Views in brief
A gross miscarriage of justice
IN RESPONSE to "The courts punish a victim in Texas": I am greatly saddened by what has happened to this young woman. Rather than being punished by the courts, she should be celebrated for standing up to her attacker. It is a pathetic day in this country when a young woman who was assaulted is made out to be the criminal. Does she not have the right to be protected?
This event truly puts women back 100 years, when we had no rights and were subjected to the will of men. I commend this young woman for being so strong and fighting an obvious injustice.
I hope that the courts will see that their job is not to punish victims--they are supposed to put bad guys in prison. Isn't that what we established a justice system for?
Christina, San Antonio, Texas
Why is a rape victim being punished?
IN RESPONSE to "The courts punish a victim in Texas": This case is heartbreaking and absolutely ludicrous to me, as both a woman and a human being. A person can be assaulted in the worst way--both invasive and humiliating--and have to pay money because she wouldn't bolster her attacker's ego by cheering for him?
This is the guy that physically, mentally and emotionally hurt her. A guy that stole something from her she can't get back. A guy that humiliated her and left her to face people that later laughed at her. And she is the one that is having to go through this grueling, expensive process only to have to pay money?
That's like someone running me over with their car and making me pay for the dent. Absolutely ridiculous.
As a Texan, I am ashamed. I hope this girl gets some justice, and I hope this guy has to face charges of the magnitude he deserves: not assault, but rape. Again, he gets off with paying $2,500, and she has to pay $45,000 in court costs. The injustice, if it weren't so awful, would be laughable. What are the courts thinking?
Melia McFarland, Keller, Texas
The fight for gender-neutral housing
I HAVE been involved with a struggle to get gender-neutral housing on my campus at Grand Valley State University in solidarity with colleges and university students across the country. In just the last six months, our coalition was able to put enough pressure on the university for them to go from dismissing us to seeing us as a legitimate threat.
Gender-neutral housing not only protects students such as Tyler Clementi (the student from Rutgers University who killed himself after his roommate broadcast his sexual encounters) from dealing with homophobic roommates, but it also provides students with the freedom to choose who they want to live with while promoting gender equality throughout campus.
Resistance against gender-segregated housing is happening across the country, yet Socialist Worker fails to recognize the struggles of college students around them. We are fighting for the basic right of being able to choose a roommate while attending college. We want our voices heard.
I hope you stand in solidarity with students across the country and cover this topic in Socialist Worker.
Ben Pohl, from the Internet
Chávez is right to stand with Libya
IN RESPONSE to "Chávez and the Arab dictators": I disagree with Lance Selfa's assessment. Chávez is respecting already standing resistance to U.S. occupation and exploitation. In Libya, that means supporting Qaddafi, because the U.S.'s vital interests have to do with securing oil there, and Qaddafi has promised that resource not to American oil companies, but European oil companies.
It is better to support Qaddafi rather than revolutionaries in Libya who are now more than likely armed by the U.S.--which is seeking to destabilize Egypt and Tunisia by its military presence in Libya.
Chávez supports Ahmadinejad in Iran because of Iran's geographical and political position still threatens the U.S., which would rather have free and unfettered access to the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf.
Chávez supports those dictators who fight to nationalize their oil against the United States, which tries to exploit their oil for private U.S. profit.
Before you criticize Chávez, you need to understand that, for Chávez, nationalization against U.S. exploitation is a number-one goal--one that can allow for unmolested socialist distribution of resources for Venezuela.
Your analysis does not emphasize the importance of nationalization of oil resources enough. Chávez knows if he were to support any other force other than these "bad dictators," he would end up supporting civilians armed by the U.S., who will ultimately represent corporate, private interests.
Rhone, Philadelphia
The super greed of the super-rich
IN RESPONSE to "The super-rich 1 percent": Having worked with the rich and greedy for many years, I know this article to be painfully true. I have had bosses making $350,000 or more, with millions in the bank and in their pension funds, five or six cars, two or three plush houses and fancy golf club memberships. My last boss was paying more than $8,000 per month just in alimony payments so that his bratty kids could enjoy private schools--along with everything else.
Nevertheless, they always felt "poor" and were horrified when their employees had the audacity to ask for an end-of-year profit and performance bonus, or heaven forbid, a 5 percent wage increase.
We were made to feel lucky just to have a damned job, along with our lousy health insurance programs that we had to subsidize for ourselves--as if it were a privilege for me to work every day of my life for 30 years and not get paid decently for it!
The problem with capitalism is the greed factor inherent within it. The money's never enough, even if it means allowing millions of others to scrape and starve in a world of abundance. A good society would insure a decent living place for everyone, instead of marketing $25,000-a-night hotel rooms to the bored and depraved.
MBH, Chicago
