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I am writing you today to voice my concern over the recent remarks by President Obama and his Administration that they will not pursue any investigation into the torture of prisoners by CIA operatives. Nor will they investigate the Bush Administrations ordering, authoring and obfuscation, through legal semantics, of torture. Under international law and treaties signed in good faith by America and her representatives, this is completely illegal; no matter the circumstances or reasoning behind it.
I am a vocal supporter of President Obama and am amazed on a daily basis by the achievements he, with the assistance of Congress, has already accomplished in such a short time in office. I chose to give him and Congress the time to discuss investigating the alleged war crimes due to the multiple crises we are currently facing. I can no longer keep silent now that they have disallowed any investigation into the recent release of the “torture memos”, the boasting by former Vice President Cheney and the statements by members of the American Red Cross, the internationally recognized authority on what constitutes torture.
I, as your vocal and ardent constituent and supporter, urge you to lend your support to any preliminary and subsequent attempts at a full Congressional investigation into these alleged war crimes. We cannot hope to, as President Obama states, “move forward” by ignoring a complete disregard to the rule of law by our duly appointed leaders. Defenses of ”following orders” and “legal definitions” were not defenses in The Nuremberg Trials, in the trials following the Japanese internments of WWII and they must not be a defense now. We have a duty to show that those who break our laws, no matter their office, pay the penalties.
We must do these things not because they are easy or convenient, but because they are right. The right way is often the hardest and most inconvenient; but it is through these times that we set the measure of ourselves and our country.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Point - Counterpoint
Reprinted from the March 4, 2009, issue of U.S. 1 Newspaper
The Great Recession: When Did It Start?
In Defense of Corporate Jets
A Rebuttal
Some day historians might want to put an exact starting date on the great recession of 2009. We at U.S. 1 can help narrow the range of possibilities. We maintain that the great recession began sometime between September 10 and November 12 of 2008.
Here’s our logic. On Wednesday, September 10, we published a cover story on Blue Star Jets, a private airline company with a busy sales office on Nassau Street in downtown Princeton. The company provided jet service to people who clearly had more money than time — if you wanted to get away for a few days in the sun and not waste precious time at airport check-in counters and baggage claims, then Jet Blue was for you. The message was that, if you had to ask how much it cost (into the six-figure range), then probably you couldn’t afford it.
We printed the story, and no one uttered a peep. In mid-September, if that’s how you wanted to spend your money, that was fine.
Then came November 12, and our cover story on Kim Clearwater and her husband, Jim Weaver, who had forsaken their suburban lifestyle and taken up permanent residence in the Heldrich Hotel in downtown New Brunswick. The story drew protests from readers clearly resenting the apparently carefree lifestyle.
Something changed since September 10. And now private jets are the hot button. As Howard Moses of Blue Star Jets points out in the following open letter to the President, the negative talk begins ironically in the Oval Office, with the No. 1 passenger on the ultimate private jet, Air Force One:
In Defense of Corporate Jets
An Open Letter To President Obama
At 9:31 p.m. on Tuesday, February 24, you stated to the world that there should be “no new drapes and no private jets.” And for the umpteenth time in the last month our elected officials have further decimated a necessary industry that has already seen a 50 percent reduction in year over year flight time. The economic downturn has hurt me badly, as it has hurt countless others. I got killed on our family’s investments. I lost most of our retirement funds to banks and businesses that you now give my taxpayer dollars to. I’ve seen my income drop substantially in the last six months.
But I can take it. I’m an American who came from little and has worked hard for 30 years. There is always opportunity, especially when you’re motivated. And I do support you 95 percent of the time. Here’s where I have a hard time:
I’ve been available to those in need of a private jet 24/7/365 for five years. Others have been doing it for 50 years. We are not near as wealthy as our clients you stereotype. I was on a vacation when Rita was hitting Texas. Vacation for me has meant changing my location to a different setting with my family while I still need to provide 24/7 access. I had just settled into our shore rental and my phone rang. A woman was crying on the other end of the phone and told me that her last surviving child was in harm’s way. She had already lost two kids and couldn’t bear any more. If I could move her daughter she’d give me all her worldly belongings. I finished crying with her before I rejoined my family.
Two days later I was awakened by a call from our service at 3 a.m. This has happened 300 nights per year for five years. I always answer because you never know how desperate a situation there may be. A man my age cried into the phone that his wife was in a near fatal car accident and his only chance of seeing her alive was to get there immediately. He was on a business trip and needed immediate transport. How could I help? How could I not? What happens when I’m no longer answering?
The need for private jets goes way beyond the usages you portray. Let’s look at a CEO of the most important business in the country, the U.S. Government. Let’s look at your ability to carry out your duties on commercial flights. Let’s look at the scheduling of the President’s life and the results of you missing 50 percent of your meetings because you must fear the repercussions of being seen using Air Force One. You don’t need it for a 20-minute flight. That would be abusive. But you still need the aircraft.
I am trying to survive in this business while I watch my local airport, Mercer-Trenton, lose one corporate aviation client after the other. Hangars are empty. The Fixed Base Operator, a 50-plus year national brand, has just been delisted on the stock exchange. No commercial carrier is in place. And the local flight school through our community college is about to be shuttered. Everyone fears being the CEO photographed coming off a private jet today.
I stick it out because who else will be willing to wake up at 3 a.m. when a heart becomes available and the 12-year-old awaiting transplant only has three hours to get to the hospital 400 miles away? How will he get there when all the operators and brokers of private jets are forced to close? My conscience will not allow me to sleep through that call. Does yours?
Yes Mr. President, those private jets truly represent all that is wrong with our economy. Well, maybe not all that is wrong.
Howard Moses
A Rebuttal
I am writing in response to Howard Moses’ letter, "An Open Letter To President Obama" in the March 4, 2009 edition of US 1. His article was a much needed reminder that all decisions, however correct, have both positive and negative consequences. His personal examples of private jets needed for transportation of time-sensitive donor organs and rescue missions are poignant and thought-provoking. Nevertheless, I would like to offer some rebuttals to his premise.
I do not believe that the majority of Americans would disagree with the urgency and heroism reflected in the extraordinary stories in Mr. Moses’ article. Rather, I believe he is front-loading his argument by utilizing exceptional, rather than common, occurrences. The reason for the outcry from the public, and the rebuke from our President, in regards to private jets is not from the use of these for organ transplants or rescue missions but as additional fringe benefits to CEO's already exorbitant salaries.
When the automakers show up to Congress in three separate private jets, hat in hand, to beg for taxpayer dollars; the American people are rightly outraged.
When corporations take taxpayer dollars and proceed with a $400,000 spa getaway, possibly utilizing private jets, they are rightly outraged.
When CEOs who ran their companies, and the economy, into the ground receive huge bonuses and fringe benefits paid for with taxpayer dollars; while workers who show up to work on time, perform their jobs exceedingly well and follow the “rules of the road” are laid off; they are rightly outraged.
The banks, mortgage and insurance companies that President Obama rebuked are not rescuing hurricane victims or transporting donated organs. They are poorly managing, thereby hemorrhaging money from, corporations that are currently subsidized by the United States Government.
Lastly, as I have heard this attempt at similarity before; to compare the President of the United States with any CEO in the world is laughable at best, incredibly ignorant at worst.
David Graves
The Great Recession: When Did It Start?
In Defense of Corporate Jets
A Rebuttal
Some day historians might want to put an exact starting date on the great recession of 2009. We at U.S. 1 can help narrow the range of possibilities. We maintain that the great recession began sometime between September 10 and November 12 of 2008.
Here’s our logic. On Wednesday, September 10, we published a cover story on Blue Star Jets, a private airline company with a busy sales office on Nassau Street in downtown Princeton. The company provided jet service to people who clearly had more money than time — if you wanted to get away for a few days in the sun and not waste precious time at airport check-in counters and baggage claims, then Jet Blue was for you. The message was that, if you had to ask how much it cost (into the six-figure range), then probably you couldn’t afford it.
We printed the story, and no one uttered a peep. In mid-September, if that’s how you wanted to spend your money, that was fine.
Then came November 12, and our cover story on Kim Clearwater and her husband, Jim Weaver, who had forsaken their suburban lifestyle and taken up permanent residence in the Heldrich Hotel in downtown New Brunswick. The story drew protests from readers clearly resenting the apparently carefree lifestyle.
Something changed since September 10. And now private jets are the hot button. As Howard Moses of Blue Star Jets points out in the following open letter to the President, the negative talk begins ironically in the Oval Office, with the No. 1 passenger on the ultimate private jet, Air Force One:
In Defense of Corporate Jets
An Open Letter To President Obama
At 9:31 p.m. on Tuesday, February 24, you stated to the world that there should be “no new drapes and no private jets.” And for the umpteenth time in the last month our elected officials have further decimated a necessary industry that has already seen a 50 percent reduction in year over year flight time. The economic downturn has hurt me badly, as it has hurt countless others. I got killed on our family’s investments. I lost most of our retirement funds to banks and businesses that you now give my taxpayer dollars to. I’ve seen my income drop substantially in the last six months.
But I can take it. I’m an American who came from little and has worked hard for 30 years. There is always opportunity, especially when you’re motivated. And I do support you 95 percent of the time. Here’s where I have a hard time:
I’ve been available to those in need of a private jet 24/7/365 for five years. Others have been doing it for 50 years. We are not near as wealthy as our clients you stereotype. I was on a vacation when Rita was hitting Texas. Vacation for me has meant changing my location to a different setting with my family while I still need to provide 24/7 access. I had just settled into our shore rental and my phone rang. A woman was crying on the other end of the phone and told me that her last surviving child was in harm’s way. She had already lost two kids and couldn’t bear any more. If I could move her daughter she’d give me all her worldly belongings. I finished crying with her before I rejoined my family.
Two days later I was awakened by a call from our service at 3 a.m. This has happened 300 nights per year for five years. I always answer because you never know how desperate a situation there may be. A man my age cried into the phone that his wife was in a near fatal car accident and his only chance of seeing her alive was to get there immediately. He was on a business trip and needed immediate transport. How could I help? How could I not? What happens when I’m no longer answering?
The need for private jets goes way beyond the usages you portray. Let’s look at a CEO of the most important business in the country, the U.S. Government. Let’s look at your ability to carry out your duties on commercial flights. Let’s look at the scheduling of the President’s life and the results of you missing 50 percent of your meetings because you must fear the repercussions of being seen using Air Force One. You don’t need it for a 20-minute flight. That would be abusive. But you still need the aircraft.
I am trying to survive in this business while I watch my local airport, Mercer-Trenton, lose one corporate aviation client after the other. Hangars are empty. The Fixed Base Operator, a 50-plus year national brand, has just been delisted on the stock exchange. No commercial carrier is in place. And the local flight school through our community college is about to be shuttered. Everyone fears being the CEO photographed coming off a private jet today.
I stick it out because who else will be willing to wake up at 3 a.m. when a heart becomes available and the 12-year-old awaiting transplant only has three hours to get to the hospital 400 miles away? How will he get there when all the operators and brokers of private jets are forced to close? My conscience will not allow me to sleep through that call. Does yours?
Yes Mr. President, those private jets truly represent all that is wrong with our economy. Well, maybe not all that is wrong.
Howard Moses
A Rebuttal
I am writing in response to Howard Moses’ letter, "An Open Letter To President Obama" in the March 4, 2009 edition of US 1. His article was a much needed reminder that all decisions, however correct, have both positive and negative consequences. His personal examples of private jets needed for transportation of time-sensitive donor organs and rescue missions are poignant and thought-provoking. Nevertheless, I would like to offer some rebuttals to his premise.
I do not believe that the majority of Americans would disagree with the urgency and heroism reflected in the extraordinary stories in Mr. Moses’ article. Rather, I believe he is front-loading his argument by utilizing exceptional, rather than common, occurrences. The reason for the outcry from the public, and the rebuke from our President, in regards to private jets is not from the use of these for organ transplants or rescue missions but as additional fringe benefits to CEO's already exorbitant salaries.
When the automakers show up to Congress in three separate private jets, hat in hand, to beg for taxpayer dollars; the American people are rightly outraged.
When corporations take taxpayer dollars and proceed with a $400,000 spa getaway, possibly utilizing private jets, they are rightly outraged.
When CEOs who ran their companies, and the economy, into the ground receive huge bonuses and fringe benefits paid for with taxpayer dollars; while workers who show up to work on time, perform their jobs exceedingly well and follow the “rules of the road” are laid off; they are rightly outraged.
The banks, mortgage and insurance companies that President Obama rebuked are not rescuing hurricane victims or transporting donated organs. They are poorly managing, thereby hemorrhaging money from, corporations that are currently subsidized by the United States Government.
Lastly, as I have heard this attempt at similarity before; to compare the President of the United States with any CEO in the world is laughable at best, incredibly ignorant at worst.
David Graves
Thursday, February 26, 2009
When One Falls, Another Brings Them Home
Take the time to view the HBO presentation of “Taking Chance”. It is based on the true story of Marine Lt. Col. Michael Strobl who volunteered, as a highly decorated Marine officer, to be the escort for PFC Chance Phelps. PFC Phelps had fallen to enemy gunfire on Good Friday of 2004. Every Marine or soldier who dies in combat is escorted by a uniformed member of the military from Dover Air Force Base to their final resting place. The deceased’s personal effects never leave the escorts side until delivered to the next of kin.
These courageous men and women bring the fallen home after having given their “last full measure of devotion”.
They bring them home.
They take care to give the respect, honor and dignity to their fallen comrade and, as the movie states, to be “their witness”. They present themselves in proper salute to the flag-draped coffin.
Watch this film and bear witness for all our fallen sons and daughters, mothers and fathers. For whatever our personal belief is of War in general or this conflict, specifically, much can be said of us in how we treat our fallen.
For until we reach that place where we can erase war from our own hearts and minds, we can bear witness to what tragedy and honor lay in the need to fight for this improbable experiment we call America.
“That flag flying over the courthouse means certain things are set in stone. Who we are, what we’ll do and what we won’t.”
Bruce Springsteen
Monday, January 19, 2009
One Man Come In The Name of Love...
"And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
And so, in no small way, it has come to pass.
In Remembrance of America's Mahatma, The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr... sing
One man come in the name of love
One man come and go
One come he to justify
One man to overthrow
In the name of love
What more in the name of love
In the name of love
What more in the name of love
One man caught on a barbed wire fence
One man he resist
One man washed on an empty beach.
One man betrayed with a kiss
In the name of love
What more in the name of love
In the name of love
What more in the name of love
Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride
In the name of love
What more in the name of love
In the name of love
What more in the name of love
In the name of love
What more in the name of love...
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
January 19, 2009
“Unity is the great need of the hour” spoke Dr. King “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny”.
January 19th is the day set aside for remembrance of Dr. King and the revolution he helped lead and which will bear witness to one of it’s greatest achievements on January 20th , 2009. 45 years from the passage of the Civil Rights Act, 144 years from the conclusion of our Civil War; President-Elect Barack Obama will take the Oath of Office and become the 44th President of our United States. The first African-American in our History.
President-Elect Obama has called for a National Day of Service for all Americans on this years Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Whatever form this may take, let us all join together in that “single garment of destiny” and remember that our time is now… that out of many, we are one… that “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty”.
Yes We Can.
Yes We Did.
Yes We Will.
January 19th is the day set aside for remembrance of Dr. King and the revolution he helped lead and which will bear witness to one of it’s greatest achievements on January 20th , 2009. 45 years from the passage of the Civil Rights Act, 144 years from the conclusion of our Civil War; President-Elect Barack Obama will take the Oath of Office and become the 44th President of our United States. The first African-American in our History.
President-Elect Obama has called for a National Day of Service for all Americans on this years Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Whatever form this may take, let us all join together in that “single garment of destiny” and remember that our time is now… that out of many, we are one… that “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty”.
Yes We Can.
Yes We Did.
Yes We Will.
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