methods used by the CIA were illegal, but that the use of drones by President Obama was an approved method. Mr. Lewsader writes that “we are still considered to be at war” and therefore are within our rights to bomb our enemies using drones.

In both cases, lawyers at the Department of Justice wrote memos justifying the use of enhanced interrogation methods and the use of drones, and said there was no violation under the Geneva Conventions.

It seems a bit ironic that a person would consider it legal to use drones in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia to kill terrorists, along with many innocent women and children — and even American citizens — when Congress has never declared war on these countries, which is required under Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. And yet Mr. Lewsader is against using interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, removing clothes and forcing a person to listen to loud music for extended periods of time. No enemy combatants nor any innocent people were maimed or died from these techniques, and all will be going home with their heads attached.

Scaring people to obtain battlefield intelligence does not constitute torture. These issues come down to partisan politics. We all saw it in Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s report, in which she lambasted the CIA for using these interrogation techniques. She left out how she, along with Rep. Nancy Pelosi and many other Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, were briefed by the CIA before it used these techniques, and none of them objected. Pure partisan politics played out in this country, and the terrorists are laughing their way to the next beheading.

MICHAEL O. KREPS

LAS VEGAS

Beyond ‘The Interview’

To the editor:

In his letter, Leon Pitt states, “There will never be a Hollywood movie, satire or not, about the assassination of a sitting U.S. president or a European political leader,” (“The Interview,” Tuesday Review-Journal). Well, let’s see.

“The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) was about a plot to assassinate a U.S. presidential nominee. “The Day of the Jackal” (1973) was about a plot to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. “In the Line of Fire” (1993) was about an attempt to assassinate a U.S. president. “Eagle Eye” (2008) was about a plan to bomb the State of the Union address, killing the president and all of his successors. In “The Assassination of Richard Nixon” (2004), the title says it all. And “Foul Play” (1978) was about an attempt to assassinate the pope.

I don’t recall any denouncements, picketing or criminal charges against these filmmakers.

RICHARD PULSIFER

HENDERSON