[Peace-discuss] we need more letters

[Ricky Baldwin]

Letters to the Editor

When you send a letter to the News-Gazette, 40,000 
people receive it.  It’s a forum we should use!

Remember to keep letters to less than 250 words, and
include your name, address and daytime phone number. 
Most papers call to confirm that you are the actual
author of the letter.  (If you don’t have a daytime
phone number, put a note at the top of the letter
explaining this.)

Letters to the editor can be sent electronically to
the following addresses.  Send a separate email to
each address.

Champaign-Urbana  News-Gazette 
letters at news-gazette.com

Decatur Herald-Review  ddawson at herald-review.com

Peoria Journal-Star  forum at pjstar.com

Bloomington Pantagraph  bwills at pantagraph.com

Rockford Register-Star  startek2 at inwave.com

A website listing other newspapers and their addresses
is www.newstips.org/mediasit6.

And, of course, publish your letter to the Independent
Media Center’s website at http://urbana.indymedia.org.
------------

Here's mine:

Dear Editor:

The Urbana City Council is to be congratulated for its
5-2 vote against a US war with Iraq.  I look forward
to Champaign following suit.  It isn’t easy to take a
stand for what you know is right when you expect the
name-calling that has followed.  It isn’t easy, to
quote Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, to
“remember your humanity and forget the rest.”

But Urbana joins at least 60 other cities, and
hundreds of unions and religious groups, that have
passed resolutions against this ridiculous war. 
Hundreds of thousands of people have attended anti-war
demonstrations, and many more have signed petitions,
written letters and called their elected
representatives opposing war.

Many, including veterans like Maj. Doug Rokke and
Scott Ritter, have spoken out because the evidence is
simply not there to support war.  Some of these have
expressed deep misgivings about the war’s true
motivations.  Others are simply opposed to a repeat of
the violence that claimed so many innocent lives in
Afghanistan and, over the past 12 years, in Iraq.

A few tortured souls apparently share these concerns
but feel that the war is not a local issue, as if our
neighbors and our money – drained away from Urbana and
other communities to fuel the war – would not be
missed.  But if our young people are precious to us,
if we want money for schools, health care and other
local needs, if we “remember our humanity”, we will
see the connection.

Ricky Baldwin
606 West White St.
Champaign, IL 61820
(217) 356-2205


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